It's Always the End of the World as We Know It

(NOTE: If you haven't seen through the end of Season 7, Part I of Doctor Who, it's possible you won't want to read this post. I think the quote I use isn't particularly spoilerish, but still.)


So, this is pretty random, but of course one nice way for any prophesier of doom to wriggle out of it when their predictions inevitably fail is to say that, well, it wasn't the end of the world as such, just the end of the world as we know it. As on most things (except dating), the Doctor has a bit of wisdom on that subject:

"I'm not running away. But this is one corner of one country in one continent on one planet that's a corner of a galaxy that's a corner of a universe that is forever growing and shrinking and creating and destroying and never remaining the same for a single millisecond. And there is so much, so much to see, Amy. Because it goes so fast. I'm not running away from things, I am running to them before they flare and fade forever."

That's how he describes his travels. The relevant bit is the part about how the universe is forever growing and shrinking and creating and destroying and never remaining the same for a single millisecond. At every point in time, at every "now," the universe is configured in a way that has never existed before, and will never exist again. It is, in other words, always the end of the world as we know it, because the world is changing all the time: even if just a little bit, it's always categorically different one moment to the next. That is, of course, tragic in many ways, and wonderful in many ways, and possibly couldn't be the one without the other. And it's far more interesting than the concept of doomsday which, on this planet at least, is not for another five billion-ish years.

Just a thought for a doomsday that isn't.