08-18-2011, 07:44 PM
Quote:Anything one perceives as numinal or any ontologically distinct condition can and will be promoted as incipient indefinitely. And so we look to others (e.g. Q'uo, DW, Calleman) to re-contextualize and craft elaborate extenuations. Indeed, to make our reinterpretations of prognosticated events more any more acceptable, we must have a more and more ephemeral concept du jour on which to rely.
The idea with the convoluted statement was that people will continue to reach outside of themselves for that which can only be found in themselves. One way this is done is to project an allegorical idea into the future as something that is just on the horizon or just beginning to happen (indefinitely out of reach). Sure they will pick a date occasionally, but that date will be yet another beginning-to-happen date.
Times change, and the form of the questions change due to particular circumstances. But the need is the same. So the authorities that we tend to pick to 'provide answers' are those that can create a resonation with perceived circumstances (current events) and one's personal intuition. They seem to be able to bridge what should occur (playing off of hope or fear) with what is 'going on now'. But as circumstances change more rapidly, the demands placed on the authorities cause them to constantly re-interpret the prior bridges to satisfy the need to know. The 'extenuations' are an aspect of the re-interpretations of circumstances. The authorities go so far as to make their prior claims of what the near future holds embarrassingly inappropriate in retrospect (often matching popular sci-fi show, some natural disaster, or some govt statement), but people have short memories and as 3DM says want to be entertained or have escapism refueled.