People behave strangely when they suspect everyone is going to die.
When faced with yet another Maybe-Apocalypse, there are a number of ways we can respond.
We can respond with denial. Which is understandable, because, as far as we know, the world has ended zero times so far.
We can respond with practicality, and buy lots of bottled water.
We can respond with humor, and look for the most seamless way to work in a reference to Michael Bay's Armageddon.
Or, we can respond with self-introspective hypothetical questioning. Guess which one I'm about to do! (Hint: This is a blog.)
A commercial for the navy once asked me, "If someone wrote a book about your life, would anyone want to read it?" The answer of course is no. The answer is supposed to be no, so that you realize you should join the navy. Only a minuscule amount of the population will ever be biography worthy. The rest of us, only blogworthy (as you can see, the bar is nice and low).
But the point is this: If this is the final chapter of my life, what the fuck has my story amounted to? In lieu of some underwhelming summation (a staple here at One Seven Billionth), I will instead just list things that have comprised my life.
A respectable academic career that steadily petered out toward unremarkable-ness toward the end. A strong family, if overprotective. A handful of good ideas, unfinished. Stress. Frustration. Very good friends. A rocky pursuit of love, culminating with one good, long, (finite) run at it. Four years of odd jobs, and a current job I like very much. An evolving faith in a distant, quiet God. A modest collection of things to say. People willing to listen.
Maybe that's enough.
