How to Survive the End of the World.

This is the End.

But not the end of the world. It’s the end of this world.

~

They say the end of the world is coming!

The end is nigh!, they’ve warned for centuries

But, yes, we can now see where we’re going and it doesn’t go far

—for us—the stars will continue to shine—

but for we humans, and for animals, and forests—for this evolved miracle of earthly creation—

we are all made vulnerable by our own lustings

we are all akin to crash test dummies, texting while

heading toward a wall of our own making:

We want profits, we define progress economically

We want oil, gas, we’ll take it militarily, we’ll destroy the earth and our seas and the livelihoods of others drilling for it

We want happiness, we’ll try and eat it until we’re obese, suffering from diabetes, at war with our own tummies

We want peace, we’ll watch our lives away on TV, netflix, youtube, surfing the web.

This, not some mythic Mayan prophecy, is the end of the world. And it’s here, now, it’s coming, fast. Rape. Warfare. Climate Change. Poverty.

So. Let us remember, and declare loudly!

The Mayan Calendar does not fortell the end of the world

it fortells the end of a brilliant, but destructive cycle

So, no:

we won’t all die come the 21st. We won’t get out that easy

we’ve got a lot of work (and play, and love) left to do

to create a new world, a new epoch, a new kalpa, a new era, a time of real peace

a time when “my” happiness is defined as inextricably tied to her happiness and his happiness and your happiness and its happiness

and as Donne said if I take away from the maine, we are all the less

It’s not hippie to care about the earth

it’s not conservative to care about independence

it’s not feminist to care about equal rights

it’s not vegan to care about animals

it’s for allll of us to care

for more than oil, food, money

we all, fundamentally, want the four freedoms

even more fundamentally we, all want one thing

happiness

and happiness is gained from the inside, out, and also from the out, in

some “rich” people are miserable,

some “poor” people, happy,

This is worth resting our minds upon: this is your experience, not merely my trite aphoristic generality

So what is the source of this true happiness? It’s ethics.

It’s liking who we look at in the mirror at the end of the day. It’s tough choices, thinking mid-term instead of merely short-term

It’s gained by being genuine, and present, and feeling fully, and it’s lost by taking our joy and shutting out others in a spiritual gated community of fear.

So: starting on the 21st, the solstice of a new era, let us welcome the sun of unchanging, primordial, unconditional, fundamental, of our basic human goodness

Let us do the right thing—it’s that simple

Let us not compromise our ethics to get what we want for we shall find that, with compromised ethics, we shall not like what we’re left with.

Life is too short, too precious to throw its minutes away on ill-gotten unfulfilling sex–or inner-life destroying hard drugs–or working at jobs that we do not love–

It’s time for a society built on meditation, on gentleness, on compassion, on openness, on goodness.

For this world we present inhabit is not sustainable—it will end in a furnace of watery selfishness—we are smart enough to turn the steering wheel toward joy, honesty, humor.

So let us all repeat, outloud, now

With one life to live, I dedicate my breath to the well-being of all sentient beings!

E MA HO! (it is wondrous)

~
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