by Ethan Johnson
May 24, 2006

Phil Plait at the Bad Astronomy Blog passed along the news that the world is going to end on May 25, 2006. Get anything important done before that time and for heaven's sake, make backups.

Phil has some thoughts about Doomsday enthusiasts:

Most of the people who get involved with this sort of thing are seeking something, yearning for something. Perhaps it's knowledge, a sense of wonder, or a feeling of belonging. Almost everyone has these feelings, but for some, they seek answers in places that not only won’t help them, but can actually cause them harm. Coupled with a distrust of science, a misunderstanding of how it works, these feelings make people prey to the antiscientists. Even after the doomsday deadline comes and goes with nothing happening, the emotions still linger, and the feeling of social disenfranchisement runs deep. Something else will no doubt come along - a solar flare, perhaps, or another comet – and the cycle starts again.

I will have some thoughts in a future article about the science piece, but in general I agree with Phil's assessment. I will say that the sense of belonging and so forth can equally drive people to accept only science, in such a way as to be counterproductive as well. This is not an endorsement of a so-called "faith-based" (and by extension, "antiscience") worldview.

As luck would have it, I was just thinking about why people commit suicide, or subscribe to "end times" theories, or scan the heavens looking for stray comets or meteors that will at last destroy the Earth. What is at issue, I think, is a blindness to the idea of probabilities. If there is a probability for doomsday, so too is there a probability of there being a happiest day of your life. (For some, perhaps these moments are one and the same.) When people talk about the "end" of something, even the Earth itself, they often do not consider that any possibilities (or probabilities) exist beyond that "ending".

Year after year, there are stories about teen suicides right around the time of Final Exams. Students at my school expressed amazement at the news that a prep student committed suicide for scoring a "B" or "A Minus" on a test, thereby blowing any chance at say, Harvard. Because my school wasn't a high-powered prep school, most of us could at least see that getting into Harvard (or not) didn't rise to the level of taking one's own life if that plan failed. Then again, high school being what it is (was?), we had our own perceived destinies and limitations, though as a rule suicide wasn't the chosen option for clearing these obstacles.

Perhaps I am being overly simplistic, but when people speak of hopelessness and being out of options, I am increasingly of the mind that this means that there is no known hope, or known options. Some situations, people and places (usually as a result of situations) are thought to be hopelessly beyond improvement. But are they? Or do they become so precisely because we have made this determination? I once asked my Dad about weeds. He defined weeds as "plants that lack any intrinsic economic value." Then why are weeds here, and so abundant? They must serve some purpose, other than to give gardeners the thrill of yanking plants out of the ground or to keep the weed-killing business afloat. Perhaps weeds are our next fuel source, or cure for [disease name here]. We view weeds as useless, perhaps, because we have not identified their value.

It is worth noting that people in the weed-killing business have derived value from weeds.

As I typed this, Tom Tomorrow passed along grim thoughts about his latest book:

Any one of those things would have changed my life, would have given this book that small extra push that might have helped take it to the next level. Instead, it’s just a pebble tossed into the ocean, and I can already see the ripples beginning to recede, and I’m standing on the shore wondering — what was the point of all that? Why was it worth months and months of my life, exactly?

When I opted to discontinue The Vision Thing, and more recently my involvement with Vision Monthly, it may appear that I am in a state of "retreat", if not playing out some sort of "scorched earth" approach to life. In both of these decisions I recognized that these were not the right outlets for my time and energy. TVT doesn't provide the necessary platform to express who I am or where I'm "at" presently. I could never discuss religion and spirituality at TVT, unless I somehow spun the business angle rather than the more esoteric aspects. Vision Monthy started strong and fell flat. I said from the beginning that if there wasn't a need/want for the magazine, I simply would stop producing it. That die has been cast.

In either of these cases I am at peace with my decision to walk away. I can see beyond those things and know that there is more in store, and more appropriate outlets and activities in which to immerse myself. When people spin their wheels and express thoughts of hopelessness, I wonder on some level if this is brought on by a fear of the unknown, or as Les Brown says, "people often prefer known hells to unknown heavens."

In the meantime, May 25 is fast upon us. Dress for armageddon! <EM>