You know, one might imagine that the fellow who went and registered apocalypsefatigue.org as a personal website would have been a lot more talkative this year. I mean, we've had the threat of World War 3, continents on fire, and now plague appears to be on the verge of ravaging the world in a way not seen for 100 years. Sure has the stink of Pockyclipse, don't it? Shouldn't your humble host be chomping at the bit to wax poetic about the sudden trend toward catastrophe and collapse? Doesn't he kinda.. like it?
Well, here's the thing: I'm as surprised as you are. I tend to lean on these things pretty hard. I'm a morbid guy, what can I say? My first memory is meeting my great grandma, my next is her funeral. My early highlight reel has a lot of death, sorry. It's how it went down for me. Thank goodness for gallows humor, and a few decades practice before the fan started getting pelted with you know what.
2019 was like being dragged behind a truck through a minefield for most people I know and I vowed to make 2020 the freshest start I could. We took hits to the pocket like a lot of people. I worked overtime to help us float. I saw my career flicker as healthcare companies were forced by Medicare changes to SHOW THEIR WORK. Lawdy lawdy, accurate payment for accurate service. The HORROR. Anyway, what it meant was a job market dryer than a Martian lake as predatory profiteers went into panic mode and laid off like it was Detroit in the 80s. So I shape-shifted, because that's what you do when the terrain becomes hostile. I took a rope thrown to me by an old mentor and it took me in a direction where I could use my degree in a way I didn't expect. And I leaned in.
I also recorded what are frankly some banger episodes of my podcast, I set up a Patreon, and set the intention to accept the kindness of others for giving my best. I figured I'd make the best of being a home health therapist in an unfamiliar market and then the whole world fell into a rabbit hole once reserved for the fringes of twilight-hour AM radio. And the part of the world in my immediate vicinity smirked and said, "Oh you got your road all worked out? Hold my Corona, kid."
I believe the old saying goes, "If you want to make God laugh, plan." And here we all are. And here I am, writing about writer's block, because life is inherently absurd. But not inherently bad, despite the agressive advertsing to the contrary of late. Depending on who you ask (or endure the rants of) COVID-19 is a bioweapon, a side effect of questionable dining habits, the final solution to the primate problem, or a hoax designed to trick us into strolling into permanent cages.
Whatever reality the above may have, here's what I know: It ain't here to pass out cake and free passes to Disneyland! It's real enough and it poses questions we must finally answer about how seriously to take our responsibility to each other. The apocalypse is back in a big way, kids, and don't you forget what the word really means: The Great Peekaboo is upon us! We're finally waking up from the American Dream. Thank the deity of your choice. It's a miracle wrapped inside a nightmare.
We are being made vividly aware that the Verbal Hologram is chock full of holes. We're talking Swiss cheese, moth sweater, galaxy sized holes my friends. You could fly a plane through them if you could still fly a plane. Money is fake, news is lies, government is woefully unqualified to lead anything but lemmings. The hospitals will flood and fail and the cemeteries will swell because people are encouraged to embrace their worst aspects and it's too late for a lot of people to shake the trance and accept the vast responsibility we all have to each other. We grew up in a lattice of lies and the dust of a couple generations neglect is bringing down the house of cards. America the Beautiful Delusion. The Land of the Free to Pretend and the Home of the Brave to Buy the Company Line. It's over kids. The emperor has no clothes and he hasn't washed his privates in rather a long time. The Great Destroyer is showing up to strip the bones of the golden calf. The bill has arrived, and we're gonna pay it in blood this time. The illusion is on fire. The projector is failing. The carnival is OVER.
You know what? Good. It's high time we learned to take care of ourselves and each other because it's clear our caretakers are very poor stewards of the human garden indeed. The governments (that translates to binders of the mind, by the way), like any good parasites, exist to maintain themselves. Oh, they'll throw us a month's rent to keep us from throwing on yellow vests and setting the banks on fire.
It's cute, right? Like doing nothing, but vaguely more tangible. LET US EAT CAKE. It's the imagined solution of a ruling class so completely out of touch with its power source that it can't plug in to what our lives are even like anymore.
We, the People. Remember that? Imagine if we believed in ourselves the way we believe in the fairy tales oozing out of televisions and Facebook and whatever other toilets are backing up at the moment. 300 million in the street, dragging the world into resonance with the needs of the spirit, man, just daydream with me. But for now we're shouted down and quarantined. Stay home, eat chips and binge watch on your black magick rectangles, pretend you don't have to work like a dog just to scrape by, trust the neighbors that live 3 feet away to mind their own business and NOT wait for the perfect moment to hit your in the back of the head for a can of beans, or dollar store toilet paper, or whatever when the power goes out and the cops can shoot you for leaving the neighborhood. Tears in rain, I know.
I go dark pretty quick. I don't apologize, because others are taking these bone-paved paths as the right ones and I can back off and call it a thought experiment or just bad habits. Either way, to Hell with the bizarrely well-sponsored drive to live in Hell. All my shrieking and linguistic corpse-paint aside I am hopeful, because hope is punk rock in an economy based on fear and because this maze of gasping, choking horror is an OPPORTUNITY. It's a chance to finally abandon the programmed response that makes Black Friday every day and remember that humans evolved to thrive in COMMUNITY and BALANCE. I will continue to use caps in an obnoxious fashion because decorum is a long walk from where we are, wouldn't you agree? You know what they say about those who can't take a joke, and this is the divine comedy write large in eyelid-piercing neon lights. Beyond collapse lies the chance for collaboration. That ollllllllld time religion is ready to come back. Hail to the return of the human being! It only took a few hundred thousand years, but we won't hold the grudge.
AND, PIVOT: Today is the 5th anniversary of my marriage and we didn't have the day we planned on. Or the week, or the month, or the year, if we're honest. You can't really plan for pandemic. The restaurants and bars are 80 percent closed, the hotel we booked 6 months ago is 75 percent closed, the road trip we planned is 100 percent impossible now. So we got ready. We found the oh-shit money we knew we couldn’t count on making. We stocked the pantry. We planted the victory garden. We became home school teachers overnight. We also put down our dog in the middle of the night when we expected to be celebrating. But to Hell with expectations. We adapted, and we continue to adapt. That’s who we are, dammit.
We found ways to celebrate when the world is a funeral . We went into town to taste life but we did so responsibly and quite sparingly. We put on surgical gloves and got each other gifts on clearance at the thrift store that sponsors families running from abuse. We got apocalypse tacos to go and feasted like royals because you have to live. We walked in the local wilderness and saw wonders without price. We forgave each other for a thousand shortcomings by just saying "I love you and we made it and I choose you again" and we pledged to go the distance. We won. We will keep winning. And so will YOU.
Love is the the point. It's not only how we're here, it's why. Find your way to fight for love, and enter the battle. Only your candles can counter the hideous, obsidian darkness we face in this moment. BE. NOT. AFRAID. Cross the River Styx. Bring yourself to the beyond and rejoice at what awaits you.
This was a test, this whole HUGE thing is a planetary test. And the quasi-human hookworms that call themselves "the elite" will fail the test because their parasitic paradigms are contrary to life and the common man, always forced to adapt, will build something beautiful and ace the test. Let them go to their 5 star bunkers and be the world’s richest corpses. Let them try to rule in exile with no slaves to support their pyramid schemes. Sometimes this is kind of a garbage planet, but love is real and it will prevail over the ghastly stupidity that we mysteriously tolerate. We will see the end of the systems that can’t stand a push and we will build the temples of the new world out of their bones. Death is having a field day, but the Phoenix will rise. See you in the fire, you beautiful birds.
"The world concluded happily, SO THERE." -The Legendary Pink Dots