Generation Now

After writing yesterday about the perpetual doomsday as suggested by Francis Ford Coppola's film, Apocalypse Now, I asked myself a question. How exactly does a person operate when they live at the end of the world? In a subsequent post later in the day, I offered a kind of candy-in-the-sky response by stating that we should devote our hearts and souls to peace. However, upon reflection, I'm thinking that is a bit simplistic.

It occurs to me that the apocalypse is a singularity, and a singularity, being an event of profound effect, is something that has features. It is not something with a single smooth aspect, rather it has components that converge to make it what it is. With this in mind, I went on to think that there is a generative facet to eschatological thinking. What we experience is not simply a wave of mutilation wiping out all our hopes and dreams each day (what a dreary possibility!), it is a bipolar phenomena with diametrically separated points of occurrence.

These points, if you will, are destructive and creative, respectively; as decay takes place, there is also a birthing of new material, whether that material be metaphysical, political or personal. To cite the metaphor of the river from my previous post, as it flows forward it is also flowing backward, creating an estuary of symmetrical dynamics at play.

Well, all of this sounds so wonderful, doesn't it? *ahem*

What really is at stake is daily life, right? I do see applications here. In regular existence the principles that surround us come in contact in similar, diametrical ways. I believe they manifest in the interplay of accountability vs entitlement. To reduce my argument even more, I believe that living at the end of the world confronts each of us with an ethical dilemma, and we must choose each day if we will be accountable or entitled.

What do these choices represent? I'll get into that when I have more time to expand on this post. For the moment, I simply want to write that, instead of thinking in an Apocalypse Now mindset, I am focusing on Generation Now and exploring just what that means.

Stay logged.