Most people thought the most recent “Star Wars” film was so bad and poorly written that, in hindsight, the prequels were actually not as bad as everyone thought. I missed when the most dramatic thing happening on television was when they shot that gorilla.
Here’s a small list of all of the things that have happened in the first quarter of 2020: we have narrowly avoided war with Iran; Australian bush fires killed billions of wildlife; a deadly pandemic is ripping its way through the entire world; over 100 earthquakes occurred in Yellowstone National Park in the month of March, which is home to a gargantuan volcano that could threaten the entire world if it erupted; Krakatoa actually erupted; our choices for the next leader of our country are the same idiot we’ve had for four years and a man with dementia; a cloud of radiation was stirred up from a wildfire in Chernobyl and swept its way directly towards the Ukrainian capital.
Now, that’s a whole lot of really bad stuff in an incredibly short period of time. It really does beg the question of whether or not the world as we know it is ending.
The short answer is, of course, no. Of the list of things here, only two to three will affect people on a global scale. COVID-19 is looking to plunge us into an economic depression not seen since the 1930s, and on the extreme off chance Yellowstone erupts, there will be dire consequences for agriculture in the U.S. Everything else will likely not affect you in your day-to-day life. Even a new president just means corruption within a different administration. Nothing really changes there.
The main issue people are having with all this bad news is interpreting it as the end of the world. The world is not ending. It’s changing.
For better or for worse, the world around us is changing, and the biggest mistake we can make is to assume it will go back to normal. The hallmark of evolution has always been a species’ ability to adapt to change. If we as a people are not ready to adapt, then the world really will end.
As we all go home for the summer and stay cooped up to avoid killing grandma, we shouldn’t expect things to get worse or better. Be ready for it to be different.
