Apocalypse-ish

I’ve been intending to write this for months, but never quite got around to it, a theme that will run through this article? I was also quite proud of the piece and was hoping I might be able to get it published, but alas, no joy in that area and as I say above, it’s content is long overdue.

As some of you may or may not know, I’ve been attempting to write a book for the best part of a year, I never quite made it past the research stage but have learnt about many fascinating things along the way.

The book was intended to be a fictional and modern reworking of Revelations, not an original concept I know, but I’d done my research to achieve as much accuracy as possible and was intending to place the narrative in the modern equivalent of a biblical chronicler, our incessant and omnipresent media.

It looks increasingly like the book will never get written though, firstly due to time constraints and secondly due to one of the constants in my life, the fact that frequently when I make predictions, they come true. I was intending to use the book to pre-empt the collapse of the ‘Western Empire’, through equivalent modern catastrophes and during my time wasting the past few months, this seems to be happening and I feel the book will be, or is, too late.

Because lets face it, over the past 18 months it’s been feeling a bit ‘end of days’ hasn’t it? Financial Collapse, Environmental crisis, natural disaster after natural disaster, you’d be forgiven for feeling somewhat nihilistic.

Or are things really any worse than they’ve ever been? In times like these it’s important to take a step back and look at things constructively, history does indeed repeat itself, even if outside of living memory. One of the most important phrases to note of recent times is ‘the worst xxx since records began’, because generally accurate historical records have only existed for around 200 years and even in humanities minute history, that is an incredibly short time span. Who are we to say there weren’t ravaging bushfires 400 years ago, or tsunamis that destroyed cities 500 years ago? In fact we’re almost certain there were, so why do we hold our own era in such high esteem and think that what we’re experiencing is so unique?

In regards to the financial crisis I feel it is important to look into one of the eras of history that most fascinates me, the Romans. A strong, powerful and dominant empire that spread over and influenced a large area and amount of people, we still feel its effects today. It lasted nearly 1000 years, a vast amount of time when compared to the paltry few centuries of the current Anglo/American/Colonial empire that is slowly drawing to a close. When the Roman Empire finally limped to it’s messy end, the world surrounding it was shaken by a sudden vacuum, the collapse of trade and economies plunged the western and Mediterranean regions into the bleak dark ages. It took time, but people finally got over it, humanity bounced back, the Phoenix rose from the flames, we moved on, forgot about it and got back to the dull normality of everyday life.

The Human race has a remarkable capacity to change, adapt and survive, that’s why we’re still here. Whilst it sometimes seems hard to imagine your average lethargic modern Joe competing in a Darwinian survival of the fittest, we probably will and we’ll probably make it fine out the other side of whatever faces us.

I feel another book coming on?

Unless of course another species beats us in the race of the fittest?
Or mother nature reminds us really how strong she is?
Or we blow ourselves up?
Or we poison ourselves and our atmosphere?

In which case no one will care if I finish the book anyway.