Live blogging the Eschaton (2012) part 8: Guest Blog by Doug Lazorick
December 21, 2012
I met Doug when we were young, callow fellows at Bates. I recall him being something of a druid then - a thread which continues in the post he has provided for the ongoing ZenGlop Guest Editor/Live Blogging the Eschaton event. Doug lives just outside Pittsburgh, we've recently discovered a shared fondness for Harry Chapin, and it is one of my post-Eschaton/ NewYears resolutions that we meet up for dinner in town. Here's his post (thanks, Doug!)
"Goodbye my love, Maybe for forever Goodbye my love, The tide waits for me Who knows when we shall meet again If ever But time Keeps flowing like a river (on and on) To the sea, to the sea" Time Alan Parsons Project
So today, the Mayan calendar ends. The Mayans possessed an advanced understanding of the predicable movement of celestial bodies. Will those repetitions stop? All of us tend to assume the current state of affairs will be perpetual. Maybe the Mayan would have continued to walk their calendar into the future if their carving tools and rocks weren't so unwieldy. Imagine if the Mayan scientists could take advantage of Intel's 22nm micro-lithography process. How far in the future would their calendar reach then?
The Norse, despite their barbarian reputation, had their own advanced knowledge. Ragnarok the final battle between Asgard's gods and the elemental hordes of Jotunheim. Odin's forces of order are doomed to be defeated. Odin knows this yet fights anyway. Today, scientists have the second law of thermodynamics; all things proceed to a state of minimum energy and maximum entropy. The end awaiting us is chaos, absolute cold, and inevitable. When my time comes to rage against the dying of the light, I'll be listening to Wagner's Gotterdammerung.
In truth none of us should assume we have any time left. In the reality TV show "Ax Men" this week, a wasted and skeletal Jimmy Smith learned his cancer leaves him 6 months to live. Jimmy was a mean bastard, but that scene touched my jaded heart. Jimmy's battle ended 11/1/2012. No matter which calendar you use, live, fight, love each day as if it's your last.
(All Eschaton 2012 posts here. Sign up for email notices from this blog. Follow @Zenglop on the Twitter)