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From New
Republic (March 29, 1993)
by Douglas
Coupland
Not so long
ago, the millenium meant the Book of Revelation, pestilence, earthquakes
and rapture. For David Koresh it still may. But lack of faith hasn't stopped
other Americans from experiencing millennium frenzy. A brief exploration
of what people might mean when they talk so feverishly about the end of
the world.
When the
end of the world occurs ...
- There
will be an explosion of fun; all boredom will end
- I will
not have to live anymore trapped inside linear time; the concept of
infinity will cease to be frightening
- I will
be released from the daily grind of being myself
- There
will be great destruction; structures like skyscrapers and multinational
corporations will be destroyed. I will experience release because I
will no longer have to live and work among these structures that I had
no particular hand in creating anyway
- All secrets
about everything will be revealed and I will have endless fun learning
these secrets
- Animals
will perish along with humans and I will no longer have to feel guilty
that animals are somehow freer and purer than myself
- My dream
life and my real life will fuse
- Those
people I dislike and who disagreed with me will have their existences
erased forever
- The existence
of Something Large in which I can believe -- that Something of which
I am always on the brink of knowing but never quite do -- will be both
confirmed and revealed to me at last
- I will
be judged and found not to be a bad person
- Freeways
will experience many exciting and fiery car crashes
- All the
merchandise in the world will be mine for free except I will be so busy
enjoying myself watching the orgy-like spectacle of destruction that
I will not want any of it
- Just before
I become immaterial, my body will turn itself inside out and fall to
the ground and cook like cheap steak on a hibachi and I will be released
- There
will be much loud music
- All of
the trappings of this brief life will be found to be arbitrary and fleeting
- I will
meet celebrities and they will be forced to be my friend
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