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The End of Time - "I don't want to go"

by Liv | Published on January 4th, 2010, 5:06 pm | Arts
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(Minor Spoiler Warning)
So last night in my five year old daughters room, cheerfully adorned with Barney purple walls, lovely flowers, and happy pink toys, I sat there on her bedside consoling her in my arms as she mourned the death of someone she loved. Some of you (and I can't believe I beat Sanj. to it,) may understand why she was crying. This post however is not about how David Tennant's character sacrifices himself while we look on and he says goodbye to all his friends while he knows he's dying. His last words.... "I don't want to Go." Needless to say we were all crying at the end of it. Davies (the writer), as always, is good at ripping your heart out. But as I said, this post isn't about 'Doctor Who', it's about The End of Time. Pay attention, the theme is everywhere. From the name of this final show, to a History Channel special I watched on the Mayan 2012 prophecy. I flip the channel and a commercial (though I do not recall which) says something with the exact phrase 'The end of Time", then the nun on the Christian channel is talking about it. It's everywhere!!! Like Isabel in Fools Rush In, "the signs are everywhere."

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”
-Richard Bach


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It definitely has gone beyond the 2012 thing. It's as if society has some internal meme- some sort of knock, knock, knock, knock that has been awakened in society and doomsday is upon on us. As rational as I am, I'll admit its creeping me out a bit, and not because my Christian friends see it as their apocalypse and their salvation. (Which consequently leaves me burning in Hell.) What happens if we do discover in the next year that everything is counting down to single event, a end of time phenomenon?

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Like tomorrow was a gift, and ya got eternity to think about what to do with it, what could you do with it, what did I do with it, what would I do with it? -Tim McGraw


I won't go into arguing why or why not anything is likely or unlikely, but it does bother me when I'm told we've only discovered 1% of the Mayan civilization, one which has had a bit disappearing act each time one of these "new ages" occur. Maybe it won't happen like that, maybe the poles reverse themselves, or a giant solar wave hits us? I'm not saying I'm going to worry about any of that, or change the way I live necessarily, but maybe I should? I mean the question is, for any of us... If you suddenly found out you were going to die, would you be ready to go? Or would you regret everything you haven't done? And if that's the question, and knowing that, why aren't we out there living the way we should if we knew we were going to die? More importantly isn't that exactly, how if our civilization ends, we will feel as well? If the end of time comes won't we regret the fact we didn't attempt to imagine the impossible, that we wasted to much of our lives as skeptics? Who are we to say we are right without some level self congratulatory pompousness? Do we simply say because the end is beyond our control then it matters not? Do we blindly give our faith over to our beliefs in a God or lack there of? Do we wait for science to be rewritten by a discovery that turns everything on it's head? Or does all of that come to late?

Carl Anheuser: Are you telling me the North Pole is now somewhere in Wisconsin?
Professor West: Actually that's the South Pole now.


end_of_time_part_1.jpg


So as my daughter sat there and cried screaming "I don't want the Doctor to die", and me and Shan telling her that "it's just fiction, & just a show"... we began crying again. The line between reality and fiction, at least in that moment didn't seem to exist. Humans try to be rational even when they're emotionally moved by something that isn't. Sometimes I wonder if we might miss an important warning sign of things to come because of our intellectual pride.... The next time you're sitting around listening to the radio, watching TV, or reading the newspaper take a listen and see if you hear the end of time coming... and if you do, let me know, because I don't want to go.
 
 
I saw the History Channel show. Strange they should be predicting the future. Loved the part about there being no Mayan Literature because the Christians burned it all.
A man living in a world where men are no longer necessary.
January 4th, 2010, 7:28 pm
User avatar
Fecund Stench
 
Sigh...

You said it a little while back. Disaster porn. What relationship can porn possibly have with reality?

With Christians, the porn value of Revelation is enduring. When I was living in Mizzippi, a good Christian friend of mine insisted on showing me "End of Days." He apparently expected me to be emotionally shattered by this Apocalypse porn, as I expect he was. I think he was rather disappointed when I told him that it was rather dull, with nowhere near enough humor in it.

You spend enough time looking at this stuff, it loses its intrest. The only thing that "creeps" me out about this rubbish is the number of people who are likely to sell their homes, take their families to some hilltop, and wait for God to come take them. One is too many, but there appear to be thousands. Depressing indeed.
January 4th, 2010, 9:24 pm
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SouthernFriedInfidel
 
Location: 5th circle of hell -- actually not very crowded at the moment.
All stupid ideas pass through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is ridiculed. Third, it is ridiculed
January 4th, 2010, 10:48 pm
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A Person
 
Location: Slightly west of the Great White North
Having recently watched "The End of Time" and today Ikiru Liv, similar thoughts have been with me. I've not wondered though if I'm missing anything mystic, but have thought maybe there are better things I could be doing with my life that might be a positive influence in the future when I'm gone. That is if there is a future. On the other hand, I sometimes think "why bother?" When I die, that will be the end of time for me. For all intents and purposes, from my point of view, the universe will have blinked out of existence. If it all imploded or exploded in fives minutes from now, we'd all still die alone. Cheers. I hope that makes you feel better. :twisted:
January 5th, 2010, 1:05 pm
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Nfidel
 
I know I am getting a warm, fuzzy feeling. :lol:

Seriously, though, I talked with my Dad about such matters during his last few months. He tended to feel depressed and say that he had wanted to leave the world a little better place than when he came on the scene, but appeared to have failed. Which is a really depressing thought, considering his first breaths were drawn in London, during the final months of World War I.

So I had to respond by threatening to show him my copy of "It's a Wonderful Life."

Really.. the man had been born in abject poverty, and was abandoned by his mother. He had lived through the Great War, and gone on to build a family of his own here in America, earn a decent life, support his wife thought her final years and now had two relatively prosperous children and a grandson studying to earn a PhD at one of the best schools in the land. When thinking about how you can "make the world a better place," you can't think globally -- unless you're crackin' Bill Gates. Think about how you affect the people around you, how you prepare your kids (if any) for THEIR lives.

If your concern is for your legacy -- something permanent you can keep in mind as a permanent reminder to others that you were here -- then we all have that to one degree or other. Myself, I feel pretty comfortable with what I have in that respect. There are things I still hope to do in life, but should that get taken away via a traffic accident or sudden illness, I think I'd be OK with it overall. Not that I'd have any choice in those events, but you know, FWIW.
:mrgreen:
January 5th, 2010, 1:23 pm
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SouthernFriedInfidel
 
Location: 5th circle of hell -- actually not very crowded at the moment.
Nfidel wrote:On the other hand, I sometimes think "why bother?" When I die, that will be the end of time for me


SFI answers that quite well. Our genes make us want to care for our children and the only way to do that is to try to make, if not a better world, then at least a part of it a better place for them. Unless you are convinced of an imminent rapture, in which case eat, drink and be merry - or pray, fast and abstain - whichever your god demands.
January 5th, 2010, 1:31 pm
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A Person
 
Location: Slightly west of the Great White North
Ha ha ha ...yeah, congrats! You beat me to it....


Honestly I thought the episodes were a bit messy. Oh and they seemed to have taken a "peter jackson lord of the rings 25 endings" angle which annoyed me... overall though, I was saddened to see the end of a great doctor. Both the doctor and donna 's dad did a fantastic job.....I really wish the writing had been better for the story. Tennants doctor deserved that at least.
"You can't put the civil rights of a minority up for a majority vote."
January 6th, 2010, 8:40 pm
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Sanjuro
Expert...on everything...
 
Sanjuro wrote:I really wish the writing had been better for the story. Tennants doctor deserved that at least.


I started to feel the same way during the first part (Xmas Special), but was very satisfied as a whole of the two pieces all together. I think he was careful not to lead in to the ending which we all knew ahead of time. It was appropriate misdirection, and a little bit of letting go to the normal confines of the character. I understand the reasons, and felt ultimately the piece was effective.

I'm very much looking forward to the return of Torchwood though where Davies mind can be let loose killing Jack in some sick and twisted way again.
January 10th, 2010, 2:08 pm
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Liv
I show you something fantastic and you find fault.
 
Location: Greensboro, NC

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