What's really fantastic about Betelgeus is the general ignorance of the situation- I mean every few months people panic about some kind of apocalyptic happening, from zombies to atoms, but this- according to my physics teacher- very real threat, is being utterly ignored. Because we're scared? Or just because people honestly don't care to know or attempt to comprehend?Maybe it's 'cos it's more fun saying the worlds going to end and then having a good laugh the next day at everyone who ran around saying goodbye to each other and flipping off the maths teacher. It's not so funny when everyone just dies. Sort of grim, actually.
The most incredible thing, of course, is that we don't know when it'll happen. I mean, even saying, hypothetically, that we did know whether or not the radiation Betelgeus' supernova emits would kill every living thing on the earth, we still wouldn't know when it would happen, because it's unlikely we'd be alive to see it. Bit of an anti climax really, if I'm absolutely honest. We all die, and then what? We get to see the big bang from heaven?? 'Yeah, thanks, it'd have been nice if I could've seen my death coming you know, just a thought....'
So, there's a possibility of an apocalypse, but none of us know when it's going to happen or if it's going to happen and we're doing something completely against our natures- no ones taking sides.I mean, I can hardly talk. My biggest problem at the moment is getting out of my biology detention cos I turned up late....on crutches... Yeah, apparently the attitude of being absurdly obnoxious is an art practiced my biology teacher in a Jesuit Catholic boarding school. Sounds about right.
I mean, it's a lot like my first GCSE exam. I know it's next week, and I'm faaairly certain that it's on Friday, and if I was to take a guess I'd say it could be in the morning. But I've got no idea what subject it's in. I know I should be panicking. I know I should be stressing and revising and going mad and putting all my excess teenage hormones into developing a bookish strand of OCD.
But I just can't take the threat seriously without knowing it fully. And there's such a thin line, between not taking something as a threat because you don't know it, and being overly paranoid because of a fear of the unknown. Which ones better? I'd say the first, considering the latter would turn us all into paranoid insomniacs theorising about doomsday in front of Glee series 2 whilst eating tacos and wondering why summers so cold this year. But maybe neither is better.
I mean, I'm not saying I'm a paranoid insomniac who dreams of the apocalypse and like musical tv shows and mexican junk food. But I am saying that it's probably not good that I don't know what my first exam is.
I suppose there's levels. Levels of fear, levels of knowledge, levels of priority... I figure I'm just scared to know what my first exam is, so I let myself drift in an ignorant bliss. (Well, I say drift. Hobble. On my stupid crutches....) But on the other hand, something like Betelgeus- or the fact that my pet hamster was actually killed by my brother's cat, but my Mum told me it ran away- maybe we should remain ignorant of that kind of thing.
We all know this (rubbish) about Adam and Eve and Prometheus and all those 'fools' who stole knowledge from the Gods, and I'm not saying we don't need to or shouldn't pursue knowledge. That's human nature. Curiosity killed the cat but the human being thrives off it. It's what gives us meaning in our lives- this pursuit of new sensations and ideas and ways to do things.
However, maybe it's possible that sometimes, just sometimes, we need to not know. We need to close our eyes and block our ears and just forget. It's probably not 'right' and it's probably not big or bold or self sacrificing. But it's human, too.
The best thing about the apocalypse is that even if it comes tomorrow, tomorrow will just be like any other day, with something eventful in the middle.
