I remember another dream I had as a kid, where in this dream I apparently had to take a nap (or hide) in a dark, enclosed spot all afternoon, not to come out until evening. To be honest, I'm not sure why I had to be asleep or in hiding all afternoon. I recall having a twinge of fear that my life might be in danger if I dared go outside before sundown. I remember being impatient, waking up a couple times, only to learn that it wasn't evening yet. Finally, I woke up (still in the dream) in a car, looked outside, saw it was dusk, and checked the time. It was 5:30 PM. I was looking eastward, through the back of the car and at the road behind me.
The image above doesn't quite capture what I remember seeing in my dream. I envisioned an actual highway, with some of those streetlights that you see on Texas highways (I actually remember the detail, not sure why). This is a parking lot, and even if I were on a highway, it still wouldn't quite fit, because neighboring I-35 runs north-south, not east-west like in my dream. The time was also 4:40 PM... not that it matters, but I figured I'd throw it in to further show the difference between my dream 15-ish years ago and my reality today.
But, like my dream, I did spend this afternoon inside a dark room. I went to the Lakeville Theatre to watch 2012 ["http://www.whowillsurvive2012.com/"], a 2 PM showing, one that finished in time for me to get outside just past 4:30. I had done some reading and youtube video-watching in the past, and I decided I needed to see this movie to see what it predicted might happen. Last weekend, while killing time with a friend while waiting for other friends to show up, my friend and I briefly engaged in a conversation about this movie, about how some critic apparently deemed it the worst movie he'd ever seen. I'm not a movie critic, and I never will be, but this movie was about more than plot, effects, the technical works. It's about the end of the world, about how the very fabric of life as we know and understand it has the potential to crumble beneath our feet. We think of the ground as solid, we think of our institution of family and friends as solid, but the truth is everything gets lost in the pandemonium and fear. Granted, there are plenty of arguments supporting both sides of the issue, and one I will not engage in this post.
One lesson I learned from "2012," though, is humanity will be doomed if we can't figure out how to take care of each other. We've always had issues with favoritism, and of protecting our best and brightest (and richest, I might add) at the expense of the common people. If the apocalypse does indeed come, I fear we will still fail to take into account even the least of us, to ensure that they have a fair chance at survival. The argument of "life isn't fair" is there, and it's quite frankly a fair one, but one that must be thrown out in life-and-death situations, especially on a massive scale. If the events of December 21st, 2012 are as, well, catastrophic as the movie suggests, the only hope humanity has is a collective change of heart for the better. Time will tell.