People often say it manages the seven F’s of survival for our species: our instincts or reflexes to feed, fight, flee, freeze, fawn, flock, or … mate.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory [italics mine].9

My current working metaphor for my nervous system is “the board of directors of Me, Incorporated.”

Zinn presents me with a different notion of victory and a different choice entirely. My real choice is between Team Cruelty (or Team Apathy or Team Selfishness or Team Indifference) and Team Wisdom, Courage, and Kindness.

What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music. —Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard

We feel this doom because we are awake, at least partially awake. The more we wake up, the worse we feel. It’s so tempting to fall back to sleep. No wonder certain politicians hate the idea of being “woke.”

The Rapture was the Plymouth Brethren’s gift to Christendom way back in the 1830s.

Life After Doom is for everyone who has reached a point where not facing their unpeaceful, uneasy, unwanted feelings about the future has become more draining than facing them. It’s for anyone who understands that we’ve entered a dangerous time and we need to prepare ourselves to face that danger with wisdom, courage, character, and compassion.

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. —Woody Allen2