"Werewolfy" <Werewol...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message

news:75b300f9-6873-4704-9465-4ce4fdf3ca27@f47g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...

On 10 Jan, 11:24, "Docrodile" <swampth...@hellsbayou.net> wrote:
"Let's just say I've hurried to get my Last Will & Testament
finalized! Yes, it looks like curtains for me, for sure!"

I should've added that I've appointed Nostradamus as my Will's executor.
;))~

No point Doc. If it's a 'rapture', well, no-one will really notice any
difference. Steven will be missing, and a few others, but that's about
all.
If it's the destruction of the world, well, no-one available to either
read, nor to benefit from any bequest.
If it's a close extinction, but with a few survivors and you or I are
amongst those, well, what fun taking whatever you fancy. You could cut
a man's fingers from his hand if you felt like it. What a lovely
thought. I find myself looking at people's fingers, and thinking about
bolt croppers, a lot these days.

Werewolfy

I never worry about the *end of the world* anymore. Haven't been concerned=
it would end for at least 20 years or more. There was a time when I stewed=
over the concept, when my perception of reality was rather different.
I now often wonder why humanity is here. I really, really do! There seems =

be no good reason for it. Nothing that can be qualitatively ascertained as=
"rational" or "positive" or "beneficial" in the sum total of our existence=

I don't see us as anything resembling divine or even rubbing souls with
divinity's greatest soul, if it exists. There's no *fate* or *plan* that h=

been prescribed. =EF=BF=BDThere is pathos, chaos, chance, and coincidence.=
And, besides that philisophically semi-misanthropic detour, more and more =

believe
the end would be a wonderful outcome for a biped in love with itself and i=

destructiveness. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's in love with its creativenes=

too, but that's effectively counter-balanced (if not over-balanced
frequently) with madness, murder, and mayhem galore.
When I watch an apocalyptic movie these days, or read a novel or
nonfictional piece, especially the ones that I once thought presented a
"horrible future scenario of mankind's ultimate undoing" in some form or t=

other, be it naturally or human-caused or both, I shamelessly admit I laug=

about the plot, the contents, openly chide the scriptwriters or authors, a=

seem rather unconcerned that humanity could perish.
I guess it's how much importance one attaches to his/her own self-worth an=

to, collectively, the rest of the species, that determines one's overall
disposition toward the relevance of a sudden disastrous ending measured
against the much less spectacular depressing, slowly de-evolving, grinding=

tragic state of human interactions with itself and the living things aroun=

it.
Death scares me, but only because of the pain (in all its forms) it can
bring before it comes, not because of whatever follows in the quiet
blackness. It's almost like thinking about a neverending restful dream to =

these days -- a great long-anticipated relief that'll come, and that'll be=
most welcome if consciousness still survives beyond the moment of my demis=

And, even if does not, it'll still be quite welcome, regardless.
That is why I listen and watch with some strange detachment to all the
fretting and brain-bubbling of those who so greatly dread the *end* -- my
intuition tells me it'll come for most of us as neither a spectacle nor
something extraordinary, individually or collectively, but singly, one at =

time, in some little nondescript room in a nursing home some day, as an
unexpectedly unlucky moment crossing a busy street, or as a microscopic
initially unnoticed common disease germ (like pneumonia) that's mutated...=
producing just a bit of coughing and body aching, but suddenly progressing=
into respiratory arrest and suffocation.
Yes, these days, it seems life in America is what I imagine it must've bee=

when the ancient Romans had reached a point of exasperation with their
dominating crazed civilization, saturated with narcissism, hedonism, and
drowning in materialism...or how the German fascists must've felt -- at
least the ones with some unusual sense of =EF=BF=BDfatalism amongst the co=

comfortable lies - somewhere around 1940. Or, more recently, how the Sovie=

must've felt near 1990.
It's all just intuition, I know. America may waddle on for decades more,
maybe centuries. But, the end of civilization, global or not, doesn't both=

me much these days.
It's the process leading up to it that gives me pause for a bit of
consternation -- and what will follow it, if anything, and how much pain o=

joy will it be to have *fortunately* survived the *end.* The actual end
itself, though, seems to have little or no effect on me.
The "end" will always be around, in some form or another. It has never
stopped being there, waiting, lurking. Take your pick: a more mundane
personal denouement or an extraordinary collective one. Does it really
fucking matter?
Doc :))~ =EF=BF=BD*wheeze*