stevet's blog

Essay On Apocalyptic Thinking

  • Posted on: 13 November 2019
  • By: stevet


To Divine Hermes I give thanks, and to Him I offer these words. Speak through me Oh God, for thy glory and the profit of those who will hear.

This essay began with a comment that I posted a few weeks back on John Michael Greer’s Ecosophia blog. The subject was Fantasies of the Apocalypse, a recurring theme at that site. I commented that I had, for many years, believed very sincerely in the imminent collapse of civilization. From roughly the year 2000 onward through Barack Obama’s second term I was a committed anti-civilization anarchist. I was certain that civilization was about to collapse, either all on its own or through the concerted effort of dedicated partisans.

Well, the reader will already have noticed that it’s two decades later, and civilization is still with us-- nor did the heroic partisans ever get around to emerging. And you won’t be surprised to hear that my belief-- or what I thought was my belief-- in the approaching apocalypse kept me from making any provisions for living in the actual world of my experience.

This is an essay about what happens when the apocalypse fails to show up, and you have to go on living anyway.