Complex Numbers

Revisited: "Friend"

Well, it's Groundhog Day. Again. It's also Sunday, so we get to dredge up something from the murky depths of the past.

Before I spin the wheels of the timeship today, a brief personal update. You remember how I promised myself I would drink every day in January, because the concept of Dry January deeply offends me? Well, remarkably, I did it. I actually followed through on a (sort-of) resolution, and managed to down at least one serving of alcoholic beverage every single day. Sometimes this meant taking a shot before midnight and then another one just after, but that's still "every day."

It was harder than you might think, knowing me. I really don't drink every day, usually. Still, I feel boosted, poised, confident, because I actually did something I said I was going to do, powering through despite naysayers and my inner critic.

I'll never be able to do that again. Fulfill a commitment, I mean. I'm absolutely drinking again, after I take a couple days off.

Anyway, getting back to the past now. In September of 2021, I featured a Cracked article about an interesting historical figure: "Friend" 

The article it references is still available.   I haven't been sharing much from that source recently—certainly less than I used to—because it seems to have become more about promoting various TV shows than providing interesting articles. Whatever; it's bounced back from crap before. Like the elevator industry, it has its ups and downs.

As for the article itself, if "nonbinary doomsday prophet" doesn't hook you, nothing will.

I really wouldn't change much about what I said back then. The only thing that jumps out is when I wrote "No, no relation." That made perfect sense to me at the time, but I can see where it might have been confusing. I was referring to the name Jemima, and joking about the person being no relation to Aunt Jemima.

So I'll just comment on one quote from the article that I left out back then:

This good news was that the world would soon end. Which might sound like bad news to some people, but times were tough in the 18th century, before Bluetooth and deodorant, and many were happy to hear Jesus was about to destroy everything and spirit us away.

It has, of course, been a perennial American tradition for some doomsday prophet to come out of nowhere testifying for the end of days or whatever. It's happened again and again. Sometimes, it even happens outside of the US, but as with hamburgers and Black Friday, we do it more and better than anyone else.

And they keep getting followers for it. I'm sure lots of doomsday prophets have popped up and, for lack of charisma or maybe just being introverted, didn't get the cultists they needed to become famous. But again and again, we've been subjected to end-of-the-world prophecies, with some prophets even declaring the exact date and time of the Rapture (or whatever), which, as I understand things, should be grounds for God to zap them with a lightning bolt.

Or is that Zeus? I forget.

Anyway, the point is, for a country that claims to love freedom and individuality, some of us are remarkably susceptible to following prophets of the End Times. And not just the religious kind, either. Nothing like a good scientific doomsday story, like the imminent Yellowstone Supervolcano (not actually imminent), the certain destruction of the biosphere by climate change (not going to be sudden), or maybe the impending supernova of Betelgeuse (won't have a damaging effect).

But, face it, it's mostly the religious kind that gather minions and cause problems for everyone else. But sometimes we get great stories out of it.