Become Convinced of the World’s Impending End
ROGER-POL DROIT January 2001
Solo Activity
from 101 Expériences de Philosophie Quotidienne | Translated from French
The past and future ceaselessly accompany even the smallest and least significant of our everyday experiences. It is intrinsic to how we see the world yet intangible and unprovable.
Imagine, to the best of your ability, that the past has never happened. The world in its vast complexity and history has materialized in an instant out of nothing.
In twenty minuets it will disappear back into the nothingness it came from. No spectacular explosion, or terrific fire. Just a simple and spontaneous extinction, like that of a bubble bursting.
Observe this world, identical to the one familiar to you, but radically different. Believe that past and future beyond these twenty minuets is an illusion. You own past is an illusion.
Observe the growing sense of fear you feel as the twenty minuet mark approaches. Once you have safely crossed the temporal threshold the activity ends.