What if America Falls? So What?

I have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the Fall of America. It isn't a question of if, it's a question when. To most, the Fall of America is terrifying prospect, and most wouldn't want it to happen in their lifetime. I personally don't care. Sure, I've thought I would run, but to where? Canada? Mexico? India? China? Even if the collapse of America doesn't effect other countries, which it will, what about running will make it easier? Move into the woods? I would love to do that; you know, hunt and grow my own food, build a little hut, sit by a fire, and other romantic ideas about living in the wilderness. But the likelihood is I would die in about a year from some disease or another.

But really, what is wrong with being the guy who just wants to watch the world burn? I mean, if you didn't start the fire, what's wrong with watching it all burn? It's not like I'm praying for the Apocalypse, like some Evangelicals do.

Since I was in high school I have said to myself that I want to be awake and conscious when I die. I don't want to pass peacefully in my sleep, nor shot in the head; I want to know I'm dying. Why so morbid? you might ask. Well, you only get to die once, so might as well get to experience the only time you're going to die. I didn't have enough synaptic connects when I was born to remember it, and you're only born once. So I would like to know I'm dying.

Likewise, empires only fall every couple of centuries or so. What's wrong with wanting to see an empire fall? Supernovas don't happen often in our little corner of the galaxy, nor do they happen enough so we can see them without a telescope. The last one was 600 years ago. I would have loved to have seen that. But supernovas are the aftermath of a dying star, when the star runs out of nuclear fuel and blows off most of its mass in a giant explosion.

Seeing a supernova in our proximity without a telescope is rarer than the fall of an empire. Yes, I understand it will suck to live through the Fall of America, but what a rare experience that is, though not a heavily envied experience. I'm sure no one wants to go back in time and experience the Fall of the Roman Empire. But none the less, rare things are always valuable.

Let me clarify though that in no way do I welcome the end of empire. I welcome it about as much as seeing an asteroid hit the earth creating a mass extinction, and those are pretty rare (they happen about every 27 million years). But the rarity of such events make me want to hang around for them when they happen. All things have an ending, so if the ending comes, I just want to hang around just to see what it's like. But it does give me some comfort to know that this is the way things happen. Buildings burn. People die. Empires fall. Understanding the nature of things makes them less disturbing, and easier to embrace the inevitable ending of all things. We're supposed to lose the things we love, or how else would we appreciate them. You know that old saying, "You don't know what you have until it's gone." Well, when you think about, it sounds less like advice, and more like prophecy.

"Why should I lament the disappearance of my people? All things die."
~Chief Seattle