First year of the Apocalypse behind us

Life after the apocalypse
(or a scene from Fallout 3)

Here in North Carolina, we've all been wondering why it's so hot in December. Yesterday, it was unseasonably warm. Today, I woke up sweating, and had to turn my window AC unit on, a first for the last 60 days, if not 90. A few weeks ago it got just under 20ºF. Today, it was hot. Nobody really knows why. Jokes abound on the social networks about how the South refuses to participate in winter. Others cite political issues as sin, e.g. some deity is punishing us.

Then I realized, the world ended a year ago today... or some madmen would have us believe. Sure, there was that looney preacher a couple years ago who told everyone the world would end in April or May... then he was sure it was October or November. Because of leap year, you know. The 12th or the 21st of December 2012, depending on who you asked, was supposed to be the apocalypse. And people had been saying it for years. When my mother was a kid in the 1920s (just kidding—early '60s) they were talking about 2012 as the end of days. I recall thinking about it when I was 15. I did the math and said, "Who cares? I'll be 34 when it happens. 19 years to enjoy life." The 12th came and went, and  then the 21st.

Optimism, Pessimism, or Realism?

I've been Dark Reality for over 21 years now. The name is obviously pessimistic, but the story is far more interesting. Basically, I wanted a pen name, as an aspiring writer (author Dean Koontz has several), and I thought, why use the name of a person? Koontz used a woman's name on more than one occasion. But I wanted more than a name—I wanted something that sounded like a rock band, because I wanted to write cool shit. And though I've since had movies, a band, and songs named after me (or rather, my web handle/screen name), I haven't got a thing to do with any of them. Anyway, since getting married over 7 years ago, I've learned to look on the bright side. In the past week, I've been spouting some downright philosophical shit, so rather than simply put them on Facebook to sink into the ether of the unknown, I figured I'd publish some of it up here.

Now this next bit, for some context, someone on Google+ was asking why, after centuries of evolution and advances in both science and enlightenment, people are still dicks to each other. (The word used was actually 'insensitive.')