I don't really argue the point, but Existentialism carries with it connotations that go beyond Percy's fairly simple point here. There is a whole philosophical and political system that can be inferred from Existentialism which I don't wish to go into here.
Beyond that, it's not relevant to what I'm proposing. We've been given a date -- arbitrary or otherwise -- for us to reflect and use as a jumping-off point for our lives. Much of what we encounter in life can be understood in terms of cyclical behavior, whether discussing weather or ocean tides or seasons. Monitoring the natural cycles was incredibly important to an agrarian civilization and always has been. So let's accept that date as the end of a cycle.
It's the end of the world on December 21, 2012. On the other hand, every minute of every day it's the end of the world for someone on this planet. There's no fundamental difference except that we make it so. Let's exercise that freedom. We all become ex-suicides the day after the calendar ends. If we take it seriously, every day after the end of the world is a gift. Let's treat our lives, and those of the people we love, like the gifts they are.
See you on December 22.
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