“Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day.” — Cat Stevens
Usually the opening quote is only somewhat related. It stands as a humorous or ironic juxtaposition with the topic at hand. In this case, the author of those words serves as a good part of the story. See, Cat Stevens doesn’t really exist. Unlike many from his generation, he is still around and kicking, but he converted to Islam in 1977.
Obviously, a man’s faith is his own, but the tragedy for music fans is that the once popular singer shunned his own music. He recently returned to performing, but for years condemned his own work. That includes the beautiful song above.
There is something symbolic here about someone with so much talent and such joy shunning that which God gave him. I understand the mechanisms that create such a situation. There are often unsavory things that surround the things we love and could interrupt things to the point where we become something we can’t love.
One often wonders what those in Rome were thinking when things began spiraling towards oblivion. How cognizant were they of everything that fall would represent? Like with Stevens, a number of unsavory things were happening and the destruction of that society seemed to be positive in some sense. Yet, one can’t even calculate the amount of knowledge and light that left the world when the Romans left.
Those thoughts carry us to today. The destruction of our society feels imminent. Of course, imminent could mean any number of things. Are we talking within the next few years? Decade? Century? The view in the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield. We can see it happening, but the timing is not clear.
A friend wrote a piece for a site I frequent. The concept is hilarious. However, the implication is that people are becoming more and more susceptible to conspiracy theories. This particular one is fake, but you have to imagine that some people aren’t in on the joke. From there, you have to ask how many of these conspiracy theories are just a cruel joke that someone came up with.
There is a cruel irony to the world we live in. We have so much information at our fingertips and somehow we are collectively dumber than we used to be. People are generally more easily led. When you live in a fact free environment, the end of the world cannot be too far away. Did those Romans see the end of the Roman empire the end as life as they knew it? Did they see the spawn of the Dark Ages or did they simply think the barbarians would become the new Romans? If only we knew.
halloffameindex 