Don't Prepare to Fail ... Prepare

It's always amusing me how entwined the various aspects of our lives really are - how all of these little, seemingly unconnected pieces, fit so nicely together to form the picture of our world.

I just finished reading the book Last Light a few days ago. It was, on many levels, incredibly terrifying, but since I already believe most of what Alex Scarrow describes - from the conspiracy theories about who is actually running our world to the descriptions of people's rather violent and short-sighted reaction to the last light - I wasn't frightened to the point of wanting to curl up in a fetal position, wishing it all away.

I had that moment years ago when I watched Zeitgeist - the implications of which, back in 2007, were truly frightening ... but also rather inspiring in a very spiritual way.

The thing that both have given me is a strong sense that I'm on the right path.

And then, today, I have a conversation with an otherwise very lovely gentleman who tells me, basically, that all of the work that Deus Ex Machina and I are doing to learn these skills we're learning is rather wasted. Instead, he believes, we should be developing a trust in a Higher Power. I didn't ask him what we should be doing instead. I guess the answer is nothing, because there's nothing we can do.

In our defense, I replied, rather impotently, that these skills will help us carry on a bit longer.

A few breaths later, he tells me that the US is (currently) the most corrupt nation on the planet, and that our time for destruction (based on certain scriptural writings) by this Higher Power is nigh, because, apparently, that's what happens to really bad countries - they just get wiped out. Rome, and Haiti, were the examples given (I didn't argue. I need time to process this information). According to the writings our destruction will come by fire, (you go, Robert Frost. You, Prophet, you) that will come from "the east, the west, the south and the north" (Et tu, Canada?).

In addition, during the course of our conversation, he tells me that things are going to get worse (I agree), but that he doesn't expect that we'll be dying anytime soon - which kind of flies in the face of the End of Days theories, because, I'm no expert on the Scriptures, but from what I understand, all of the believers will be taken away before TEOTWAWKI.

My favorite piece of shared information during the conversation, however, was the revelation that Russians had actually drilled all the way down to Hell. Yes, THE hell, and so when I came back inside, I just had to look it up.

The Internet is truly the most amazing invention, and if we lose it due to energy depletion, I think it would be a tragedy for human kind.

We should all be willing to give up our cars to keep the Internet, because the Dark Ages into which we are headed will be that much more so if the inability to quickly and easily debunk research fantastic claims such as that one are not available. If this fine, intelligent gentleman fully believes that the Hell was tapped into by Russian geologists, what other fantastic stories will surface in our future that allow other, seemingly more intelligent and more powerful figures to take advantage of the masses?

I'm not poking fun of this gentleman. In most ways, I have a great deal of respect for him. He is not scholarly, but is incredibly knowledgable, and he's seen and done things in his almost eight decades that I can not even imagine, and that I will never have the chance to do. He's a font of information, and I do love our little chats.

My concern is that there are people out there who do believe (*cough*George Bush*cough*) that we're headed into the scriptural End of Days (EofD), and that there is, really, nothing they can do. It's going to happen, and in fact, some sources indicate that some of these people (*cough*George Bush*cough*), actually believe it is their job to hasten the world's demise.

On the other hand, you have people who, while believing that this is EofD, also believe that our world is being controlled by a group of very high powered individuals, who formed some group (in the book, Last Light, they are called The Twelve) three hundred years ago and have been manipulating our world ever since.

Apparently, there is a finite number of people who can survive on this planet, and we're in overshoot of what the planet can sustain by about three billion. In short, we have twice the population that the Earth can sustain, and according to this lovely gentleman (and the book, Last Light), this powerful coalition is in the process of downsizing our population through some pretty unsavory tactics, like gulags all around the world, mostly on old, abandoned military bases (Hmm? Maybe we, Mainers, should be keeping an eye on the Brunswick Naval Air Station ...).

Of course, being who I am, I tend to question most of what I hear, especially the more outrageous conspiracy theories, and I wonder, if these gentleman are so damned powerful and in control, why did they let it get so bad?

Slow decline, fast decline, economic collapse, Peak Oil, climate change, a group of rich fat cats pulling our puppet strings ....

Pick your poison.

The fact is that a lot of people are out of work. There's a good chance that a lot more people will be out of work before the year's end. Energy isn't as cheap as it used to be. There do seem to be some weird weather patterns happening and weather-related catastrophies do seem to be increasing.

In the end, it doesn't really matter *why* things are happening as they are as much as it does how we react to it. Whether the events occuring today are a part of some Divine plan or the wicked doings of evil, money-grubbing men, my reaction will not be to drop to my knees and hope for something to change.

The best advice I've seen comes from Benjamin Franklin, who said, "By failing to prepare, we are preparing to fail."