After a long working day,David sat at his computer,with a big cup of tea,browsing the internet,..he found another site talking about the near end of the world,...he kept reading for about half an hour,...."damn,this one is strong",..he told himself.."but no way,..I will never go back to this kind of crazy ideas",...he moved his chair away from the computer and lit a cigarette,..he looked through the window with this kind of very far look,..during the last couple of years,you would often find David looking for more of this crazy stuff,..but this would not last for long,..he would quickly reminds himself with the advice he use to get from his friends,...he remembered his friend Tony telling him:"how can you imagine that this huge civilization can collapse completely in few months??..it is certainly too huge for that",..that was reasonable,..then he remembered Mark telling him:"no one can predict the future",..that was reasonable too,...he took a deep breath and went to get more tea,...he was back on the same seat after few minutes,but he was annoyed once more,...what his two friends said,still seem very reasonable,but how can they both be right?!! ...Mark told him that we can not know,...which means that if the collapse happens,it will come as a surprise,...but this means that it will not be gradual as Tony said !
he lit another cigarette,...he kept thinking and remembering different opinions which he heard from his friends,...he couldn't move from his chair for more than one hour,..then he told himself:"I am not a philosopher,..but I only know one thing for sure,..I won't let these ideas cripple my life".
David was not completely satisfied with his conclusion but it was hard for him to waste more of his time and effort on this kind of useless ideas,..he went back to his normal life,trying to forget all about this subject,...but after two weeks,while he was sitting in a nice garden,enjoying his weekend,he remembered the subject again,...he couldn't stop his mind from thinking about it,..he told himself:"it is more reasonable to accept Tony's idea,..this huge civilization can not just vanish in few months,if the collapse would happen,it has to take at least ten years,...so,it will be wiser to forget all about this subject and go on with my life as usual,...yes,..if the collapse of civilization has to happen,it will be very gradual,...it may even take 30 years,..it would be completely insane to bother myself with something that may or may not happen after 30 years",....he was satisfied with this conclusion for some minutes,..but then,another idea came to his mind,...he was trying to imagine how would life be like during these ten or 30 years,...he told himself:"it will probably be the same kind of life we always lived",but then he realized the problem,..if life continued in about the same manner for the ten years that means that the collapse will not happen gradually!!
"maybe life will change a little bit",he told him self,...but this didn't solve the problem,..it will only make the collapse a little bit less sudden,...."or maybe there will be some significant changes during these ten years",he told himself,...but then he realized:"if the collapse would happen in 10 years,then we have to lose 10% of our civilization every year",..this seemed reasonable enough for him,...but when he tried to imagine how life will be if civilization loses 10% in one year,...he found it a scary idea,..."well,I guess it is not ten years,..it will probably be 30,and we will have to lose only 3.3% of our civilization every year",...that seemed more acceptable,...but yet,it was depressing.
the idea put David in a bad mood for the next few weeks,...he began to feel really depressed,when he told himself one day:"if I didn't adopt a more optimistic point of view,this depressing feelings will cripple my life",..then he realized that this is not his own personal problem,this is probably how most people will feel when they realize this conclusive ideas about the collapse of civilization,...but if that was the case,this negative feeling would cripple others lives too,which will lead to a quicker collapse than he calculated,...his assumption of the 30 years was based upon a normal mental condition for most people,....but now,this does not seem to be very accurate,..but the real problem was that if he make a new assumption of a period of time less than 30 years,he will become more depressed,and so will be most people,and consequently he will have to shorten the period again! ...this was a real problem!!
"well,maybe I was still pessimistic after all,and we still have a full 100 years to go",David told himself,.."yes,..and we will only lose 1% of our civilization every year,...that would not be depressing,...it won't be even sad,...it will be..just..boring!!...damn!".
the end
he lit another cigarette,...he kept thinking and remembering different opinions which he heard from his friends,...he couldn't move from his chair for more than one hour,..then he told himself:"I am not a philosopher,..but I only know one thing for sure,..I won't let these ideas cripple my life".
David was not completely satisfied with his conclusion but it was hard for him to waste more of his time and effort on this kind of useless ideas,..he went back to his normal life,trying to forget all about this subject,...but after two weeks,while he was sitting in a nice garden,enjoying his weekend,he remembered the subject again,...he couldn't stop his mind from thinking about it,..he told himself:"it is more reasonable to accept Tony's idea,..this huge civilization can not just vanish in few months,if the collapse would happen,it has to take at least ten years,...so,it will be wiser to forget all about this subject and go on with my life as usual,...yes,..if the collapse of civilization has to happen,it will be very gradual,...it may even take 30 years,..it would be completely insane to bother myself with something that may or may not happen after 30 years",....he was satisfied with this conclusion for some minutes,..but then,another idea came to his mind,...he was trying to imagine how would life be like during these ten or 30 years,...he told himself:"it will probably be the same kind of life we always lived",but then he realized the problem,..if life continued in about the same manner for the ten years that means that the collapse will not happen gradually!!
"maybe life will change a little bit",he told him self,...but this didn't solve the problem,..it will only make the collapse a little bit less sudden,...."or maybe there will be some significant changes during these ten years",he told himself,...but then he realized:"if the collapse would happen in 10 years,then we have to lose 10% of our civilization every year",..this seemed reasonable enough for him,...but when he tried to imagine how life will be if civilization loses 10% in one year,...he found it a scary idea,..."well,I guess it is not ten years,..it will probably be 30,and we will have to lose only 3.3% of our civilization every year",...that seemed more acceptable,...but yet,it was depressing.
the idea put David in a bad mood for the next few weeks,...he began to feel really depressed,when he told himself one day:"if I didn't adopt a more optimistic point of view,this depressing feelings will cripple my life",..then he realized that this is not his own personal problem,this is probably how most people will feel when they realize this conclusive ideas about the collapse of civilization,...but if that was the case,this negative feeling would cripple others lives too,which will lead to a quicker collapse than he calculated,...his assumption of the 30 years was based upon a normal mental condition for most people,....but now,this does not seem to be very accurate,..but the real problem was that if he make a new assumption of a period of time less than 30 years,he will become more depressed,and so will be most people,and consequently he will have to shorten the period again! ...this was a real problem!!
"well,maybe I was still pessimistic after all,and we still have a full 100 years to go",David told himself,.."yes,..and we will only lose 1% of our civilization every year,...that would not be depressing,...it won't be even sad,...it will be..just..boring!!...damn!".
the end
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق