Wednesday, January 4, 2012

on 2012: notes from an eternal optimist

I've been giving a lot of thought to the various prophecies about the world ending in 2012. Some of my friends are deeply troubled by these predictions and are taking steps to prepare for dire circumstances they are sure are coming. They see the strife and hardship and natural disasters and anger that has been building in the recent past and believe these occurrences to be a fulfillment of ancient and not so ancient prophecies that foretell the world ending in a great cataclysm of fire and brimstone.

Anyone who reads a newspaper could tell you it doesn't take a scholar to figure out that we could very easily destroy the world many times over with weapons we already possess.

I believe that in these ancient prophecies told and retold for countless generations, there is a kernel of truth.

Sometime long ago, it's possible that a gifted and wise person foresaw an end to a way of life that would eventually become unsustainable, and, as in a child's game of "telephone", the prediction was embellished and misheard, and retold again and again and again, until the message became something vastly different and very much darker, than the original version.


Eternal optimist that I am, I believe we're on the cusp of something big. The world is experiencing huge growth and change. And as any parent of an adolescent will tell you, rapid growth and change is not always easy. In fact, it can be downright ugly.

As the parent of two former adolescents, (who have turned out quite well, I must say) I can assure you that--should we manage to live through mankind's adolescence--the best is yet to come.

Here's a video that sums it all up much better than I can:



Wishing you peace, prosperity, health, happiness and good will in the coming year,
your ridiculously optimistic pal,
Petunia  

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