MEMO: It’s Almost the End of the World
The apocalypse is here and now. So what are we going to do about it?
As someone who deals in words, I think a lot about their origins. I believe, to really understand anything, we have to take it back to the source. We have to understand the root, or as close to it as possible, of anything, words included, to truly discern its present impact and future implications. This is especially important within the framework of the English language, when so many of the words we use today have taken on new meanings as a direct result of the existing power structure’s manipulation of this language to serve its own purposes. Even though I am a master of words, English is not of my ancestors, it will never fully feel like home to me, but it’s all I’ve got for now.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about the word, “apocalypse.” It’s a major topic of this newsletter, which seeks to delve into the ins and outs of living life at what I believe is the end of the world as we know it. This notion of apocalypse, its pitfalls and potentials, lingers on my mind all the time. But what I want to make clear with this newsletter is, first and foremost, the apocalypse is now. Modern notions of “apocalypse” conjure up images of an increasingly not-so-distant future where half-dead, fleshy corpses run down streets, eating people alive, or where the tidal wave or mysterious flesh-eating virus has overtaken most of the population, all the businesses are closed, and everyone left stays put wherever they’ve taken refuge for as long as possible, only venturing out to procure the essentials, while avoiding renegade brigades of heavily-armed violent, usually male, usually white rogue citizens lurking in the shadows, waiting to find new victims to pillage and rape among the carnage. That is the apocalypse movies have brainwashed us into fearing. That is the apocalypse this system wants to perpetuate, because it seems distant and imagined enough to separate us from the inconvenient truth that we are, right now, already living in the midst of apocalypse, and its origins. At its root, the word “apocalypse” simply means “to uncover.” And if uncovering is the whole of it, then the apocalypse is, very much, now. The uncovering is now, and has been in process and in motion for the past six years at least. All the thinly-sewn veils of the deep, wretched underbelly of white racial hierarchy and exploitative capitalism, the ways these inextricably linked systems damage, destroy, violate and separate us all from our humanity, are pulling apart at the seams. I don’t have to give a laundry list of examples, just think of any major news story in the past several years -- Covid, the Black Lives Matter Rebellion, climate change disasters, the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, etc. -- and you’ll see.
In each of these examples, the cycle continues. A fundamental right is taken away, people die, symbolic marches take place, a few “good” politicians make statements or push bills they know will never succeed, we vote, life gets harder but nothing really changes in a lasting way, and everyone -- you and I included -- is so caught up in trying to survive this vicious system, they forget. The knowledge of the rights which have been denied or the people who have died doesn’t wash away, but the rage is tempered, people move on, because we have no choice but to keep on keeping on. We feel rage, we take action, but when the actions fall short of lasting systemic transformation, we get back to our lives, and try to scratch out a safe place among the unrelenting violence of the world around us. If art truly imitates life, then this is the Matrix, and it has been for as long as any of us can remember. Everyday, by will, force or choice, we all choose to choke down the blue pill, and carry on. So my question to myself and to you is -- what will it take for us to step out of this programming? Maybe one day, we’ll all realize the apocalypse is, in fact now, and it has been for sometime. Maybe we’ll sit with the prickly truth that these lives we’re living are already rife with uncertainty and risk and danger, and maybe one day we’ll all muster the courage to take the red pill, to choose the path of active, sustained revolution, instead of momentary resistance, together. But how bad will things have to get before we do?
When we acknowledge that we are already living in the apocalypse and the dystopia is here and now, and once we confront the anxieties those realizations bring up for us, it opens us to the sort of courage we’ll need to really change things, to actually, figuratively and perhaps literally, blow this mother up. And to trust and believe, in the vein of Detroit’s slogan, that better things shall arise from the ashes.
MEDICINE: An affirmation for the apocalypse
“I have all the tools I need to create the changes necessary within my life and the world around me that will sustain lasting and transformative evolutions. I am capable of creating change
If God is change and I am a reflection of the divine in human form then, I, too, am change, I am change-maker with revolutionary potential. If the apocalypse is now, then so too, is the revolution.”