It could just be my current state of mind at the moment, but I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the apocalypse.
Did you know that it would only take one major solar flare to completely take out every computer in the world? Every single computer. A giant electromagnetic wave frying every microchip on the planet. That’s banks, governments, hospitals, police stations, even my macBook damnit. And if all the computers went, the rest of the world would follow in a matter of days. Hours even. Just think how badly we handle something as piddly as a couple of inches of snow. As MI5 say: civilisation is only four meals away from anarchy.
Actually, I don’t know if a solar flare would do that. But it sounds about right doesn’t it. And even if not – there are plenty of other ways civilisation could come crashing down around our ears. For all our illusions of stability, both society and the environment are fragile beasts.
Ever since we had kids I’ve been unable to watch post-apocalyptic films or TV shows. It’s a genre I used to love, but these days all it does is fill me with unease. What would happen to Evan and Amy should everything break down? Would I be able to protect them? What would we eat? Would it be best if we all died in the initial onslaught?
Last year Kerry and her parents took the kids to Spain to visit relatives. All the time they were away I had a niggling dread in the pit of my stomach. What if something happened to them? What if something happened to the whole world? I wouldn’t be able to get to them.
Is it just me who worries about this stuff? Did I read Day of the Triffids and Brother in the Land too many times when I was a kid? I don’t know. But this stuff really does worry me.
Yet I’ve done nothing about it. I keep thinking that it would be sensible to put together a small store of canned food and water. Plus candles, matches, a can of petrol and all that sort of stuff. I know it’s paranoid – but it wouldn’t cost that much for a couple of dozen cans of beans and a few tins of spam.
But then again, what good would that actually do? Would it just prolong the inevitable?
You know what, I really should try and stop thinking about stuff like this.
Don’t think about it too much, it’ll take the joy out of living.
You can get official ‘disaster-packs’ overhere. I’m not sure what they are called again, but that’s what it comes down to. We (as kids) got one each on Sinterklaas. I intend to put more useful stuff in it like a knife, wire, ducttape etc.
Arjan´s last blog ..Micmacs à tire la larigot
@Arjan, The problem is, now that I have thought about I know that I’d be devastated if it happened and I didn’t do anything to prepare for it.
Did everyone in the country get a disaster pack on Sinterklaas, or was it a specific gift to you from someone?
@Dan, just a gift from my parents to ‘the kids’ . Not a government gift. There are official packs though, they’ve been making commercials about those for a while now.
No need to worry, just make sure you befriend director James Cameron or Roland Emmerich and be the one family that beat the odds to escape disaster and find nirvana . . . What’s to worry about?
Tara@Sticky Fingers´s last blog ..Friends
@Tara@Sticky Fingers, true – and I needn’t worry about my kids dying, as they never do (unless they happen to wander off camera that is)
I bring the same idea down to a personal level, one bang on the head and I’d forget my PIN numbers and passwords and my entire life would be locked away behind some virtual door.
And as for the kids & movies thing, I get it sort of, I can’t stomach some movies now that I would have lapped up before.
Martin´s last blog ..Spring clean
@Martin, Kerry knows all my pins and passwords, so I’m safe.
Unless she decides to change them without telling me of course
Not just you mate.
I have vivid breath stopping dreams, and those sorts of movies – however ridiculous – do, in part, conjure similar feelings. Some scenes in Deep Impact, the ones of the astronauts saying goodbye to their loved ones on Earth, and then when daughter and father are about to be consumed by the tidal wave, I’ve imagined myself, and the boy, in those situations.
I do still watch them though.
SingleParentDad´s last blog ..Top ten festive festivities
@SingleParentDad, I get no enjoyment out of them any more, so completely avoid them.
Yes you think too much – I mean you could go to bed tonight and get hit by a meteorite or run over by an ambulance on the way to work tomorrow! No need to worry about major disasters!!
You know I’ve always thought that it would be the best way to get run over. Now I’m thinking too much!
As the man used to say after telling you to unplug the telly so you dont set the house on fire “Sleep Well” hahahaha!
Gail´s last blog ..An Entertaining Evening
@Gail, I don’t mind ME dying. I mind my children’s futures being wrecked in one foul swoop.
Ehm for what it’s worth it’s better than lying awake worrying about whether your boss thinks you’re rubbish at your job, whether your daughter is the best ballet dancer in the school or whether you should have a diet or normal coke with your lunch tomorrow. These, my friend, are insignificant, nonsensical (well to me anyway) concerns.
But the apocalypse…that is serious. What? This isn’t making you feel better?…..
Kelly Railton´s last blog ..Bipolar for Dummies
@Kelly Railton, I worry about those things too. Well not the coke one – diet tastes better anyhow.
No it’s not just you Dan, but I try not to think about it too much. Everytime my girls go off in their Dad’s car I’m worrying about him driving too fast and taking away the only things that mean anything to me.
Oh god, tears now.
On a lighter note – at the end of my garden, covered over with paving, is an Anderson shelter. The air vent sticks up in the rose bed. Do you think I should open the shelter up, just in case?
notSupermum´s last blog ..The Dark Side of Decluttering
@notSupermum, I’d open it up and keep chickens in it personally.
I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot lately, for various reasons. I read a collection of short stories recently with a post apocalyptic theme (Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse), the movie The Road came out (which I decided I didn’t really want to see), and Stephen King’s new book, Under the Dome: A Novel, has a mini-apocalypse kind of plot, which made me think about The Stand, which has a maxi-apocalypse plot.
Living in the hurricane belt in the U.S., I should really be prepared for a possible Katrina-style breakdown about 9 months out of the year, but I guess I have been trusting in good luck too much. Because once you start planning like that, where do you stop? Food, water, gasoline, guns, medicine, zombie repellent? I guess I could make survivalism my hobby…
JJ Daddy-O´s last blog ..Adventures in Retail
@JJ Daddy-O, I’m going to avoid the road. i skimmed the book (it was good, but I didn’t want to get too into it as it would upset me).
I think enough to keep going for five days would be reasonable – if things last much longer than that you are pretty screwed anyhow.
Whenever I get those feelings I usually pick up my copy of The Road by Cormack McCarthy and re-read it. It makes me feel happy.
Ed´s last blog ..What Time Is It?
@Ed, I’ve avoided The Road. I skimmed it, just so I knew the general plot but didn’t read it properly as I knew it would upset me.
I live on top of the highest hill around these parts, at the very top of the hill is a huge reservoir that serves this area, I used to worry about what would happen if it burst until I ran a test with my garden pond a couple of years ago – the water all ran down the hill, so thats that then, reservoir bursts, water runs past the house down the hill, I stay indoors until it stops – sorted, next problem…
Gary´s last blog ..A long night, a deep snow…
@Gary, Holmfirth, where I grew up, has been the scene of some pretty serious flooding in the past.
Kerry made sure we’re not on a flood plain when we bought our house. she works for the environment agency and thinks about this stuff.
The main problem for me would be that the day would come when I couldn’t be bothered to got to the supermarket and I would gorge myself on a massive feast of spam and beans.
Sam´s last blog ..A Hughes in Afghanistan
@Sam, baked beans and fried spam sounds really good actually.
May I politely suggest that you are probably watching too many films, Sir.
Rosie Scribble´s last blog ..Happiness with a twist…
@Rosie Scribble, not at all. I completely avoid those types of films. I think its just my pessimistic nature rearing it’s head.
It could happen though – a week with no petrol and the country would descend into anarchy
Reminds me of the saying “A frightened man dies a thousand deaths”. Not sure how you can stop worrying about the apocalyplse specifically (though Dale Carnegie wrote a good book about not worrying in general).
I did hear a programme on Radio 4 this week about the total blackout of NYC one night in July 1977. Anarchy quickly ensued. It makes you think…
@Steve, I honestly believe it would take very little to turn society into anarchy. As I say, a week without petrol, a giant computer crash, or smething similar and there would be raping and pillaging left right and center.
If I were you, I’d build a bomb shelter under the chicken coop.
Erin´s last blog ..Feel the rhythm of the music getting stronger
@Erin, Actually thinking about it we don’t even have a basement to hide in.
Thanks for giving me even more to worry about.
You do have to stop – seriously – it’s not at all good for you. After spending my teens vividly conjuring up total nuclear wipeout (whilst waiting for a bus, at school, eating my tea….) I spent the first few years of motherhood awake at night worrying about all sorts, militia kicking me and the kids out in the street and rounding us up into fields (roundabout the time Yugoslavia imploded), what order we’d die in if we all got Ebola, how to get both my kids out of the house in the middle of the night if the house was on fire (never yet bought anything with an upstairs), how long it would take before someone noticed if I died in the night (every night I left easy to open food and bottles of SMA on the bottom shelf of the fridge).
They get older and your worries change – now my sleepless nights revolve around house prices and the horrible scenario in which they don’t leave home until their 30s.
MrsW´s last blog ..10 things and me this past decade
@MrsW, I never thought about the easy to open food thing. But then again there are two of us so a lot less likely.
I used to like fantasizing about the apocalypse before I had kids . Weird I know, but I had some sort of idea that I’d be the only man left on earth and I’d get to live in whatever house I wanted and all that sort of stuff. Now, not so much.
When I was a kid I remember being bitterly disappointed that my parents didn’t have some kind of nuclear shelter in our back garden.
Kevin Spencer´s last blog ..Watch, Listen, Read, Smile
@Kevin Spencer, we had a shed. Does that count?
It scares the crap out of me and I’m completely ignoring it. Except when I’m worrying about how much I’m contributing to it. No, must go back to ignoring it. Much better idea!
Barbara´s last blog ..Concentration
@Barbara, it’s scary scary stuff.
@Dan, especially when you read in the news this morning that the national grid issued a gas balancing alert on Monday (essentially asking power suppliers to use less gas while they sourced more from overseas due to a 30% rise on normal seasonal use) and that some computer systems can’t cope with the transition from 2009 to 2010.
Barbara´s last blog ..Plastic Beach
I’m not above cannibalism if it means staying strong enough to protect my family.
Of course most of our meals would have to be dead first.
I’m with you, I think about those things a bit too often.
@Seattledad (Luke, I am Your Father), I’m not sure I’d resort to cannibalism. Certainly not my neighbors anyhow. I don’t know where they’ve been
There are certain books I can’t read – especially things like The Road – and I’ve never been able to bring myself to watch Grave of the Fireflies either. Fantasy devastation doesn’t have quite the same impact, admittedly.
Though having said said, the one time I watched AI, I sobbed most of the way through it and for hours afterwards. But that probably had to do with a whole bunch of stuff.
Dad Who Writes´s last blog ..Whining
@Dad Who Writes, I took one look at AI and decided to avoid it.
I am only good with mindless popcorn movies since becoming a parent. although I think my profession has something to do with it too – I get enough gritty realism and emotional angst at work
Not sure if this will help your obsession, but friends here say that they went from living a normal life to being in full scale, truely terrible conflict in 24 hours. They didn’t see it coming.
Brit In Bosnia´s last blog ..Favourite Photo of 2009 Meme
@Brit In Bosnia, doesn’t help my obsession – but it proves my point somewhat. We all live on a knife edge.
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Dan, on the one hand, I’m glad it’s not just me who worries about this stuff. On the other hand, it’s an absolute swine as it just won’t leave your head once it comes in.
Craig McGill´s last blog ..Kids and the apocalypse: a cheerful post