I Feel Fine: Earworm

This is another song I have in my head all the time.



I wish that when people started banging on about the end of the world as we know it, they'd focus more on the "as we know it" part. It feels like tremendous changes are afoot, and it's not just because Turkey's insanity seems to be fraying at the edges. Or that America isn't doing much better, having vilified its liberal intellectual overlords to the point where a lot of people there are returning to the natural American state of Bible-thumping, bigotry, and willful ignorance. It's also the explosion of something huge in the Middle East, where ever that will lead. Or the technology that's helping it happen and which will surely change us and our progeny in ways no one can begin to predict.

And then there's the scary stuff, like one damned natural and unnatural disaster after another. Earthquakes. Earthquakes! Fuck! I totally refuse to watch the Japan disaster on TV. I can't wrap my head around the suffering, and I don't want to hear the Doomsday predictions. It takes a lot of effort to stop myself from thinking we're due for the big one here. And it doesn't help that last night I predicted the outcome of the Galatasaray-Fenerbahçe derby match to within 10 minutes of when the goals actually occurred. BE is still mad at me because he thinks I jinxed it. He thinks I jinxed it no matter what I do, though. I appear to be a jinx in matters of chance. Ever see that movie "The Cooler?" That could be my job.

Seriously, America. I'm so upset with you right now. People have really been watching that whack-job on a mainstream "news" station regularly preach Doomsday prophesies and assorted vitriol? And then accuse the Muslims of being extreme? America is making me sad and embarrassed again. How did this happen? Where I come from, Doomsday prophesies are fringe, along with aromatherapy and those weirdos you run into on the street who ask for a match as a lead-in to the "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior?" conversation.

Sometimes I hope for the end of the world just so we can see who was right all along. It would be pretty funny if it was The Flying Spaghetti Monster. It would be even funnier if it was the atheists. Then it would turn out not to be the end of the world at all. Just the end of the world as we know it. I lack religion's presumption that people are so super-special and that the world can't carry on without us. The world will be just fine, thank you very much.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure these are thrilling times we're living in, for better or worse. These are times the kids will be wanting to ask us about when we're old. It seems like everything people believe about everything is on the brink of a revolutionary shift.

Maybe I'm just being optimistic. But my heart is always a little bit in my throat lately, and every day I read something else that just blows my mind.

I feel fine.