posted 2017-09-24 13:03:59

I was convinced the world would end yesterday.

Ever since I was a kid I loved watching Unsolved Mysteries and the like, and every time they mentioned a prospective date for the world to end, be it thanks to an asteroid, biblical prophecy, Mayan calendars, etc, I would always keep that date in mind and wait all day long in hopes that I wasn't suddenly dead, along with everyone else. I was a weird kid and I'm still weird.

Yesterday was the latest day internet whack jobs had said the world would end, thanks to Nibiru, or "Planet X," which apparently is a planet in our solar system that has a highly elliptical orbit and NASA has kept a secret from us. Because of course they would. Planet X was headed for Earth Melancholia style and there was no getting out of it. But the people who have been talking about this event had connected it to a line in the book of Revelation thanks to an alignment of stars and the moon in the night sky. This is the sort of thing 10 year old me would have taken as very strong evidence for their case, but nowadays I laugh about it, because really, I've seen plenty of these dates come and go. For once, an irrational fear had been conquered.

Until Tuesday with President Fuckface's declaration to "totally destroy" North Korea. All of a sudden, my greatest fear, nuclear war, seems like it will be what kills us all on 9/23, and not a planet that doesn't exist. I kept my eye on the headlines; anything about North Korea seemed like a death sentence to me. And after reading of a possible earthquake, or nuclear test, in North Korea and ensuing American bomber drills off the coast of the peninsula, well... let's just say I was sure we were going to war.

The thing is, I know this is still an irrational fear, even though I still perceive the threats to be very real. Two egomaniacs with access to nuclear weapons and no concept of the fact that millions of innocent people will die just scares the fuck out of me. I really feel like we are living in dangerous times, but at the same time, I keep telling myself that as bad as this all looks, it probably looked a whole lot worse during the Cold War.

I also reminded myself of a coworker's old email signature. A little quote from Charles Schultz.

"Don't worry about the world ending today. It's already tomorrow in Australia."




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