Last week, as I listened to what was hitting the fan on the other side of the world come spewing out of the radio on the desk in my windowless cubicle in Hell, I made a noise, evidently a really pitiful noise, a whimper or well heaved sigh. My coworker, who is a decent if unimaginative guy, said "Oh, Dr. O, it'll be OK." I, who am an indecent but imaginative guy, replied "Oh, no it won't. We're stupid and greedy, we're going to destroy civilization, and we're all going to die."
And I meant it. In that moment, I meant it. (Right now, as I'm writing this, I feel cautiously pessimistic.) My coworker began singing a hymn sotto voce, and then praying under his breath, as he sometimes does when I go off on a rant whilst listening to the news. Dr. Omed is always winning friends and influencing people this way.
As I reflected on this little exchange, I indeed experienced a clarifying moment, and in that moment I realized that I am ready to be issued my white robe, take up the standard sign that says "THE END IS NEAR," head for the nearest high traffic street corner, and become a living cartoon. (My stepdaughter suggested a sign inscribed "GOD IS A SOCK," but while that appealed to my inner absurdist, it's not nearly apocalyptic enough.) The clarified fact is that I believe, down to my hindbrain, that it's too late for the human race to save itself, from several fates most of the fat-headed arrogant hominids that comprise the citizenry of this country would consider worse than death, which works out because death is what a lot of them will get, a lot sooner than they think, when they bother to think, may the God I don't believe in fuck them all. I guess you could say I'm still a bit peeved about it. Jeremiads `R' Us.
A FLARF POEM COMPOSED FROM A GOOGLE OF "CLARIFYING MOMENT"
The war is a tragedy for its victims,
but it could also be a clarifying moment
if the world draws the proper lessons...
But if we are in a state
of perpetual self-development,
of endless becoming,
then perhaps there is never
a clean moment of arrival,
or a clarifying moment.
But in reality,
a clarifying moment
is unfolding.
The patriotic tensions
generated by war and recession
spawned a "rare clarifying moment"
or some other kind of turning point--
to no longer "manage calm"
but instead to become a revolutionary force
and to permit violence to become a clarifying moment
and its aftermath as a clarifying moment
taught a sharp lesson, to me, it was a clarifying moment
on the dishonesty of identity politics,
on the identity of dishonesty politics.
In a clarifying moment
of insight approaching epiphany,
I now see that we can't realize a clarifying moment
as a clarifying moment should be realized.
Dear Leader longs for a return of the clarifying moment.
Political compounds can cause turbidity
and reduce clarity in sparkling beverages.
When a Christian departs
from a gospel of love and forgiveness
to advocate murder,
his example provides
a clarifying moment
for anyone. You'd think.
A PICTURE WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS? "Please sir, may I have some more. "