how do you envision the end of the world? (2009)

KATIE M.
AGE: 22
OCCUPATION: SERVER/ GRADUATE STUDENT
EDUCATION LEVEL: BACHELORS DEGREE, PURSUING M.A.

The format of this project was designed originally so that I wouldn’t have to come close to any sort of conclusions as to how I feel about the end of the world, let alone how I believe it will happen. However, in interviewing others and trying to circumvent my having to think actively about it I have found myself doing just the opposite. I cannot stop in at a coffee shop without surveying the clientele as I wait in line and in my head try to pinpoint how each individual would answer my initial question How do you envision the end of the world? Of course in my brain there is a very superficial judgment that comes from their appearance that leads me to believe how I think they would answer. This judgement is entirely false. As I have found that even my own mother, father, and brother, the three individuals that I have interviewed and know best blew me away with their answers. I can’t say entirely how I thought they would answer, but I sure as hell was not expecting the answers that I received.
Having a photograph of the interviewee is particularly important because it attaches the thoughts and ideas that are expressed in the interview to an image. Providing this visual I feel adds more weight to the answers.
The most interesting part of this entire process has been how open people are to talking about how they envision the world ending. No one ever got worked up while answering questions. Not one person was thrown off or depressed while searching their minds for answers to my questions. If the interviews had been recorded you could have voiced over two people comparing what is on their grocery list for the week—the interviewees spoke in an entirely normal tone while being asked about how they think the world will end.
End. End.
There is a quote that I had fallen in love with last summer while reading The Bloodstone Papers by Glen Duncan (Jenine, I have a hysterical story about running into him at a bookstore in London, where I reacted much in the same way as you did when David waltzed into the classroom). I hadn’t thought of it in months, and while I was posting the interviews it suddenly popped into my head, and find that it applies beautifully to how I view the apocalypse.

Every beginning is fraudulent,
every middle arbitrary,
every ending an illusion.
It’s the ending part that bothers me most.
These days I don’t even like the sound of the word.
Ending.