Prophets of Doom

The world was sup­posed to end in 1974. It had been cal­cu­lated using ancient writ­ings. All of the mod­ern day signs pointed to it as well. The next year, the book mak­ing the prophecy was revised and sold again under a new title. The man has made quite a good liv­ing pre­dict­ing the end of the world. He is still alive and writ­ing. The world has not come to an end — well not in the sense that he meant any­way.
Metaphor­i­cally speak­ing, the world has ended many times. Social eras come and go. Those lit­tle “worlds” ran their brief courses and are now chron­i­cled in var­i­ous books. Thumb­ing through them always raises the ques­tion: “What were we think­ing?” Bell bot­tom pants, tie died shirts, protests, eight-mile-to-the-gallon cars, etc. We are all glad those days are gone. They were apoc­a­lyp­tic in their own way. Emo­tions ran high. Store win­dows were bro­ken. Peo­ple were killed. Life resolved to a new cen­ter — and went on.
In eras of anx­i­ety, it pays to have a tan­gi­ble enemy. It gives us a place to focus. We do not do well with uncer­tain­ties. Our inner fears need a face. If you are in the prophet of doom busi­ness, you always have an oppor­tu­nity. All you have to do is cap­ture the com­mon feel­ings of inse­cu­rity and focus them on a cause. It really is not all that hard. Fear is con­ta­gious. Peo­ple look for a mod­ern day prophet of doom. Inevitably one is found.
Top ten best sell­ers are writ­ten. Movies are made. The lec­ture cir­cuit clam­ors for the epi­cen­ter per­son­al­ity in the know. Pre­dic­tions are made. Facts are skewed to fit the fears. Bat­tle lines are drawn. New stan­dards of guilt, shame, and self-righteousness are defined. “Saints” and “sin­ners” con­cern­ing the cause are pushed to their cor­ners. The fight is about to begin.
Or you could just step away from it all. This too shall pass. The world will not end. The huck­sters will be exposed. In time it will be seen as silly as plat­form shoes. For a brief moment we see trendy soci­ety in a mir­ror and move on. Peo­ple will get bored with the cur­rent hys­te­ria. It becomes sand through the fin­gers. Empty.
Stay close to the sim­ple essence of liv­ing. Life is not about dra­matic crises. It is about liv­ing this one day with the con­scious­ness that there is pur­pose in life and Some­one that cares for even the small­est and weak­est among us. Monies gleaned by today’s prophets of doom will be spent friv­o­lously by the next generation.