The Last Lecture

My dear friends, at this extraordinary time, we come together to share our thoughts as a community. These are days of upheaval and uncertainty, and it is akin to a last gasp of breath when one finds him- or her-self engulfed in the flames of history.

Over the centuries, humankind has collectively traversed a variety of troubling avenues, the huddled and snot-nosed masses blindly following its failed leaders through ill-begotten storms of misconduct, venality, and unrivaled greed.

Today, with so much of the world in disarray and many of our shipmates hastily (and quite sloppily, may I add) jumping ship, crying over spilt milk and the crumbling cookies of human avarice, we sit in the bleachers, eating popcorn, drinking soda, and laughing the laugh of the maniacally smug.

“We told you so!” we cry through our cardboard bullhorns.

“What did you expect?” reads the banner that we unfurl as the armies of forsaken CEOs, displaced workers, and bereft corporate automatons march by in loose formation on their way to God-Knows-Where.

The limits of power, corruption and lies have been discovered. The eternal power of Karma has most definitely come home to roost in a big way. and no Nobel prize winner or quantum physicist can convince us otherwise.

These are heady times for some, especially those who’ve seen the signs and already understood exactly where it was we were headed. But for others, for those sheep-like and trusting souls who dutifully jumped through the hoops set out for them like there was no tomorrow, it’s the end of the world. Like Michael Stipe once said, “it’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”

So why, you ask, is this the last lecture, the final missive we will deliver from this bully pulpit of irony? Well, my friends, those of us who needed to learn our lessons have indeed learned them well and summarily moved on. And for those who still cannot see the forest for the trees, I can only say, in those immortal words from the 20th century, good night and good luck.