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The End (photo: mrjoro/flikr)
Googling the phrase “the end of” returns seven billion hits. That’s a lot of ends. Placed end to end, they’d stretch to the end of… well, never mind. Let’s take a look at some of the google returns on the first couple of screens:
The End of History
The End of the World
The End of Food
The End of Men
The End of Fish (video)
The End of Poverty (video)
The End of Capitalism
The End of America
The End of Suburbia
The End of An Era
The End of Us (gasp!)
The End of Faith
The End of Nature
I suppose all these ends are justified as means of getting attention or selling something. That none of the mentioned concepts and things have actually ended is irrelevant. Recent news that a vial of Ronald Reagan’s blood will be auctioned is a sign of the end of something, so we may as well go ahead place our bets on what, exactly, has reached its doom time. But maybe not.
I confess to speculating about the end of some things, democracy in particular. But at least I put it in the form of a question. It’s the declarative that sells. Even Jim Morrison and the Doors knew that.
What is it about The End that we find so irresistible? For one thing, there’s only mystery on the other side of it. What comes after the end? Something new? Nothing? The epidemic of blockbuster movie sequels might be telling us that it’s just more of the same that follows The End. Ecclesiastes warned us about this when he said, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
“The End of…” stories can be about things we don’t want to end (food comes to mind, or nature, or fish, or Us) and things we desperately want to end (poverty, for instance). “The End of…” stories can and are used to produce both fear and hope.
Maybe the public relations punch of all those “The End of…” titles comes from their hint at an absolute. Life is full of uncertainties and vagaries. We’re unsure of both beginnings and ends, and we make up all kinds of stories that deal with those uncertainties.
Uncertainty is a great driver of human creativity. This is why John Keats spoke of “negative capability,” a person’s willingness and ability to live with uncertainty.
Time has a way of shaking us out of our beds of certainty. Those without negative capability are always climbing back into the sack and pulling the covers over their heads. “Thank goodness that’s over,” they tell themselves, whatever that particular “that” was. I think this is why we’re so attracted to “The End of…” stories. They are like the comforting darkness under the blanket, a darkness we imagine no under-the-bed monsters can penetrate.
This is a good weekend to contemplate all these “The End of…” stories. It’s Memorial Day weekend. Some will tell you the holiday simply marks the end of spring. But that’s not it.
Since after the Civil War, Americans have used this time to remember their lost friends and loved ones. It is, of course, a day devoted especially to the memories of fallen soldiers. A moment’s thought will show us that even the departed have not reached an end. They live on in our memories.
Maybe if we thought more about this we’d be less anxious about our own mortality. There’d be fewer “The End of…” stories. We could stay upright and out of our beds of certainty, moving creatively forward into an open universe we can’t see the end of.
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When we die, most people recognize that “we” transcend space – at least the three dimensions we experience. The recognition of time as integral in “Space-time” opened for me the realization that we also transcend time.
Hence, The End is just one more mental construct, one more part of what Eastern mysticism calls trance, maya, samsara . . .
Can you imagine a language without a past tense?
The topic takes on a more personal meaning when you hit 80. :-) I think I will just read what others have to say.
Here are my contributions to the day.
http://talkingstick.gamountains.net/wp
and the Great aunt who came home from the War to End Wars and who taught me to love peace.
http://gamountains.net/wp/
It’s After the End of the World-Sun Ra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALe-Q9nFehA
I think the topic can only be personal, and thanks so much for the links.
The difficulty is that we can’t recognize or accept that “homo sapiens” on earth will end. We evolved in the 23rd hr. and 59th min. of this earth’s life.
From ecological and paleontology evidence, we have seen this planet in turmoil for billions of years. We have records when a cold phase wiped out everything on this planet. We have understood also a time when an asteroid anililated other inhabitants on this planet.
As we vanquish most of the earth’s minerals (metal & wood), pollute the waters and air, heat the earth with a toxic envelop of CO2, we and many other organisms will become extinct.
The real issue is will it be the 24th hr. and 1st min. or can we extend it to the 24th hr. and 3rd min.?
Thank you, Glenn.
As always, your posts bring “things” home, on the most personal level of our very own sense of ourselves, of time, and of place. Of our time. Of our “place” …
To this moment, this now, this place and our “place”, however briefly, within “it” …
DW
The planet will endure. It’s a crap shoot as to how much longer humans will. After belief in reason and learning and the just plain good will of the contracts among social animals I have in late years come to be convinced that man remains really mad and floundering in his attempts to integrate his insides with the world outside as it impinges on him.
We are working so hard to imagine our power and virtue, yet cannot accept the reality that we are powerful enough to denude the planet of most life, including our own. that’s power enough for my ego.
TalkingStick, thank you for those links … for those shared “connections” and memories, for the sheer humanity your presence always brings to these threads and to the hearts of those who have come to know you … even a little bit.
I hope, as I have told you before, that you might share more of your perspectives and your understanding, your love and your bravely human insights. For your abiding compassion is not only much needed, it informs and enlightens … it touches each and every one of us.
Namaste
DW
Aye, earth abides, TalkingStick.
It remains to be seen if “intelligent man” will much longer inhabit this paradise, as that is what earth is … for all human intents and honest purposes … even if most members of our species fail to realize and embrace this truth.
DW
During my life I have come to realize that few things actually end. They move on, disappear from our view but are always out there somewhere. We, as living creatures, will never end. We came from cosmic dust and will eventually return to the same thing.
A world of becoming….
I’ve always thought of it that way – becoming, I mean. It’s such an interesting thing to observe.
I’ve seen the end of somethings concrete at the time. Vacuum tubes and silver halide photography.
Well, maybe not completely; some broadcast stations still use tubes to power the antennas, and there are fringe uses of silver halide.
But one end does loom large, albeit not imminent: Entropy.
I also am approaching 80, (5 years off) but I’m inclined to see that in terms of rhythm: When the end of one thing is also the beginning of another, you have rhythm.
All in all, Twain, existence is quite a wonderful and even amazing thing.
And to think that it is All for OUR experience … our awareness of being, of becoming … and of appreciating the immensity of both universe and time.
Life is an equal opportunity adventure … until the next … begins …
;~DW
And isn’t it grand! Even at my age I often feel that sense of adventure. It’s been a long and wonderful ride for me and I’m still loving it.
Will never catch up to Big Macs served.
((Dwbartoo))) More than I deserve but I savor being recognized as human.
The ends are never really the ends. Once that position has been reached, it’s just the beginning of something else. John Dewey said that we should realize that all solutions create their own problems, and we shouldn’t try one unless we are willing to live with the new problems.
What are the eschatological implications of being epu’d?
Very good! :)
“… we are powerful enough to denude the planet of most life,…”
And we are powerful enough to stop it.
Exactly. And think how much better we would all feel for saving it.