The guys commuting to Fort Mac for work in the tar sands often say they work in Mordor. It’s easy enough these days to see our times as those of the great mythic conflicts, whether one uses Tolkien’s Trilogy, the End Times of Revelations, the Norse Ragnarok, or simple western dualism (good/evil, black/white, stop/start) as the framework for one’s mythology.
However, not all civilizations see these great conflicts in the same way. Many – most indigenous belief systems and cultures, the Hindus, and even the Norse with their great doomsday battles – comprehend that re-creation comes out of the great destruction, in endless cycles. Whatever frame we use to organize our thoughts about the future, several things are clear. One is that we do not know, and will never know “how the story ends” because the great story goes on, like Earth, long past the moments of our fleeting lives. Another is that we all have roles – walk ons, bit parts, playwrights, stage hands, heroes and villains – in this endless drama. Some of us fight to save a special patch of forest or run a soup kitchen, others work to make the state more charitable to its citizens, yet others engage in the global struggles for justice or to loosen the grip of the oil-driven economy on our minds and rivers.
Let us all live our lives knowing we gave our share to the epic conflicts of our time, but let us remember that the story will go on and on, long after our own tiny roles are done.