Saturday 26th May

To get back to the fascinating idea of paradigms…

I have recently discovered that one of my daughters is living, with her family, in the midst of a clump of Doomsdayers!  They lurk quietly in the foothills of Mt Wellington, leading industrious and worthy lives.  Lovely people, charming and good-looking, educated and intelligent.  They are not of the religious doomsdayer persuasion– I am not sure that they have settled on December 31st 2012, for example, as The End of the World As We Know it.  But they are quietly confident – maybe not the right word – that we are heading for hell in a handbasket.  A combination of global financial crisis and environmental catastrophe is soon to come crashing down upon our heads.

No point in getting a proper job, buying a house, having more babies… My poor family is just a teeny bit crushed by the weight of all of this, although they will probably benefit, when Doomsday comes, because their friends and neighbours are growing vegetables and storing seeds all around them in preparation for The End.

So what do I think??  Well…as I have already written, my role models are Pollyanna and Candide… I think the world is a wonderful and beautiful place, that we will overcome the financial crises (just number crunching, surely?)  And as for the environmental disaster…well from what I have seen of the world, most of it is unpopulated and unpolluted… And all will be well!