Yesterday
several things happened that made me write this blog. First, I got a request to
write about the supposedly impending Doomsday by Bookchums.com, then my mother
in law of all people asked me if the world would indeed end on December the 21st.
Perhaps, having now written five novels about the end of the world as we know
it, they felt I had something to contribute to the hoopla about December 21,
2012. But then something happened that made me think about how they’re so
mistaken about the true nature of the Doomsday Clock humanity faces. A 20-year
old man shot dead twenty-seven people in the US, including twenty kids at their
school. As the father of a school-going child no older than many of the
victims, the incident really struck home for me.
What
this incident teaches us is that the Doomsday Clock that we face is not
something that runs according to some ancient Mayan calendar, which itself I
suspect has been magnified by Hollywood, media hype and self-serving prophets
of doom.
It’s
within each of us.
The
battle for survival we face is not against an impending zombie apocalypse,
arrival of aliens or meteors from space, but a battle to contain the evil that
lurks within the heart of each man. This battle will not be waged on a
media-hyped December 21st, but is waged, and won every single day.
Humanity will triumph over its Doomsday Clock when each of us can discover the
good and the love we are capable of, and keep the evil and hate that have been
our undoing throughout our history at bay. Doing that is a tougher battle than contending
with any horde of fictional zombies or aliens.
Today,
Doomsday came true for twenty innocent children, and with them, we all lost a
little bit in our battle against our collective Doomsday Clock. To the editor
who wanted the article (and to my mother in law), let’s focus on that inner battle
and forget about the hype of December 21.
