Nutjob Wordsmithing

     I'm thinking about Ragnarok. John Hodgman used this term all last year as we blithely headed toward the end of the world as prophesied by the Mayans. It's a fun malapropism given that Ragnarok is more about the Norse end of the world as it descends into chaos and nothingness, while the Mayans seemed to be predicting a big reset button. I should mention that my knowledge base of Norse mythology comes entirely from Marvel comics storylines involving Thor and that of the Mayans comes from my perusal of crazy people's Facebook posts. In other words, solid as a rock.
     But it seems like purveyors of this kind of philosophy all share something, and I don't mean that behind-the-eyes craziness that makes you let them go ahead of you in the line at the hardware store. These doom salesmen and women are all great muddlers of language. And why wouldn't they be? Language is the prism through which we try and translate the raw data that enters our brains (massive pile of metal hurtling along this flat strip making loud noise) into sense that makes the world coherent (don't cross the street yet). So I imagine that it's not hard to get caught up when a person is able to use language to sound like coherent sense when it's just nutty nonsense.
     Here's what I mean, and I'm just making this up:
     When you're looking for Truth, why do you trust your eyes? Your eyes can lie; they've lied to you before. You have to trust the immutable strings the universe has tied to the very fiber of your awareness. It's not mathematical or empirical in any way. When you leave the trappings of the old ways behind, you find that the answers have been dwelling in the corners of your subconscious all along, lonely, waiting for you to find them. They glow with a reality your soul recognizes because it is made of the same fabric. 
     Look, I know I'm not very good at that sort of thing, so I'm not expecting anyone to join my commune based in the deep worship of chocolate chip cookies, but I think I did a pretty good job of sounding like I said something. I didn't. Go ahead, read it again. Nope, nothing. I told you to "listen to the universe". How about that for saying nothing? Who couldn't find a way to agree with that sentiment? It's not that it's a bad idea, but it's the kind of "truth" that isn't owned by anyone. It allows the person reading or listening to make it into whatever they need it to be. When I wordsmith it like that, it sounds like I know something that you don't. If I was better at that, maybe I'd have a following.
     And the new wave conspiracy theorists are a bonanza for this sort of magical thinking. There's a certain kind of vocabulary that lends credibility to even the most insane of assertions. It's alluring and frightening. The prophet is selling hope and Truth, and the conspiracy theorist is selling fear and Truth. And some people seemed hard-wired to ignore the emptiness of the message.
     Beware the prophet with a thesaurus.