Learn English – What does ‘Point Omega’ mean? Is it becoming a popular English word

meaning

I found the word ‘Point Omega’ in the article of New York Times (February 17) titled “My life with boxes” written by Anne Biattie, the author of recent work “New Yorker stories,” who loves to collect free cardboard boxes to store her valuables and non-valuables including family albums, books, manuscripts, stained letters, a long ago invitation she couldn’t attend, underwear, socks, 15 nightgowns and so on:

There are actually more socks since last I looked, they’ve expanded
in the dresser drawers, and the family albums have apparently been
keeping pace with them: my parents’ (deceased; this makes everything
more difficult, of course) trip to St. Martin, with no photograph
showing their presence. It could be a Don DeLillo novel; it’s my own
“Point Omega.” I understand that what I have is the absence of that
presence I wish to have. Still: what monster could drop the album in
the garbage?

Thanks to her mention of Don DeLillo, I was able to locate where the word, ‘Point Omega’ came from, but I don’t know what it exactly means only from the following quote online as a clue:

If you reveal everything, bare every feeling, ask for understanding,
you lose something crucial to your sense of yourself. You need to know
things that others don't know. It's what no one knows about you that
allows you to know yourself.― Don DeLillo, Point Omega.

Does “Point Omega” mean the core of self-identity i.e., my being? What does it exactly mean?

Is it becoming as popular English word as 'big bang,' '1984' and 'big brother,' or a buzzword as being proudly used in a newspaper article?

Best Answer

Does “Point Omega” mean the core of self-identity i.e., my being? What doest it exactly mean?

I don't interpret it that way. My best interpretation in the context of the paragraph is that “Point Omega” refers to the stuff she has collected, ostensibly as a remembrance of time and people past, that is in the end recognized as being devoid of life or real meaning — absent of “the presence she wishes to have.” She realizes the collection is unfulfilling.

Dan and Kris have provided excellent links describing the allusion to the reversal of the Omega Point.

Is it becoming a popular English word, or buzz word as being proudly used in a newspaper article?

Certainly not, this is the first I've heard of that particular usage. I think more familiar usage of Omega would be the Alpha and Omega (the beginning and the end.) I suppose there would be those more educated than I who would immediately make the connection with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin or be familiar with Don DeLillo’s novel, but I think this expression is best characterized as obscure.

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