THERE IS ALWAYS ONE MORE opinion.
Deadline: 2036
ONE THING I MISS ABOUT the pre-21st-century days is the sense of humanity plunging headlong toward some destination.
These days, that collective goal seems hellbound and handbasket-wrapped. But in the days and years leading up to 1/1/2000, the Great Rollover, that sense of heading toward something great and mysterious was sometimes almost palpable. Maybe it’s because we could see a deadline.
Deadlines are wonderful tools for focusing the mind. Without one, I find myself picking listlessly at the keyboard; with one, I have an excuse, however small, to get off the couch. And that’s important. Our planet’s emerging global culture is lacking something without that sense of notional and communal quasi-closure, and I would like to offer a replacement.
In just about 25 years, give or take a month (or, to put it more or less as accurately as I can, in
days:hours:etc.) an asteroid named Apophis will make its second pass at Earth and quite possibly collide with it. That’s about as dead a deadline as you can get, but it’s also a good chunk of time — it’s a quarter-century off, which is sort of good news for us would-be codgers as it obviates the need for Social Security and other obligations; it’s close enough to inspire the imagination, yet far enough to finally develop those %$#@! jetpacks. And it’s a great excuse, however small, to get off the couch.
April 13, 2036. I hope to see you there.
The View From Superman’s Cape
FLYING OVER EARTH IN THE International Space Station? This is what it looks like.
Aside
“THAT’S NOT ONLY BRILLIANT — IT’S ‘why-didn’t-I-think-of-that’ brilliant.”
Moving Lines
“FOR GOD’S SAKE LET US sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings.”
— Wm. Shakspere, Richard II
“Are you a dream, Merlin?”
“A dream, to some. A NIGHTMARE TO OTHERS.”
— Excalibur
“Well, it’s easy if you know all the notes!”
— Moosie Weinberger, a”h, on playing the piano with her nose
“Never give up. Never surrender.”
— Cmdr. Peter Quincy Taggart
“Are we having fun, yet?”
— Zippy the Pinhead
“Many days you have lingered around my cabin door
Oh! hard times come again no more.”
— Folk song
“In former dreams he had seen quaint lumbering buopoths come shyly out of that wood to drink, but now he could not glimpse any.”
— H. P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
“We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.”
— Wm. Shakespear, King Henry IV pt. II
Waiting
OF ALL HUMAN EXPERIENCES, WAITING may be the least explicable.
We usually experience Time both as a series of events (“progression”) and an eternal Now (“duration”). Progression is as a pot slowly boiling or day growing late or stomach more hungry. “Duration” is the center of whatever moment (and all moments) we experience. These levels are so seamless as to first appear invisible. (Work with me here.)
Waiting suspends your attention — you’ve given your order, taken your place in line, tried to start the engine — now what?
The Root Of All Our Problems
SLOPPY THINKING.