[tribulation] optimism, wal-mart and other goodies

An Albert Durex pic, coming to your part of the world or not

There's a notion in many people's minds that there is a coming Tribulation and better not to debate that in this post. Rather, I'd like to look at the mental set of different people in reaction to it because it says a lot about character.

Basically, those who believe in the idea fall into three camps - that the Lord will come before the great persecution/torture, pluck the believers up our of harm's way and that this is the reward for faith.

There are those who believe that a certain amount of discomfort will take place first and then there are the others who feel that they will go through a living hell first, persecuted and tortured for their faith and only then will they be plucked out of the final conflagration.

This latter idea is difficult for anyone to wrap his mind round who is also of the opinion that one can take a tablet and fat will miraculously leave the body or that when you go to the forest for a picnic, you take your comfort zone along with you in the form of a mobile home on wheels.

I'm afraid I don't believe in the comfort zone and just as with Jesus the Carpenter's Son, there is no timely airlift from unpleasantness. I believe the unpleasantness indeed comes and what your faith has bought you is the means to cope. It seems more in line with history and the story of the Cross to accept this latter idea.

It seems more like a Walmart employment contract to me. We'll take you on as long as you offer up your soul and believe in the company ethos and its ability to prevail. In return we guarantee you protection, benefits, childcare and so on. We'll get you out of tight fixes and provide a social network for you to enjoy, linked with fellow Walmarters worldwide.

Sometimes, as part of your training, the protective umbrella is pulled back because Walmart would like to see how you perform under stress, how strong your belief in the brand truly is. So as long as you follow the Walmart way, they'll do their bit and look after you - you could almost call that the comfort zone, where things seem to fall into place, except that sooner or later another training session has to come along, in order for your to advance to the next level.

So what if you don't believe any of the above and feel we're on our little own-some and that no one's coming to the rescue? That there is no fairy godmother? Well, for you, the issue now becomes where you place yourself along the optimism/realism continuum. I'll only get your backs up if I try to intimate that it's an illusion that humans can cope as islands - so I shan't say that.

Rather, I'll say that mental set becomes a huge factor. As a Brit who basically believes in forming an orderly queue of one at a bus stop and paying his taxes, my current woes can be daunting and it's easy to resign oneself to one's fate, trusting in the process to see one through and abiding by the law.

There is an entirely other point of view which thrives on chaos, sees everything as negotiable and seeks lateral solutions, which either gets you nicely out of trouble for the nonce or else lands you in heaps more. I call this the Alan Bond or Nick Leeson mentality. This latter requires nerve, a certain ability to see the overview and it takes a certain arrogance in one's ability to pull it off.

Society admires such people but does that make them right?

Plus there is one other factor which I call the Thomas Wilson syndrome. What seems a lively course of action in one's early 30s does not take into account what happens in later years and which Somerset Maugham alluded to - the lack of resolve which the years bring, the lessening ability to cope with both change and its consequences, the lessening ability to live on one's wits.

There must come a point where one can no longer show steely resolve and attempt outrageous solutions and yet such is what might be the only way to survive. It's a nice dilemma for the ageing cavalier.