[sjwalter]

Matt Taibi was on Joe Rogan a few days ago and during the interview Joe related a story about one of his Israeli friends. Joe went over to his friend's home for dinner, and hung out with his family, and the entire time the friend and his wife and kids were dancing and singing and celebrating, for no particular reason.

Joe asked why are you Israeli's so happy? The friend said that when you live in Israel, you live under the perpetual notion that a rocket strike will kill you at any moment. So you don't need a momento mori, you have death hanging over your head at every moment, so every moment is imbued with a heightened preciousness, so you engage happiness as much as possible, whenever possible.

I wish the modern, globally-homogenized mass culture that washes over us enjoyed this kind of apocalyptic thinking, rather than the dour, annoying "omg the ghgs!" crap we've got.