I think we all know that the end is approaching

A feeling deep in the gut, beyond ideology, faith, or theory.

When I was a teenage christian soldier, I was told that I was in the “last generation,”

by a sweating, twitchy preacher’s son, crying on stage,

while his muscles twitched from god’s mighty touch.

Or something.

In college I learned that the world was ending for altogether different reasons.

The collective exhaust of every tycoon’s coal-rolling wealth accumulation scheme

is very bad for glaciers.

Or something.

I was told that Marx predicted the end back in the 1850s.

That Capitalism would eventually eat itself,

and everyone will spontaneously pull their heads out of their asses.

Or something.

As someone who reads wikipedia for fun, reading about the Weimar Republic

feels a lot like those eerie stories about cave diving disasters.

You know it’s going to go terribly wrong at some point,

and when it does, it’s like watching a fish catch a hook.

Does anyone else find the game musical chairs to be existentially terrifying?

Every round, you walk in a circle, following the leader,

and every round you take your seat when the music stops.

Until you suddenly realize that you have nowhere to sit.