The Apocalypse and Me (Part 2)

In which a man explains to me why I like post-apocalyptic books and movies. (And why this is not like that at all.)

From "100 Skills for the End of the World as We Know It." (Includes many that are relevant to our current predicament.)

So, last time I wrote I confessed that I have slight prepper tendencies. This has served our family well—at least in the toilet paper and canned goods department—during this current disaster. (Although our TP situation is getting precarious) And, as I alluded, I also like to think I'd be well-prepared for the end of human civilization as we know it.

I've given the matter quite a lot of thought over the course of my adult life—which, I realized, is weird. But I've always (pre-coronavirus, that is) been drawn to post-apocalyptic stories. Novels, movies, TV shows. I'm not a doom and gloom person, and I can only take so much gratuitious violence and cruelty before I start feeling charred inside. But give me The Walking Dead (until I started feeling charred), The Road, The Bird Box, Children of Men, The Age of Miracles, etc...and I'll eat it up like a can of peaches foraged under cover of darkness from a desolate, long-abandoned grocery store.

I was talking about this with a friend of a friend at a party once a few years back, and he said to me, a little smugly, "You know why you like it?"

"No," I said. "Enlighten me." (I don't think I actually used these words, but I wished I had.)

"You like it," he said, "because it's simple."

He explained: In a post-apocalyptic scenario, all the complications and pressures of everyday life are stripped away. No juggling work and home, or commmuting or scheduling or running errands. No bills, no debt, no rent or mortgage to pay, no bank accounts, no smartphones or email or social media. No trying to stay in shape or keep your cholesterol levels low. No signing permission slips or paying for your kids' braces. No worrying about who's going to win the next election. What election? What braces? And who gives a crap about cholesterol?

All that matters in a post apocalyptic world is survival. Food, water, shelter, health, safety. That's it. (OK, that and also the occasional moral conundrum about what you're willing to do to survive and/or help your family survive. Would I shoot a cannibal point blank in the head? You bet your ass I would.)

I've thought about it a lot in the years since that conversation, and I think the guy's explanation is pretty spot-on. It's perversely intriguing to watch scenarios where survival alone matters, and to imagine yourself as one of the players. How would I fare if I had to rely on my wits and ingenuity and inner MacGyver / Mama Bear instincts to survive? (Um, not to brag or anything, but I think I'd do pretty well.)

But here's the thing...this pandemic we're all living through...it is not the apocalypse. It's more like a semi-apocalpyse. A halfassedolypes, if you will: A major global disaster that is causing a lot of death and despair, and decimating the economy and changing our lives a lot, but not completely. It is temporary, sort of. But we don't know when it will be over, or what will never go back to the way it was before. Some things haven't changed at all. Some have changed completely.

And it is anything—anything—but simple.

Yes, as in a good post-disaster movie, some of the hassles and stress of "normal" life have abated. There's less driving places and rushing around and juggling schedules and obligations. But in our family, at least, both adults are still working, the kids are still doing schoolwork, and we still have to keep up with bills and conference calls and shopping and housecleaning and trying to keep the kids to something of a routine. And then you throw in the generalized anxiety and uncertainty around when and how this thing is going to end, and how it may affect our livelihoods and our health, and the resultant brain fog that makes it way harder than usual to complete tasks, and it feels that much more unsettling and stressful. This goes triple, I know, for people who are in more economically and medically precarious circumstances than my family.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I wish it actually were the end of the world. I'll take this semi-normal existence over the complete breakdown of human civilization any day. But teetering on the edge like this, in this suspended, complex state of reality...God, but it's exhausting.

It almost makes me wish there were some zombies involved.

Almost.