It’s The End of the World As We Know it…

…and I’m feeling a bit queasy.

So, I’m driving into work the other day (bad for the environment, good for mental health) and I’m flipping around the am dial. I ought to be listening to music but I feel oddly compelled by these troubling times to absorb news and commentary, both economic and political. (Kind of like Richard Dreyfuss building "Devils Tower" out of mashed potatoes in Close Encounters but not quite that obsessive.) Like a rubbernecker on the highway I am drawn to the wreckage of our economy and its unforeseen impacts on the fabric of our existence. And somewhere near Kearny NJ it hit me. Viscerally. The world as we know it is over.

Of course there will be a recovery (as everything economic is cyclical) but things will never be the same. The foundations of system are changing, our trust in government and regulatory institutions is shaken beyond repair and our standing in the international community is undergoing a seismic shift. Holy crap, tomorrow might a brand new day, but unlike the past couple of decades it will not necessarily be a continuation of yesterday. Things are changing at breakneck speed and the rules by which we govern ourselves are being rewritten in the middle of the game.

It isn’t everyday that you get to experience a feeling like this and it’s quite unnerving. It dawns on you that the things you firmly believed in just aren’t true anymore. It wouldn’t have been any less disturbing to watch everything around me start floating into the sky and realizing that gravity didn’t exist. It truly is the end of the world as we knew it.

Now, ‘end of the world’ is a loaded phrase. 2012 has been predicted as the end of the world by the Mayan, Hopi and Nostradamus. Evangelicals (who have been wrong before) are calling it the beginning of the Apocalypse. Is it “THE END”, like OMG! Or simply the turning of the wheel to a new age? I don’t know. I’m not even prepared to say that this brave new world is necessarily going to be worse than the previous one, but I know now it is going to be different. It’ll be so different that we are going to have to change our basic understanding of the world, our roles and the keys to success for ourselves and our children. It’s daunting, but the task starts with awareness and my eyes have been opened.