The world is on the brink of massive change … again. The world is always on the precipice of annihilation or the dawning of a beautiful age. We’re always about to bequeath an apocalyptic horror to our children or inherit a glorious new epoch, if the pundits are to be believed.

The world is about to end soon but soon never comes. Soon never has come and it never will.

As always, there are the PODs (Prophets of Doom) and the POHs (Prophets of Hope) on their tannoys, preaching the end and the beginning of everything. From Nostradamus to Al Gore and onward, we hear the forecasters who got it wrong.

As always, there is the LOL (Legion of Light) fighting the DOD (Demons of Darkness), from the Cathars to the Knights Templar, French Revolution, Dutch Underground, and forward as the LOLs fight and preach against feudalism, capitalism, socialism, communism, fundamentalism and every other ism. The fight is never won for the ism just returns in another form as easily as a snake sheds his skin. Meanwhile, we drunkenly lurch against the lamp post of the latest LOL, not for illumination but for support.

We hope this latest LOL – and the next and the next – will release us from the DOD. We vainly hope they will pull our socks up but they won’t.

We need to pull our own socks up. No one else can or will do it. As the Grateful Dead sang in their song, Ripple:

All those who choose to lead must follow

And if you fail, you fail alone

But if you stay, then who’s to guide you?

If I knew the way, I would take you home.

No one can take us home. We must do that alone. No one else knows our way back home.

That sounds tough but there’s a cheerful thought: the world that was going to die a million deaths is still here. Still alive. We are not doomed. We are simply here staring at the world through glasses we designed.

It looks like what we want it to look like. It’s as bad or good as we wish it to be, as we wish to see it. It hasn’t changed in a billion years – there’s just as much goodness, rottenness, kindness, anger, depression, hope, happiness, greed and compassion as there ever was.

NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

NOTHING WILL CHANGE.

For example, Australian supermarkets have saved themselves $8 million by dispensing with plastic bags, to the tumultuous applause of environmentalists. Meanwhile, they use more plastic packaging than ever before by, for example, putting single lettuces in hard plastic containers. Previously, the lettuces were loose.

When we peer too closely, the details seem to change mercilessly but, when we stand back for a God-look, nothing changes.

The same with the world and with (in)humanity. Dictators have always come and gone. They’ll continue to do so.

Saints have always come and gone. They’ll continue to do so.

It’s an insane world and it will never be sane. How can it? Your version of sanity is not mine and it cannot satisfy everyone. The world has always been insane and it will always be so.

Amid that insanity is our greatest hope and opportunity for release. While THE world is insane, YOUR world can be as you wish it.

We can choose to step back from the world’s insanity, from its PODs and POHs, and elect to let it be that way. In giving up the fight we cannot win, we regain our sanity, hope and peace. In pulling up our own socks we can step into OUR world with boots as big as we want them.

As we still ourselves and pull back from the drama of others’ needs to be noticed, we can begin to notice our tiny Ripple, our original spark, begin to shimmer, move and rise as a wave.

It is our world – our sacred inner world – that we are meant to save. The transient world of doom and broken promises will continue its merry way, with or without you. Let it be and, from your stillness will be born the ripple, the memory of who you were meant to be, as the chorus of Ripple says:

Ripple on still water

Where there is no pebble tossed

Nor wind to blow

From the nothing will arise your ripple, your wave, untouched by the tide of inhumanity.