Large Fierce Mammal

“In truth, most people really don’t understand the burden of responsibility they carry for their own safety and survival, and the commonalities that link every threat to life and limb. In truth, most people have accepted the idea that no matter what happens, all you need do is call “Them” and “They’ll” take care of it. If it’s bad, “They” will figure out what to do about it. News flash – YOU are “THEM“, because when the shit hits the fan, and you are standing at ground zero, running away may not be an option. The time to get tuned in is NOW.

“Reality remains Reality no matter how angry that makes you, and one doesn’t need to look far for evidence that much of the population prefers to live as though things are actually the way they simply wish them to be. The assumption is that publicly funded agencies and organizations exist for the betterment and protection of individuals, which could not be further from the truth. The list of people to whom you actually matter is very short indeed, and if you’re, “… doin’ it right ….”, you know them all by name.” ~ Four Pillars and a Double Standard

You’ve all probably noticed that there’s been a lot of talk about “climate change” in this year just winding down. If you missed it, or caught some of it but not enough to get the gist, essentially it appears “the world is coming to an end” again.

This isn’t one of those bang and it’s over ends of the world like the Cold War going hot into nuclear Armageddon, the Y2K lights out as the last seconds of 1999 rolled into the first few of 2000, or the Mayan calendar running out in December 2012. This is one where even the Great Unwashed are not only blaming “Them” for the problem, but now demand “They” fix it. Or we’re all dead. Real soon.

I don’t know a darker Dark Sentiment than an Armageddon that keeps getting offered up with all the reliability of an election year promise, and it sure is fun to watch. To draw a metaphor from porn, it resembles “edging” (look it up) leading to a “ruined orgasm” (look that one up too).

Before the full on tearing of hair and rending of garments gets too noisy, none of this is to imply that these ecological concerns aren’t worthy of concern and intense scrutiny, and you’ll know that, if you spend enough time here.

You will hear more enlightenment on this subject as this season progresses, and I’ll close tonight’s Dark Sentiment in two stages, beginning with something I wrote a little over 9 years ago —

“The term “end of the world” means different things to different people. Depending on your depth of character, it runs the gamut from the extinction of all life on earth to the announcement that Ricky Martin is gay. I’ve lost track of how many times the world was supposed to end in the over half a century that I’ve been alive, but I can say with certainty that my earliest realization that there was something out there big enough to scare my parents came to me at the age of five as I watched their reactions to the Cuban missile crisis in October of 1962. I remember them sitting hunched over pamphlets and plans for fallout shelters, agonizing over how they would afford the necessary supplies and modifications to our basement.

“In the end, the shelter never got built, but nonetheless, my formative years encompassed the hottest parts of the cold war and somewhere along the line, watching others exhaust themselves worrying over things they could neither fully understand nor control changed me. I can’t point to a specific moment of enlightenment, but from a very young age I grew up with a drive to acquire and practice the skills and mindset I would need to see to my own safety if the shit – any shit – hit the fan and left me still alive to deal with it. Long before the people in the World Trade Centre on 11 September 2001 learned that it’s the uncompromising will to live assisted by the knowledge in your head and what is on your person at the moment of truth that determines the outcome for survivors, I resolved to win, every fucking time without compromise. There’s a Chinese saying that goes, “In the course of a long life, the wise man will be prepared to abandon his luggage several times.” Well before I first read those words I had discovered that if I had to walk away from where I was standing, taking only what I needed, the load wouldn’t be particularly heavy, and a lot of it could walk on its own.” ~ “The End of the World” As We Know It

And now here’s Skeeter Davis to sing us out. Until tomorrow Goode Reader, if you get one.