Last time I reminded myself of the occurrence from childhood connected with Tadeusz Konwicki’s novel “A Minor Apocalypse.”
In primary school, we were to present a vision of the apocalypse. We were supposed to answer one question. What was the task? We had to write whether the end of the world will look more like the biblical one, as the general destruction of all humanity. On the other hand, whether the death of each individual is a minor apocalypse for each existence. To clarify, the second version was inspired by a school reading of Konwicki’s book, “A Minor Apocalypse.”
I remember that I wrote that the apocalypse would be a global disaster, similar to the biblical one.
In short, war, hunger, conflagration, and death will come, and everything will be burnt, flooded, killed, and destroyed. Today I would write differently. It seems to me that every dying person experiences a personal, minor apocalypse. I believe that it is entirely reasonable that in some cases, people change their minds and attitude, towards many topics, within their lives. A biblical version of apocalypse seems to be a marvelous scenario for a Hollywood, catastrophic movie. It is quite tempting for artists to visualize how the world would become destroyed.
Moreover, it is tempting to imagine what would remain after the end of human civilization. I do not know whether such a scenario will ever occur. I am not a clairvoyant.
Nevertheless, like all other people, someday I will die. Undoubtedly, the experience of life-ending is one of the saddest things that people can ever imagine.
For each human, it’s own death becomes an intimate, quiet, minor apocalypse. I truly recommend reading Tadeusz Konwicki’s novel. It is a sad story. Nevertheless, it is worth it to analyze this masterpiece. By the way, I would like to greet all the people from my primary school. We spent together lucky time. For me, it was a real pleasure to meet all of you.
