Did You Have a Good World When You Died?:
Here’s one final part of my methodology that has been critical to this project: I refuse to believe that the world is as boring and pointless as most “responsible” adults insist it’s supposed to be. But then, what do all these “responsible” adults do after they succeed in supplying for all their own and their families’ needs, but go watch a bunch of movies and football games and reality TV shows and sh*t to make their lives more interesting?!?!
I find it makes life so much simpler if I just cut out all the middle men and be the movie I want to watch. If you look at the Star Wars saga, or the Lord of the Rings trilogy, or just about any other movie, they’re all about the same thing: a hero, or a small group of heroes, who realize their world is in danger, who realize they have the ability to save it, and who realize that if they don’t, no one will.
The only reason people aren’t that heroic in real life is because they choose not to be. There’s plenty of danger to face in our world, but most “responsible” adults just sit around waiting for someone else to face it, saying it’s not their problem or their responsibility. Then there are all the groups of activists I’ve hooked up with in the final days of writing this book. All of them do whatever they can to make a difference in the world. Most of them wish they could do more. A few of them vow to do whatever it takes. “Whatever I could do” began with writing this book.
Well guess what. Frodo, Aragorn, Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo saved their respective worlds by doing whatever it took to save them. Obviously their worlds were different from ours, and “whatever it took” was different for them than it is for us. But the fact remains: In 500 years from now, if people make movies about people of today, those movies are going to be made about those of us who did whatever it took to make a difference in the world— not about the people who left it up to someone else.









