Putting much stock into the Mayan doomsday calendar—the one that predicts the end of the world in 2012—is ludicrous. The Earth is not going to crumble or explode; John Cusack is not going to fly a plane between two collapsing buildings, and why should he? Just pull up, guy from Say Anything. I don’t have thousands of hours in the cockpit, but you know… That’s just common sense.
Be that as it may, I am certain that society as we know it is at its end. Look around you! We are in the eighth season of American Idol. We officially stopped scraping the bottom of the barrel six years ago. We’re now officially pulling up the pile of shit the barrel was resting precariously on. Look at the Gulf Coast—look at either fucking one, really—and see nothing but abject destruction. New Orleans just pulled out of Katrina and here is this big oil slick, ready to penetrate with a rapist’s gusto; over in the Middle East, you still have people blowing themselves up for imaginary creatures. I have said that I am a smart man, but mostly I’m just diabolical. But even I can see that this is just not sustainable.
Some of you may know me from “Onward & Downward,” my previous column on Reactionary Century. In it, I brutally removed the skin of pop culture and peered deep into the soft tissue to discern why we—not just Americans, but humanity as a whole—were intent on rewinding all of the progress we had made. My new column, “The Post-Modern Times,” takes this to the nth degree. In it, I’m going to examine all aspects of society and demonstrate how life in the pre-apocalypse is going to inform the end times and ever after.
Today, I want to talk about my own personal Armageddon. These things are like eels: try to control it and you’ll get shocked by electricity and piss your pants. For me, it’s my ambition. Deep down, I understand that I am incredible. Some might even say I’m a “generational voice” (that quote is attributed to me), but for some reason, I cannot be bothered.
My ambivalence boils down to my sense of entitlement. I have discussed this on my blog (http://ad-rob.blogspot.com), but this generation grew up knowing nothing other than this: once you graduated college, there was a posh job waiting to pay you $40,000 starting to come in and wreck up the place. And even before I graduated college—when I was laid off the first time before I fucking graduated motherFUCKER—I knew this wasn’t the case. But it can be hard to disconnect the things with which you’ve been hardwired. Even though I know that nothing is going to come to me because of my innate talent and ability, I still feel that with time it will all fall into place. I can toil on my masterpiece for years, never showing it to anyone, hoping to be discovered for my raw, unbridled genius; indeed, my talent is like a proud mustang, waiting to be broken. But you have to play the game. That’s a lesson that’s always been apparent, but we frequently choose not to see it. At what point do you stop letting life do the living and take control?
Before I start to sound like a Diablo Cody screenplay, I’ll leave you with this: there is no reason to life. No divine path, higher calling, or greater meaning. What you want, you have to carve from bone and gristle and pain. And every second you don’t, you contribute to the mutilation of the future. Have a good night!
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