Merely???

Something has been bugging me for 43 years now. I feel it’s time to speak up, once and for all.

It’s 1979. I’m sitting in the movie theater with my buddies Jim and Joe watching Superman: The Movie for the first time. The movie has just started. Jor-El is arguing with the Kryptonian High Council, pressing the point that the planet is going to explode in less than a month.

And one of the council members says to him, “It isn’t that we question your data; the facts are undeniable. It’s your conclusions we find unsupportable.”

Jor-El replies, insistently, “This planet will explode within thirty days, if not sooner.”

And the council member says, “I tell you Krypton is merely shifting its orbit.”

Merely??? Merely???

Krypton is merely shifting its orbit? Well, that’s a comfort! That’s much better than the planet exploding!

I went out of my mind. Did she hear herself say that? Did she realize she was talking out loud?

If the planet explodes, the whole thing is over pretty quickly. Everybody dies, all life is extinguished, but it’s not exactly a lingering death.

If the planet is actually shifting its orbit, then the atmosphere goes to hell; the ecosphere goes to hell; the biosphere goes to hell; the geosphere goes to hell!

Everybody dies and all life is extinguished, but it’s very much a lingering death – it could take weeks, months, or years, and the cascading collapse of the planet would happen in phases, each more horrific than the last.

And that’s before we even consider that the amount of energy required to shift a planet’s orbit is greater than the energy released when it explodes. Didn’t anybody see the first scene of Melancholia?

The planet is merely shifting its orbit. The rivers are merely changing course. The 18-wheelers are merely taking a cross-country shortcut.

Closer to home, your house isn’t on fire; you’re merely being foreclosed on; your husband’s not dying; he merely has leprosy; your wife isn’t divorcing you; she’s merely sleeping with her meditation guru.

Whew!

Well. I feel much better now, having finally gotten that off my chest.