Frolicking into Armageddon
But not horny for the apocalypse
Not if, but when…
There have always been those who giddily embrace the idea that the end is nigh. This type of person is excited for the prophesied events of the books of Daniel, Isaiah, and Revelation to hurry up and fulfill. Partly this is because they are sure that following these terrible events they will get to see Christ return, finally be personally vindicated for believing the right things, and get rewarded with everlasting paradise. But partly it’s because (and the really honest ones will admit this to you) they yearn to see the wicked punished, yeeted into the fiery pits of hell, with all the tooth gnashing and whatnot. They fantasize that their particular enemies, personal and political, will be among those cast hellward, and that they will get to watch. That undercurrent exists today in pockets of Christianity as well as here on Substack. “Horny for the apocalypse” is how fellow Substackistani
put it in a recent Note. But it is not only this type that feels the impending doom.
None of us can know for sure, but it seems very likely that some kind of global event that could meet the modern definition of “apocalypse” is scratching at the door. One need only to take a look around to see that existential threats abound in our modern age like never before. And yes, some of them line up uncannily with future events described in prophecy. Which can be unsettling, especially when you realize there have been elite political agendas hiding for decades in plain sight, egging certain volatile situations on to hasten the coming of their own end-times interpretation. But whether we see existential threats as a near-inevitability based on the course of current events, or as a culmination of ancient prophecy, we can feel it looming. It’s in the air, on the airwaves. We feel it in our bones. We have even, in just the past decade, created a new word, “doomscrolling”, to describe this dread feeling that grips us whenever we observe the times on our devices of doom. It’s bringing out the eschatologist in all of us.
Putting aside religious prophecy for a moment, let’s think about what a global apocalypse could mean for humanity. What shapes could it take? How would things pan out, depending on the circumstances?
As a post-apocalyptic book and film enjoyer long before I was a budding eschatologist, I have had occasion to ponder these things. There are basically three categories of existential events—manmade, natural, and cosmic (which could include alien attacks as well as divine zappings into oblivion)—with the potential to wipe us off the face of the earth, or at least force us into a bottleneck situation in which civilization is lost and takes thousands of years to rebuild.
We’ll leave the cosmic sort out of the discussion, since aliens haven’t yet shown interest in attacking and God could just as easily use natural means to destroy earth. The manmade type of apocalypse seems to be forefront on people’s minds these days. Nuclear war, anthropogenic climate change, biowarfare, and the robo-pocalypse all fit into this category. But while we stew in anxiety over these future manmade catastrophes, it’s easy to forget that at any given time, regardless of what man does, a meteor could be hurtling through the galaxy on a collision course with our vulnerable little planet. Or one of our slumbering supervolcanoes could awaken and violently erupt, plunging us into the darkness of a volcanic winter. Either of these events, depending on the magnitude, could lead to mass extinctions. And there’s not much we can do to prevent them. Furthermore, we are overdue for one of these catastrophic natural disasters which periodically reset life on earth. It’s been a few hundred thousand years.
It’s really not a matter of if, but when. A natural cataclysm could catch us completely unawares, like the dinosaurs but with the ability to make apocalypse playlists on Spotify. We can work toward reducing the possibility of the manmade kind of cataclysm, but for some natural disasters, our hands are simply tied. And what then would be our fate?
The big cataclysm (when it comes), could play out in a number of ways. All devastating. But, each of them could still have a positive side, depending on how you look at it.
It’s natural/non-preventable. We all die a fiery death, but at least we’re all in it together.
It’s natural/non-preventable, but devastating more at the level of civilization than of life itself. Our civilization dies, taking a bunch of us out with the final flickering of its lights. The remainder start over with a clean slate.
It’s manmade. We could have prevented it but we didn’t. Many die. The remnant wise up and learn not to do that again. Moreover, they couldn’t even if they wanted to, because their technology has been cut off at the knees (at least for the next 6,000 years or so while civilization is rebuilt and memories fade.)
So what are we to do, knowing that as a species we are incredibly, ridiculously vulnerable to both random environmental occurrences and the malice/stupidity of our own sorry selves?
The folly of being prepared
Confession: I used to be a low-key prepper. Maybe it was my fascination with post-apocalyptic scenarios, or maybe it was the reality of the world in which I live. Maybe both. I never went super crazy with it like those grizzled guys on TV, but it was a hobby.
These days, I’m neither an accelerationist nor am I under the sway of that kind of prepper romanticism that has bros saying things like “I was made for a post-apocalyptic world.” I like to be prepared for a medium emergency: a month’s worth of dry goods, extra wood for the wood stove, a decent water purifier. My potato patch, which is always great because they are so nutritious, calorically dense, and easy to grow, and they don’t care if you harvest them on time. My trusty junk piles, strewn about my property in case I have need of a piece of wood or metal and there’s a riot at the Home Depot.
But the more I think about prepping beyond that, the less sense it makes. The great cataclysm (when it comes) won’t give a damn about your detailed logistical plans.
You’ve dug yourself an underground bunker: the ashfall from a supervolcanic eruption buries you alive.
An electromagnetic pulse takes out your solar panels.
You’ve saved up seeds to grow your own food through the post-apocalyptic years: nuclear wind turns the soil radioactive.
These aren’t just contrived examples I’m pulling out of my butt to convince folks not to prep. This is how life sometimes works, apocalypse or no. Just because nowadays it takes the form of getting in a car accident the day after you’ve purchased a new car, or finally paying off those credit cards only to encounter a medical emergency you’re now too broke to pay for, doesn’t mean that it’s solely a modern or pre-apocalyptic phenomenon.
It’s important to take reasonable measures to be responsible for yourself in an emergency situation so that you don’t become a burden on others, and hopefully will be able to help with solutions in your community. But too much prepping has diminishing returns. Diminishing of resources as well as of the person, the prepper. Ultimately, excessive preparation for whatever “end” you envision is a fear-based strategy to stave off the inevitable. It puts you in a state of constant low-level anxiety, which you try to compensate for by more worrying, more prepping. All that worry turns your hair gray and makes it harder to enjoy life and do whatever it is you came here to do, which probably was not to figure out ways to hide oatmeal packets from potential hungry, thieving neighbors. Can you by worrying add one single hour to your life? Yeah, me neither.
Apocalypse as revelation
And then there’s the other, more ancient definition of “apocalypse” to contend with: revelation.
The modern and ancient meanings interweave. Any crisis can function as a revelation, if we open our eyes to it. This is true of personal crises and it’s true of national crises and it’s true of global crises. Crisis shows us what went wrong, where we erred, and how to modify our paths going forward. Or, if it’s not a result of our error but just simply the universe doing its thing, even then crisis can reveal things: What is actually important. How powerless we are in the face of a rock hurtling through space. And yet how able we are, how sufficient, when we cede our pride and will to the Good, no matter what little time we have remaining. Crisis can reveal how to die gracefully (whether we are talking about physical death or just the death of the little ego), and that none of this is ours, really. Either way, a sufficiently painful crisis strips us of our old coping strategies—which were formulated in childishness or fear and no longer work in this exigency—and it forces us to tap into our deeper resources. A chasm opens up within us, full of the dark unknown, but at the bottom of it lies the true self. We meet ourselves in crisis, and if we open courageously in response to that inner opening, we may chance to meet God. We become a new creation.
In this way, we can consider all potential apocalyptic scenarios as divine revelators and birthers of new worlds. (Please don’t take that to mean I think we should have an end-times cult about it.)
Why frolic?
I made the comment below in response to Rajeev’s “horny for the apocalypse” note.
And then, for several days, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I felt that my explanation was glib. I deeply meant it, but the words didn’t quite encapsulate what I deeply meant. There was something hiding in this concept of frolicking about the doomscape that needed formulating and articulating. It needed a whole essay, I decided. I kept trying different ways to explain, but the point wasn’t quite congealing.
As often happens when I’m in a state of creative frustration, I was sent a sign.
I have this app that I use to compare different translations of whatever scripture I’m contemplating at the moment, and it sends me a daily Bible verse. Two days ago, I looked at the daily passage and it was about The Day That Cometh, which will burn like a furnace (or an oven, depending on your translation.) And it contained the word “frolic.”
“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty.
Malachi 4:1-3
On this same day I wrote my most recent prayer of the week, The Kindling Christ, about the heavenfire of love that blisters all falseness as it catches on. So we had a bit of a theme going. Fire and frolic. Frolicking into fire at the end of days.
Yesterday I gave some time to a meditation upon these verses, and it provided the gelatin I needed to finish this essay.
I’m not here to tell you, “Look! The Bible says you should frolic in the face of world-upending existential threats, so by God, frolic!” I strongly dislike when people use scripture to prove something is true because “the Bible tells me so.” It’s lazy, it’s circular, and, moreover, I believe God likes us to think more deeply than that.
First, let’s drop any preconceived notions we have about eschatology, scripture, God, Armageddon, or prophecy in general. And let’s ask ourselves: who are “the arrogant?” Who are the “evildoers?”
Well, to be precise, I’d say it’s pretty much all of us. Some of us exhibit more pride than others, some do more evil, but if we’re completely honest, we’ll admit that there’s an arrogant little self living inside of us, right next to the better self who tries to be humble and compassionate and noble and good. And sometimes that arrogant little self gets its way. Depending on where we are on the evildoer spectrum, the arrogant little self may get its way more or less often and as a result we may do more or less evil. But really, when it comes right down to it, the arrogant and the evildoers are just us.
The passage goes on to tell us that these arrogant folks and evildoers will be “stubble,” after being set ablaze. But those who “revere” (or “fear,” depending on your translation) “my name” will be soothed by the healing powers of a righteous sun.
A sun is basically fire, is it not? So this passage is describing the same thing happening—being exposed to fire—to both the evildoers and the good, but the experience of each group is different. The evildoers get turnt to stubble. The rest get to play in the meadow.
Now, this idea of a divine sun/fire that tickles the godly and tortures the naughty is not new. But I’m asking you to think about it slightly differently. That the whole apocalypse, the whole heaven/hell dichotomy, is taking place within each individual soul. Crisis, revelation, acute pain upon realizing our own error. Realizing that the evildoer is us. Is me. Then—or simultaneously, as it often happens—healing, regeneration, leaping for joy at being liberated from the arrogant and evildoing parts of ourselves and embraced into righteousness.
“Not a root or branch will remain to them.” A root is a cause, a branch is an effect. Are you following? The evil parts of us have causes, roots that tap deep into our psyches, parasitically feeding off our divine life in spirit. And they have effects, which are the arrogant or fearful or cruel thoughts, feelings, actions, and reactions we commit in lashing out at the world, at ourselves, at the other, at God. These effects boil over, flood out into the space between us, and create Bad Times. The Day That Cometh promises an end to that. Not by throwing all the baddies into a lake of hellfire because they didn’t believe the right theological propositions, but by exposing all of us equally to the same purifying heavenfire. Which looks like crisis.
“Those who revere/fear my name”—I generally take references to “my name” in scripture to be more about essence than appellation. And fear/revere means to emulate and embody. The part of us that emulates to embody the divine essence receives healing. Through this influx of healing rays, we are strengthened and empowered to “trample on the wicked,” meaning the lost, errant part of our own being at the soul level.
Guys. This isn’t just a prophecy to tell us how the world is going to end (I’m not saying it’s not that, just that it’s not only that.) This is an instruction for how to unite heaven with earth, spirit with matter. It’s how to begin to feel that heaven is within you and all around you. Accept the crisis. Feel the heat, succumb to it, receive your revelatory message, cooperate with the fire. And be reborn.
The thing about fire is that it’s catching. So if I catch on fire with divine love and allow that heat to mold me, I’ll probably spread it around. And so will you. In fact, that’s the whole plan. All the better if we’re frolicking when we do it.
Do not take any of this to mean that we shouldn’t pay attention to actual evil in the world, that we should cringe away from the unfolding of doomscripts, that we shouldn’t try to set things right on the global stage. I absolutely think it’s essential to not close our eyes to the tragedy, the suffering, the powermongering, warring, and cruelty that’s afoot. But I think that, understanding that this evil is not entirely external to us, but it’s something we each are called to attend to in our very selves, we can make a powerful perspective shift:
From resisting to accepting what is. Accepting doesn’t mean validating. It needn’t be right or good or wanted, but it just is. What we fear, by definition, is not. But by fearing and resisting we may make it so.
From right/wrong, victim/oppressor mentalities to an increasingly neutral state towards human conflict. Not weakness, not wishy-washiness, not apathy, but loving detachment. With this perspective shift, we are trying to approach divine neutrality in our attitudes. The kind of neutrality that causes its sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous.
From anxiety for the future to joy in the present. You don’t need much to attain joy in most moments. It’s not what we need that keeps us from experiencing joy; it’s what we have that we do not need. Unencumbered by worry and regret, joy is here now.
From control and blame to self-accountability. We can’t control what other people do, and we can’t control how other people see things. We can’t do this even with our mates, children, and closest friends, so how do we hope to accomplish it with our political opponents or the leaders of other nations? Staying within our locus of control is not just modern therapy advice, it’s the essence of spiritual development. When we stop trying to control people and situations to “solve” our problems, when we stop blaming others and look at how we have made our own bed, we get to work on real solutions.
A person only frolics when he has courage, when he trusts that he will come to no harm. I’m not saying that we should ignore the very real pain and oppression, abuses and sufferings in the world, or that we shouldn’t act to preserve and protect when and if the crucial moment comes for us personally. But I am suggesting that we can tap into that inner eternality, that spore of divine goodness that exists within each of us, and find a bit of lightheartedness to carry us through whatever awaits and to the other side. We can trust that even though we live in what seems like a crazy world, life is a gift from God. Being a gift from God, life is safe. Death comes for all mortal bodies, but the soul is inviolable. So by God, frolic.
The end isn’t nigh; it’s always here. This is what I’ve come to realize, even if mostly only intellectually. It’s less satisfying that having a luxury box overlooking the eternal damnation of those I despise, but I have to be satisfied with the knowledge that they are living in the cages of themselves. It is simply not my business whether or not they realize that.
I used to wish I were a better prepper, but I, too, see that there’s no point. If we succumb to thinking in static terms, we just get another stupid technocratic failure. My focus is on principles and dynamics; everyone wants the armageddon homestead, but the thing that’s going to save us is social networks. If I do a hard thing, that hard thing is going to be forcing myself to keep engaging with other people, even when I want to crawl into my cave.
With apologies to Thich Nhat Hahn,
Everyone wants to build a bunker.
No one wants to go make friends.
“This is an instruction for how to unite heaven with earth, spirit with matter. It’s how to begin to feel that heaven is within you and all around you. Accept the crisis. Feel the heat, succumb to it, receive your revelatory message, cooperate with the fire. And be reborn.”
Thanks for this. Your post today really speaks to me. It reminds me of Dostoyevsky when he says that the line between good and evil crosses through the middle of the human heart.(not the exact quote but I think you know what I mean)