Lenny Bruce Is Not Afraid

People keep talking about the supposed "Judgment Day" that will be upon us come Saturday. There has been a large billboard near my work proclaiming this for months now, but now that the date is actually on the horizon, everyone seems to be talking about it. Now, I don't know a single person who actually believes that anything will happen on Saturday, but everyone seems to have something to say about the people who do believe it. I don't care what people believe, faith and belief seem to be necessary parts of most human conditions, even atheists believe, a belief in nothing, in some ways seems as if it would take greater faith. The problem comes from when you erect billboards telling people to repent because Judgment Day is on May 21st. Most right-thinking adults can dismiss this kind of thing, but I can only imagine how many children are going to go to sleep tonight afraid that the world will end on Saturday. That just does not seem right to me.

Saturday will come and go, Sunday will arrive and those who believed the rapture would carry them into Heaven will undoubtedly find some excuse as to why they were wrong. It happens all of the time, not even exclusively with religion, it seems like every decade or so, we are facing the end of the world. Whether it be from nukes, terrorists, swine flu, aliens, Y2K or God, something is always out to end humanity. At first it didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I think I finally come to grips with why this phenomenon happens. You see, as a race in general, people are very selfish and in need of feeling important or special somehow. We all do it, we all want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, or at least feel like we were. We share a collective ego that pushes humanity further into greatness and turmoil that will most likely be the cause of our undoing, whenever it may be. If you think about though, that need to be special, to be a part of something, is exactly why the world is always ending. What bigger boost to the collective ego of humanity could there be than front row seats to the apocalypse? Being the last humans is far more meaningful than being any other kind of humans. It would be, in some respects, a great honor to be among the last living people of the Earth.

So, I assume that until something greater than the end of the world comes along, people will continue to, at least subconsciously, wish to be alive for the end of it all. Children will continue to fret, and right-thinking adults will continue to mock, but I do not see things ever changing much, not until the end really is upon us. The weekend will come and pass, but hey if you needed an excuse to live life to the fullest, then tomorrow should be when you start. Live it up everyone, because the world will not end on Saturday, but you never know what day will be your last.