CALL IT VALHALLA, Armageddon or the Rapture, there̢۪s nothing like a good end-of-world scenario. Nothing like it at all, and usually nothing afterwards, too.

Good thing it̢۪s coming up, because I can̢۪t wait to see how it all ends.

I think the apocalypse is a pretty fun conceit for movies and escapist literature. How better to enjoy a nuclear holocaust, or mankind̢۪s obliteration through a self-engineered epidemic?

Much better than seeing it person, anyway.

Every religion I can think of offhand has its own end times prophecy — even the Bible dictates the apocalypse.

The title varies on translation and is sometimes outright named “Apocalypse,� but ever since it was first prophesied, the end of the world has proven pretty popular.

Even Stephen King wrote his take on the Bible̢۪s Revelation. His version features not just a self-engineered epidemic that wipes out all mankind, but a nuclear explosion to boot.

And, because it̢۪s a Stephen King book, it melds powerful characterizations with a post-Freudian sexual analysis of most of the main characters.

His end of the world sounds like a Schwarzenegger action film — life as we know it hangs in the balance, with explosions. That’s the very reason I voted for him. Imagine it: his statewide heath care plan, but with explosions. Those hurt in the explosions would have health insurance, so it comes full circle.

Some people think the end of the world is coming up pretty soon — Dec. 23, 2012, and just in time for an election-year Christmas.
The date has nothing to do with a growingly secular holiday, or a grudgingly secular election — that’s just the next time the Mayan calendar has a long count starting up.

The Mayan long count, in varyingly disreputable circles, is believed to coordinate with various cataclysms in human prehistory, as featured in an end-of-the-world Mel Gibson movie not called “Mad Max.�

The end of the world is coming up soon, and though I realize it̢۪s probably coming up in our lifetime, I̢۪d rather wait until I̢۪m old and gray to find out how it all ends.

I don̢۪t know if we̢۪ll last that long if we keep our apathy. I̢۪m sorry, Fresno State students, I know apathy has always been our common rallying point, but we have to give it up sometime.

Start caring about something small — the Associated Students elections, for example, with three vacant races — and move on to something big — the coming apocalypse.

We all know some way the end of the world is going to get here.

Too many people, not enough resources to go around, and Soylent Green is made from people.

A conflagration in the Middle East that gets out of hand, causing a minor nuclear power to set off a bomb.

Maybe the United States annexes Canada, and the rest of the Commonwealth doesn̢۪t appreciate the gesture.
Who knows?

But unless we start caring about overpopulation, or the current Middle East conflagrations, or U.S.-Canada relations, how are we going to stave off the end of the world?

For all we know, the world religions were right about the obvious — the world is going to end, somehow — and wrong on matters of faith — there’ll be an afterlife once you die of radiation sickness.

After the world ends, there might not even be Nirvana — just oblivion.

Even if there is something to die for, your apathy isn̢۪t going to help you get to those golden fields of Elysium. Get off your lazy ass and do something worth living for.

A classmate probably put it best.

“Another bombing in Iraq? Does that say 183 dead? Oh, that’s too bad. I wonder how the stocks are doing.

“Oh, look at that — Halliburton’s up.�