This essay is from an unusual book called The Sandstone Papers.
Ostensibly written by six different authors, the book is really the brilliant fabrication of Martin Glass, the creator of six disparate alter egos who enable him to express six points of view about “the crisis of contemporary life” in six different styles.
The book was written over a period of seven years during which Glass worked as a night janitor. “Money Versus People,” another essay from the book, appeared in Issue 139 of The Sun. (The Sandstone Papers is available from Threshold Books, RD 4, Box 600, Putney, VT 05346, for $10.50 postpaid.)
“Facing A Few Of The Facts” is presented as the work of Louis di Prima, a playwright and poet. Glass writes: “It is the darker side, the realistic pessimism, the ironic despair, the gallows humor in most thoughtful people which Mr. di Prima has chosen to express in his paper. He has articulated attitudes and feelings common to nearly everyone in the nuclear age.”
— Ed.
Something Big is going to happen! Something Big is going to happen! We have to prepare!
What is it? What’s going to happen?
I don’t know!
Then how can we prepare? How can we prepare for it if we don’t know what it is?
I don’t know! I don’t know! Just prepare, that’s all! Prepare!
The guru tells you about the Great Truth that remains the same throughout all eternity while everything else just comes and goes.
The prophet tells you you’re in big trouble and it’s going to get much worse if you don’t clean up your act, and maybe it’s too late anyway.
The commissar tells you what you’re going to do for your own good whether you want to or not.
The revolutionary tells you your hour has come and nothing can stop you now.
The shrinks and their cousins tell you whatever you pay them to tell you.
The leaders, the newspapers, and the TV tell you lies, lies, lies.
Where will you turn, baby, where will you turn?
The headlines are not reassuring. You laugh at them, shaking your head with gentle disbelief, and then forget them. Who really gives a shit anymore? Who can be seriously concerned about a situation so utterly hopeless? Only the well-intentioned fools, filled with outrage or alarm, who never seem to realize that all they’re really doing with their efforts to save the world is throwing their own little twig into the conflagration, adding their little squeak to the roar.
Fools. Are they really fools? Or are they the salt of the earth, the models, the heroes and heroines who point the way for the rest of us?
Who can say what they are? Or what anyone is? The bottom’s dropped out of the world.
What are you going to do? I mean really: what are you going to do? Do you actually believe anything is going to stop the drift toward disaster? The drift of an entire planet? Do you actually believe we’re going to be saved? Everything is heading straight to hell, the whole thing is falling apart, the whole world is going insane. Do you really believe all this can be halted or reversed? It’s too late, it’s all over. Just dig it. Everything was always headed this way, building up to this — we can see that now — and we’re the ones privileged to watch it happen. We’re the generation privileged to know the whole story, the whole drama, from the beginning to the end. We’re going to see the curtain come down. Our understanding of humanity is the most profound. What difference does it make if it ends now or in a million years?
The whole past, every bit of it, everything that ever happened, is entirely vanished, gone completely. Whatever fragments survive exist only in our memories, and then only when we’re actually remembering them, only in the living moment in which they are actually being remembered. The future, of course, also doesn’t exist. No past, no future. Nothing exists but this living moment, right now, and even this moment, like memories of the past or anticipations of the future, is only held there by our minds.
So what is lost, and who loses anything, if the world comes to an end?
Many decent, responsible people seem to have decided to face the end enjoying music and screwing. If there’s nothing we can do about it, what’s wrong with celebrating life right up to the end, along with the rest of nature? Other decent, responsible people shuffle around with downcast eyes and troubled expressions; they hope they’ll be able to confront certain death with the dignity appropriate to a noble being in its hour of tragedy. Like the captain and the crew singing hymns on the deck of a sinking ship. Still others, also decent, also responsible, are determined to go down fighting, defiant to the last.
It’ll be business as usual, however. Business as usual. Our ordinary nervous daily lives, nothing quite settled and nothing quite appropriate, exploded into sheer screaming terror. Don’t you think so? Sure. And it’s OK. Who are you to be critical?
Now you could say that we have to save the world for the sake of future generations, so humanity can continue to evolve toward its divine destiny, or that we have to save the world to keep the faith with past generations, so that their labor will not have been in vain. In either case, it’s humanity itself we’re supposed to be concerned about, “Humanity” with a capital H. Something bigger than you and me, in other words.
But you could also say, fuck that way of thinking. Unless we choose to make them an issue, the dead and the unborn are out of the picture completely. They have nothing to lose, they don’t suffer, and we don’t owe them anything. There’s nobody but us; we are what’s at stake. We’re the ones, we and our children, who have to figure out how to face this incredible nightmare. All by ourselves, and for ourselves.
Just think of it: the dead are going to kill the living! We’re not doing this to ourselves. It’s the momentum of the history they made, and the damage they did, that’s going to kill us. We’re not committing suicide, we’re being murdered. By the dead! Talk about bad karma!
In the whole history of humanity, there have been only two human situations. The one that ended about fifty years ago, and ours.
True, there were other times when people thought the world was going to come to an end, although of course they were wrong. But it was always for a good reason, always as part of the scheme of things. Divine retribution, the end of a cosmic cycle, the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven — there was always a meaning, so it was always acceptable.
But our situation is different.
Or at least it appears to be.
It’s really just a question of style; there’s no right and wrong in a terminal situation. Different people will face the end in different ways, that’s all. There’s nothing unworthy or debased in refusing to think about a calamity so immense, so beyond our comprehension; it’s not more “elevated” to look it in the face than to ignore it. We’re not morally required to try to save the world. To eat, drink, and be merry is not shameful any more than to join organizations is exemplary. Everyone has a right to his or her way, and every way is just as human as every other way: they’re all human — fully, completely, totally human. Make your choice, play your role, respect everyone.
Existence is clearly a gift. We have done nothing to earn or deserve it, so we have no right to complain if it is withdrawn. For a while, we existed. For a while, there was something rather than nothing, and that something was clearly a miracle glorious beyond glory, and we — whatever “we” are, woven somehow into that miracle — are a “place” where it becomes aware of itself. More could be said about all this, but it would just be glory heaped upon glory. The proper response in the recipient of a gift is gratitude.
You keep thinking that maybe somehow everybody’s going to pull it together at the last minute and save the world: a rally in the eleventh hour. The whole human race suddenly realizes it’s now or never, and in one stupendous spiritual and physical exertion actually rises to meet the occasion. But at the same time you know this is a fantasy. You know what people are like, and you know what we’re up against.
We became five billion interchangeable parts in one giant death machine and anything we do on the scale of the death machine’s power is just more machinery. That’s cold reality, feet on the ground. The ways we came to think and live and work, the end we created for ourselves by thinking and living and working in those ways, and the various ways in which we then confront that end, all add up to one lifestyle: it’s all one reality, in other words, one circular dynamic. Preparing our end and confronting our end are the same process. To oppose our actual way of facing it with some fantasy about how we might save ourselves is nonsense: the situation and the response are a single reality, they cannot be separated. It could even be argued that this is the only way it could have happened, that all along, from the very beginning, this was our only destiny. Who knows? But look around you: you don’t see what should be and you don’t see what shouldn’t be: you see what followed.
“What will we tell the children?”
A silly question. The children already know. Knowledge of the end is in the air we breathe, in every moment of our lives, every glance and tone of voice, every institution, artifact, and encounter. We grow into it as naturally and inevitably as we grow into physical maturity. Knowledge of the end is everything, this whole reality. You don’t have to worry about “telling the children.” You can stop whining. We’ve already told them. With matchless eloquence.
Just think of it: the dead are going to kill the living! We’re not doing this to ourselves. It’s the momentum of the history they made, and the damage they did, that’s going to kill us. We’re not committing suicide, we’re being murdered. By the dead!
You look at the pavement and imagine weeds, the same weeds we see now, sprouting through acres of rubble and upended slabs, gradually covering the lower levels of evidence. Except at the “epicenter” — one of our new words — the skeletons of buildings will still stand, maybe tipped a bit from the vertical. And of course there’ll be automobile wreckage everywhere: chassis, engines, bumpers, seat springs, probably strips of fused rubber baked into the cement. And bones. There’ll be bones. Bombed-out cities. Silent streets.
The urban environment is beginning to appear temporary. We know that soon the earth will be moving in again, so beautiful and calm. It’ll cover up all this shit. New things will be born.
You look up at the sky. It’s going to split open and explode from horizon to horizon. We all glance speculatively up at the sky now, from time to time: not in actual fear, but because that’s where it will come from.
You love so many things about life, there’s so much to love. Is that why the end seems so terrible? Because all those things will be no more? Singing, laughing, swimming, loving, the sight and taste of earth’s numberless marvels, the never-ending shower of miracles: everything — the whole soaring, mind-blowing ecstasy of just being here, in a universe, digging it. All those wonderful beautiful things, gone forever. Or is it the suffering? The moaning mutilated survivors, begging for water, the terrible radiation sicknesses, the agony of children? Or is it simply the personal fear of pain and death? Or is it just the great colossal tragedy of it, the waste, the senseless destruction?
Or are you one of those pugnacious types, completely disillusioned with human beings, who really doesn’t care? Too full of a kind of sullen, battle-hardened self-respect to waste your time talking a lot of crap about all these things no one is going to do anything about anyway. You’re part of the picture also. Tough as nails. You’ve been around. You look people straight in the eye, you know the bastards are lying and you don’t back off an inch. Belligerent: you stick your chin out. And just like any of the rest of us you might die while you’re “on hold,” listening to Muzak or a recording, impatiently tapping on an ashtray with your ballpoint pen. Lots of people will die “on hold,” fuming with vexation, enraged that they might have been forgotten, trying to keep from slamming the phone down and losing their place in line and having to start all over again. What a way to die!
If this is the end, we ought to exit in style: we ought to flaunt an undaunted spirit before the eyes of the universe. We should leave in processions, dressed in costumes, strutting and shaking tambourines, drinking beer and tossing roses, with flags and floats, brass bands, jazz bands, and cheerleaders setting the rhythm, like a Mardi Gras parade. All the cultures of the world represented, all our magnificent achievements. A festival of humanity. The gods are skeptical about us, you know; they scratch their chins and exchange glances. We ought to leave them something to remember us by. We screwed up, no doubt about it. But when we were great we were the greatest: no one could hold a candle to us. We’ve got class, pride, guts, and soul. We’ve got verve. We’re not going to look like losers. Right? Let’s show them how the humans bow out. In style!
You don’t want to fight on either side. A plague on both their houses! You just want to be left alone. When history comes rapping on the door, you want to sneak out the window and slip away into the hills till it’s all over. Live on the earth where nothing ever happens: no history, no progress, no nothing — just the four seasons, the sun, the soil, and the sky.
You don’t need the slogans and the programs. You don’t need the parties, movements, alliances, coalitions and committees, the meetings, conferences and conventions, the leaflets and pamphlets, the angry or jubilant fanatics screaming from the podium. There’s a vicious unconscious menace lurking behind all political passion: you can see it in the way they size you up. Violence, verbal or real: that’s all it is. Power: the struggle for power and the continuous identification of enemies. No matter how solemnly they may abjure it, no matter how loudly they may deplore it, political people have secretly reconciled themselves to carnage: that was the real decision they made; all the rest is excuses.
So avoid history. Stay out of it, keep a low profile, duck and hide. Be committed to life. History is just one long, tormented, agonized march to hell. Can’t they see it? Can’t they see they’re all part of the same death trip, no matter which side they’re on? History is madness, suffering and madness: we’re either conscripted into it or our allegiance is seduced and then betrayed. Stay out of it. Have the guts to say no to a noble cause. Be a history dodger. Everybody else is going to die.
You just want to be left alone, that’s all. But you know there’s no escape. There are no hills to hide in. There are no hills anymore. It’s just a matter of time. You pound the table now and then in wild-eyed defiance, but inwardly you crumpled long ago. You shuffle through one week after another. At twilight, seated by the window, you raise a haggard glare toward the fading light and pray.
Right up to the very end people will still be going through the motions. That’s what’s so incredible about it. Everything we do is unreal, everything is bullshit, madness and hell, yet nothing can break the spell that keeps it going. We’re all like mechanical dolls, busily puttering and scurrying around, completely absorbed in our own little worlds — and if we ever glance over our shoulders, hastily, vaguely startled, at the giant shadow of death looming bigger and darker on the horizon every day, we only return to those little private worlds, those dreamy, feverish pursuits, with a resolution even more urgent, an energetic absorption even more desperate, as if the only response to a horrible reality is an even more single-minded devotion to fantasy. You could also say that people become so totally overwhelmed by the pressure of survival, as the pace speeds up and conditions deteriorate, that they simply lose the ability to stand back and get an overview, they can’t break the grip of the details, they can’t stop running — not that it would make any difference anyway. At any rate, there’s no way to stop the pretense because there’s no way to stop the machine.
And all this, it should be quite clear, is no one’s fault. There’s no guilt and no responsibility. Everyone’s doing his or her level best. This is the way things happen at the end, that’s all. If people could do something about it, if we could act, it wouldn’t be the end!
Every now and then you think of someone you know as a person who is also, just like you, living at the time of the end, and you realize, as you must and with humble irony, that sharing this fate is now your deepest bond with other people, the new and final foundation of our common humanity. Take anyone you know, look at them from this point of view, and you see them as they really are.
Take a very simple example. Someone’s seated in a restaurant absorbed in the menu, trying to decide what he wants to eat for dinner that night. So many things look delicious! How to choose? He laughs helplessly and a bit self-consciously at his dilemma, aware of the disparity between the intentness of his approach and the triviality of the occasion, and, offering absurd suggestions and beginning to feel impatient, everyone jokes about his gluttony, his indecisiveness of character, his well-known history of vacillation and ambivalence. Finally he throws up his hands and plunges into a selection, the waiter wearily smiles, rolling his eyes, and the subject of discussion changes instantly. Everyone is animated.
Innocence. While all this was going on, you suddenly thought of the end and the word that came to mind was innocence. He finally decided on spaghetti and meatballs, his original enthusiasm before all the other dishes caught his eye, and he looked sad and preoccupied when everyone filed out.
Innocent. Therefore condemned. We eat, we drink, we screw, we sleep. We’re simple. We can only handle a small scene. A handful of people is all we’ll ever remember, a handful of people is all we’ll have time enough to love. A circle of friends, a family. One face, just one face, can overwhelm us! History, the immensity of history . . . it’s beyond us. It baffles us. Confused, suspicious, vaguely insulted, we refuse to budge, we just hold our own, with dignity. Everyone likes to eat out now and then.
But the thought goes further. In this smallness our strength resides. It’s our native ground. Our stronghold — for whatever that’s worth.
You look up at the sky. It’s going to split open and explode from horizon to horizon. We all glance speculatively up at the sky now, from time to time: not in actual fear, but because that’s where it will come from.
You go on trying to do things the right way even though there doesn’t seem to be any point in it anymore. Maybe it’s the instinct of good workmanship. Or maybe it’s because you know how terrible the alternative is: character rot. Your personality disintegrates and you become some kind of bum or degenerate. One of those people who smile confidently but plead with their eyes at the same time; you can’t tell whether they’re begging for help or hoping you won’t see through the facade — it’s probably both. A tremendous variety of human types flower at the end, all sorts of people, all sorts of improbable combinations. The end is a great stimulus to individuality.
But you have to go on trying, you have to keep the faith, even when everything seems futile. The end is a great challenge. We have to struggle to speak, to explain things, articulate ideas, when the whole world to which the words refer is about to be destroyed; we have to exhaust ourselves in endless haggling about right and wrong, in endless disputes that always become insane as the night wears on because the world in which the dispute takes place is itself insane; we have to throw ourselves into all sorts of endeavors haunted by the bitter sinking certainty that there’ll be something flawed or false in them every step of the way, something empty no matter how sincere our effort, because the substance has dropped out of life, because nothing is ever what it seems to be anymore. The end is a great challenge! It brings out the best in us!
So what if we become mutants after a holocaust? What’s a mutant, anyway? Maybe we’re mutants right now. Whatever adapts belongs there, that’s the way it works. If it’s alive and kicking, Good Luck to it. Good Luck, you funny-looking thing! Hang in there! Life is beautiful!
Listening to music now is no small thing. If there are any survivors interested in reminiscing about how it happened, they’ll certainly spend some time talking about the role of music at the end.
Think of it this way:
We can hear the same piece of music as many times as we want to, and each time it’s the same: each time is the same time. Each time we hear it, we escape from linear one-way time and enter into the eternal present of cosmic time, an eternal, continually repeatable now: we enter another world, a world outside of time, the timeless world of the music. Music, in other words, defies the end. Listening to music we escape from history, which is precisely what we long to do every minute of our lives.
No wonder we turn to music almost religiously! It’s a refuge and a consolation, beautiful, invulnerable, and untranslatable, within and without at once, at once nowhere and everywhere, as faithful to us as we are to it. Music is instantly aware of every secret huddling fretful and desolate in our souls; it speaks to our every mood and weather, even those of which we aren’t conscious; it offers itself fully and indiscriminately to everyone who approaches it with a pure heart, regardless of their past deeds. It calms our troubled devotion, uplifts our battered spirits, pacifies our bewildered weariness, and renews our will to live. It allows us to forget. We love it, we love those who write and perform it for us, we can’t imagine life without it. We stumble home from work, exhausted and tense, and head straight for the stereo. First things first.
And what does all this remind us of? You guessed it! Music is just like God! They must have something to do with Each Other!
You try to be aware of the subtle changes, the insidious, gradual transformations that go on unnoticed till all of a sudden one day you pause, look around yourself stunned, and realize you’ve been living in a dream — as if some huge vicious animal had been creeping up soundlessly behind you all along, inch by inch, waiting till it was close enough to pounce. You try, but life is very tricky; it’s hard to stay on top of things.
There’s nothing inside holding it all together. That’s the problem. Anything can happen. Anybody can do anything. No matter how crazy or far out it is, there’s always an argument to defend it. Always an excuse, a point of view, a new interpretation.
You try to stay on top of things, you try to protect your life. But there are snipers smirking in every tree, training their sights on you. Ambushes and impostors. Treachery. Who knows what your kids will drop on your lap tomorrow? Who knows what’s happening right this minute that’ll make you mutter a year from now, ruefully, “I wish I’d seen it coming”? You hunger for something sacred. Some changeless truth avowed by everyone, something clean and pure and shining and untouchable, everlasting, that isn’t even in the same world as all this shit. Another world completely. Something absolutely the opposite of this.
There’s nothing you can rely on here. That’s the trouble. There’s no foundation, nothing you can rely on.
Graduation ceremonies always make you think of the end. The irony of the word “commencement”! It’s too much. The feeling is most poignant, of course, if it’s an elementary school. All the bright shining faces, the girls flouncing around in their party dresses and the boys trying to sit still on the stage, everyone chattering, darting, breathless with secrets. No problem more urgent than stifling laughter. What obscene madness can have possessed us? What devil from hell? You fight back tears. All these little people, so bursting with life.
Life, life, life. A whole planet teeming with life. How did it ever happen? What’s it all for? From the individual point of view the aim is a completed life span: just live out the allotted span of life. But there’s a larger picture, we are told, a larger truth. What can that be? There’s just no way to know.
When you think about it now, with the so-called struggles of the Sixties so far behind you, when you really try to envision what might save us or emerge victorious from the wreckage, one thing, at least, is clear: it won’t be anything organized and goal-oriented. Forget that. It won’t be an organization or a party or a movement or any of that kind of crap. It won’t have a plan or a purpose or a program and it won’t think about means and ends. It won’t think at all, as a matter of fact. It won’t be future-oriented. All that stuff is where we die: it’s history. You can see that now. No regrets, but you can see that.
You’ve decided, instead, that the world will be saved by people who aren’t trying to save it. You’ve watched them in action. Now you smile when you’re alone, confident, detached, serene — although you never really feel alone anymore. You don’t hope, you don’t fear, you no longer worry about survival. You’ve seen something. There’s no way to describe it. Either you see it or you don’t. It’s everywhere, it’s everything, it’s invisible to the eye, and the thing that acts most like it is grass. Just plain old grass.
So what if we become mutants after a holocaust? What’s a mutant, anyway? Maybe we’re mutants right now. Whatever adapts belongs there, that’s the way it works. If it’s alive and kicking, Good Luck to it. Good Luck, you funny-looking thing! Hang in there! Life is beautiful!
How do the politicians become insane? How do they become the enemies of the human race? It’s really incredible when you think about it. Why doesn’t just one of them ever go sane in public, crack up under the pressure or actually plan it in advance, and start screaming the truth at a press conference, just one of them? Why hasn’t it happened? Are they really androids, plastic robots? Have they been drugged? By whom? Are they pre-selected and trained by some secret organization? How do they learn to smile and talk that way? It’s truly a miracle: a testimony to our limitless potentials. And that’s just the politicians. If you tried to imagine where the “military leaders’’ come from you could really go out of your mind! Those guys are not like us!
People come up with some pretty far-fetched ideas at the end. We are urged, for example, in response to the emptiness that invades our souls, to share our real feelings and express our emotions freely. Then we won’t feel lonely. We’re also urged to have fun — just do anything that makes you feel good, it doesn’t make any difference what it is. Be happy. Some people, on the other hand, prescribe hard work to reclaim our errant spirits from self-indulgence. Everyone has an answer. There’s no shortage of answers.
You smile: faintly, contemptuously, wearily, remotely. Answers. Emptiness. Childishness. You’ll just live your life out, that’s all. There are things that must be done regardless of circumstances. These are the things you’ll do.
Everything that happens now is a portent. Economic trends, protests, “scientific breakthroughs,” murders, election returns, nuclear and chemical developments, teenage styles, musical styles, the latest statistics, the latest bizarre stories, the Academy Awards, official announcements — everything points toward some kind of breakdown. Toward chaos. Every new piece of information jibes with all the others, every detail confirms the thesis, every event is new evidence. We nod with grim satisfaction. The universal premonition is validated without fail.
Strange to live in such times. Actually eerie. You wonder what it was like to live before all this happened, before it fell apart, when the world made sense and there was a scheme of things and everything had its proper place. Tragedies could befall us, and certainly did, there was evil, but nothing could threaten the foundation: that was impregnable. No matter what happened, people must have felt basically secure: the ground beneath their feet remained firm. They had confidence. That was probably the fundamental feeling. Confidence. Faith. Confidence in what, though? You can’t even imagine what they had confidence in! Order? Justice? God? Probably God.
If there’s a nuclear holocaust, what will be remembered? Who will be doing the remembering? In what kind of setting? Filthy men and women wrapped in scorched blankets, huddled over fires kindled from the debris of incomprehensible ruins, whispering, in desperate awe, the fearful explanations of their wild-eyed sages? Mutants, only approximately human, lisping the conjectures of approximately human brains? Who knows? Maybe the damage will be much more restricted. But if the self-consciousness of world civilization is annihilated with its technology, or drastically degraded, which seems likely, humanity, or its descendants, will probably only remember that there was once a terrible fiery calamity of some kind, a great Judgement or Day of Reckoning given as punishment for some cosmic transgression. It’ll become a myth. A myth about pride, a lesson in humility. Which is what it really is, of course. A lesson in humility. On the other hand, it might be remembered as the consequence of a sneak attack, long foreseen and feared, launched by the Russians — or the Americans or the Chinese, the communists or the bourgeoisie. That would be too bad. Wouldn’t it?
Maybe the cities ought to be destroyed. Did you ever think of that? Maybe they no longer advance the cause of life, if they ever did, and it’s time for them to be recalled. Removed, like tumors, from the face of the earth they disfigure. Maybe some great surgeon in the sky, a close friend of Mother Nature’s, is pulling on his rubber gloves right now and selecting the scalpel. It’s been argued that these things take care of themselves, you know: that the world strives for balance and harmony and that in the long run equilibrium is always restored. “Whatever goes against the Tao will not last long.”
Crazy talk. But with the ring of truth. Think of it: the cities are where history is made. And it’s history that’s coming to an end. History, cities, death. Death of all kinds. What do you go to the country for? What are you trying to get away from?
And as for the aftermath, maybe you saw the films taken by Japanese cameramen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No words can describe it. No philosophy, no spiritual posture, no human resource whatever, is equal to it. When the lights go on everyone is silent, in tears.
Sometimes you speculate that key people may rebel at the last minute, just flat out disobey orders, refuse to push the buttons that fire the missiles. You wonder about it. A spontaneous mutiny in the name of sanity: they just won’t be able to go through with it. Maybe, but don’t count on it. These people have been very carefully trained. “Programmed” would be more precise: they’re not really “people” as we ordinarily use the word. Anyway, you can be quite sure that this contingency has been foreseen and the appropriate safeguards incorporated into the system. They’re thorough, our friends in the “command centers.” They know about “the human factor.” They’ve studied it from every angle, with great sympathy. Even with compassion. Genuine compassion.
What you imagine when you think of the end is the wild flight from the cities. Millions of people scrambling to their cars in a frenzy of terror, hurling children and food into the back seats and leaping behind the wheel, millions of cars smashing into each other at intersections in the mad race for the freeways, fist fights at every telephone, knives and bullets at every gas station, the air filled with smoke, sirens, gunshots, and screams. The missiles are on their way.
This picture is printed on everyone’s mind. It doesn’t take very much imagination. And as for the aftermath, maybe you saw the films taken by Japanese cameramen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No words can describe it. No philosophy, no spiritual posture, no human resource whatever, is equal to it. When the lights go on everyone is silent, in tears.
You inhabit this reality. If you could think your way around it or above it or through it or out of it, you would — but you can’t. The mind stops right here, at the end. It makes perfect sense not to think about it.
You see it this way, you see it that way, you see it any way you want to see it, you don’t see it at all. It’s the end of the world.
I’m a good person, I’m a humanitarian person, I love the planet, I love people, I want everybody to be happy. I want peace. But this thing has gotten out of hand. . . . There’s just no way to fit it into my schedule. . . . Sure, sometimes I lie awake at night wondering what’s going to happen to the good old human race. I worry about it. So what? I fall asleep, I wake up in the morning, I go back to work. What else am I supposed to do? . . . I love it all. I love the whole thing, the whole planet and everything on it, especially the oceans, I love water, but I love it all really and if this is the end, well, it’s just the end. Right? Everything comes to an end. . . . I just can’t get into it. I mean, I just can’t get all that worked up about it. . . . I think about the children. Why should they have to die? They’re innocent. No future for them. It’s not fair. I don’t care so much about myself, I’ve lived a little, I’ve seen life, you know? But the kids should have a chance. I have kids. . . . Yeah, I know the world’s coming to an end. Who doesn’t? I just don’t have time to worry about that right now. I have my own problems to deal with. . . . It’s like Rome. It’s the fall of the Roman Empire all over again. History repeats itself. You never step into the same river twice. It’s a cycle. Over and over again. The same things. Here today, gone tomorrow. . . . Well, I think our President’s doing the best he can. We have to be strong to defend ourselves, and they have to know it. That’s the only way to preserve peace. I know it’s a terrible way, but it’s all we can do right now. . . . Sometimes I just wish the bombs would fall already, just get it all over with. . . . I’m just going to live my life out, that’s all. I’m going to hope for the best. It’s bigger than I am. . . . I just can’t bear to think about it. It’s too terrible, just too terrible. I cry when I think about it. I just cry. I lie in bed at night and cry. Sometimes even during the day, when I’m alone. . . . Well, I don’t know. I don’t know that there’s any point in getting so excited about it. Letting it interfere with your life. I mean, why? What are you going to do about it? . . . It’s a judgement, that’s all. It’s a judgement. You break the rules, you pay for it. You sow and you reap. It’s a law. . . . I never talk about it because it’s too emotional, you know? But sometimes I think maybe we should all talk about it. Maybe we could do something then. I don’t know. . . . I feel terrible. But what can I do? What can I do? Little me! . . . Sometimes I think, why did I have to live in this time? Why was I born in this time? I’m not meant to be here. . . . Sure, but what’s it got to do with me? What’s it got to do with me? What do you want from me? I’m nobody. Mister Nobody. . . . If it ever happens, you know, the missiles, the warheads, whatever they are, the holocaust and all that, I’m sure I’ll be totally terrified, just freak out completely. I’ll probably die of fear. But in a way it all seems so unreal. It just seems unreal. It’s hard to take it seriously. . . . I’ve heard about it, I know about it, now just leave me alone. What do you expect me to say? . . . I don’t think I can die. I know it sounds crazy, but I just know I won’t die completely. Some part of me will go on living. Nothing ever dies. My friends say I’m a mystic. . . . It makes me love everything even more. Isn’t that the way it should be? I mean I just love everything right now, I love life, I love people. I love New Orleans. If it’s going to be the end of the world we should love it while we have the chance. . . . I know everybody thinks about it. I just know, even though we never talk about it. It’s our shared secret. I can tell. I have insight. . . . I think we should go in there first. First strike. We can do it. They’re just holding back because of the Communists in government. Nobody wants to admit it, but it’s true. They can’t hide it anymore. People are beginning to open their eyes. . . . Once I asked my father if he ever thought about it. He looked away and mumbled something. I couldn’t catch it. I think he said sometimes. I never asked him again. My mother told me not to talk about it. . . . We don’t need those pesticides. We don’t need all those chemicals. Cancer, hydrogen bombs. Pollution. It’s sick. The whole world is sick. I don’t know how it happened. It’s money, really. Money’s behind it all. The almighty dollar. . . . I just hope it happens after I’m gone. I know that sounds terribly selfish, but I really feel that way. I don’t want to see it. I want to die with hope. . . . Oh, I don’t know. When you gotta go, you gotta go. Right? I live with it. It doesn’t stop me from enjoying life. I enjoy life right up to the hilt. And then some! . . . It was science. Too much science. Not enough humanity. . . . I think about my future. I plan for it. I don’t just give up and not work for anything because the world may come to an end. Nothing is without risk. I don’t throw in the towel. The world is beyond my control. I’m not. That’s my philosophy. . . . Oh, we deserve it. People are so stupid. If they’re going to do all these terrible things, they deserve what they get. . . . Well, what do you expect me to do about it? Walk right into Russia and tell them to throw all those bombs away? They’d shoot me on the spot! . . . You just look at it. Overpopulation, the military situation, all this violence, the hot spots, the economy, the build-up. Nuclear power. The hawks. Where else can it go? Right? Star wars. You can see it coming. It’s inevitable. . . . I used to dream about a good life. A good clean life, decent, you know what I mean? Neighbors, friends, everybody helping everybody else, a good environment for the kids. Forget it. . . . It’s greed. Everybody wants it all for themselves. Instead of sharing, working things out, they try to get it all. Me first, number one. So there’s tension. Everybody’s afraid. A cold war. Bigger bombs. Then one day, Bang! It’s all over. Just like the cave men. . . . Think of all this suicide. There’s much more of that than you think. Why? Because they have no hope. They see no future. They see no reason to go on living. . . . The pollution is slow, the nuclear war is fast. That’s the only difference. It’s all going the same way. . . . It makes me appreciate everything more. I see how precious everything is. Every moment. I wouldn’t have realized. I don’t take anything for granted now. I’m more open. . . . I’m ready for it. If it’s going to happen I’m going to be ready for it. That’s the way I live my life. Take it as it comes. . . . It’s just disgusting. It’s tragic. Sometimes I think it’s all a bad dream. I just refuse to admit it into my life. . . . Well, it’s one of those things that everybody knows about but we just can’t do anything about it. . . . Once I really looked it in the face. I can’t explain it. But I know there isn’t any end. It just isn’t the end. It’s something else. It’s just the way things are, that’s all. . . . It won’t be so bad. A lot of this is exaggerated. Everybody won’t die. We’ll rebuild. Like they did overseas after World War II. Now you go over there, you wouldn’t even know there was a war. . . . This was all predicted. It’s in the Bible. All you have to do is read the Bible. . . . I hate them. I hate the people who are doing this to us and to our children. To the environment. I don’t see why they’re allowed to live. They have no right to live. . . . I used to care but now I don’t. What’s the use? . . . How do you know who to believe? Everybody tells you something different. Everybody’s got a line. Interest groups, special interests. The war machine, the ecology people. The oil companies. Even the doctors lie. . . . If it happens, it’s God’s Will. We don’t have to understand it. It’s beyond us. . . . I still have hope. I’m one of the crazy idealists who still have hope. We’ll pull out of it. We always have. We still have free will. . . . We’ve abused the earth. We’ve abused Creation. Our societies have been irresponsible. We’ve lived by false values. Now it’s all coming back at us. . . . It’s a pretty messed-up world. I think about it a lot. I don’t have any easy answers. . . .Yeah, it’s my life! My one and only life! I want to live! . . . Once someone whispered to me in a bus that the world was coming to an end. I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what to say. But I never forgot her. I remember her face.
