Interview 16

Mason M.
Age:23
Occupation: Actor
Education Level: Bachelors Degree
Religious affiliation:

KM: How do you envision the end of the world?
MM: I see as a slow kind of decay, decay I guess would be the right word for it. There is this book I read by David Mitchell (Black Swan green). There is this kid in the book that is looking at these headstones and they are crumbling and he says 'even death dies' and it just got me thinking about you know everything that we created, and we think that we get rid of and in our daily lives is gone is very much still there. So I think it will just be this big 'world hoarders episode', you know, it will be too much.
KM: That's a really great image.
MM: Yeah, and then, where do you go from there? So maybe somewhat like in Wall-E, the big trash city. Maybe something like that, but maybe not quite so beautifully realized.
KM: Then it would be more of a culmination of our out of sight out of mind mentality, and that creeping up on us as the decay?
MM: Yes, people have talked about the end of the world for a long time, and it seems that some kind of blame is layed on one particular thing. The rise of man being the death of something, the rise of the technological man. Maybe it is a culmination of those things over time, rather than 'oh, one person fucked up'.
KM: Do you think that is something that you will see in your lifetime? Is this something that you feel that you are laying witness to right now?
MM: I think that it is happening. I don't necessarily think that it will be seen through in my lifetime. But I do think that I recycle, I do what I can, but still at the end of the day there is still this product, this something that I have used and however hard you try you still use it and its still there. I can't be perfect, nobody can be.
KM: There has been a lot of speculation in recent weeks following the events in Japan, tsunami and earthquake and nuclear meltdown, that has fueled a fire of an 'are we really on the brink?' sort of questioning. Do you think there is anything to be taken from what happened in Japan, or happened in Haiti last year? It seems to be one thing after another, could this be part of the culmination that you were speaking to?
MM: I remember people saying when that that tsunami hit in 2005, there were forest fires going on around then, and all of this stuff. No, I think it's that we have never been at a point where we can document so much, and the same goes recently. Every little thing is scrutinized. It might be heightened.
KM: Things like this have always happened its just the fact that we know about all of it now, so this has heightened peoples concern about what it might indicate or point towards?
MM: I think so, and even so, the world is older than it was. It is going to change. And I don't know if I would chalk it up to the end of the world. It's just wear and tear.
KM: So are you worried about 2012 at all?
MM: I am excited for it actually. Just because it is such a thing that has seeped into our minds. I remember going through Y2K, and it was just a big laugh afterwards. And I think most people probably think 2012 is a big laugh, but you know there is always that thing in the back of your mind going, 'oh shit, maybe they are right'.
KM: You were pretty young when Y2K happened, did you find yourself worried at all about what might happen?
MM: Not really. Nothing I ever recognized. I do remember though that my cousin and I snuck down in the basement, and the second the ball dropped we turned the breakers off and everyone was freaking out.
KM: That is phenomenal.