The Myth of the Great Ending

The Myth of the Great Ending

PROLOGUE

THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE WORLD

One day, after class, a student I’ll call Cathy approached me in the hallway, as I was preparing to make my exit down the stairwell.
“Professor,” she said tentatively, “do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“No, go right ahead,” I replied. “Shoot.”
Cathy was always the first to raise her hand in answer to a question, or to ask one of her own. She was bright, energetic—a quick study. I figured she wanted to know something about Plato, or perhaps she was worried about the upcoming midterm. But I figured wrong.
“What do you think of all this End of the World stuff? I mean, do you really think the world is going to end?” she asked.
I was stunned.
Cathy couldn’t have known that I had just resumed work on this book after a long hiatus. Nor could she have known that, in a recent e-mail to a friend, I confessed how strange it was that suddenly all sorts of individuals I was encountering in my everyday life were bringing up the subject of apocalypse. I’d joked to her that I was becoming some sort of “doom magnet.”
But I could tell from the look on Cathy’s face that, to her, the subject was no joke. She was serious—deadly serious. I knew that I had to choose my next words very carefully. I didn’t want her to think that I was belittling her or her concerns.
“No, I don’t think that the world is going to end,” I replied. “But why did you act as if you were afraid even to raise the question?”
“Well, it’s just that someone in my astronomy class asked the professor about all these apocalyptic prophesies, and he got real angry. His face turned red. He said there was absolutely nothing scientific in them and quickly changed the subject. But I wanted to know what you thought.”
“Since you’ve asked me a question, is it all right if I turn around and ask you something?” I replied. “If you really thought that the world were going to end, what would you do differently?”
Cathy paused, her face scrunched up in thought. “I think I’d just stay here in Brooklyn, with my family,” she answered.
“And if you didn’t believe that the world were about to end?”
“I’d transfer to another school—somewhere else, out of state, to finish my degree,” she stated firmly, without missing a beat. “Then I’d go to law school,” she added. “That’s what I really want to do: I want to become an attorney. But I don’t want to practice law. I want to go into politics. You know, make the world a better place, and all that. If it doesn’t sound too corny.”
“Not at all,” I replied. Raising my arm with hand outstretched, I gave my professorial imitation of a sacred benediction. “Then go and become a lawyer,” I intoned reassuringly. “Don’t worry. Do what you really want to do. Don’t act out of fear. The meaning of ‘the end of the world’—it’s not what you may think.”
A look of relief washed over Cathy’s face.

From The Myth Of The Great Ending by Joseph M. Felser, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2011 by Joseph M. Felser, Ph.D.