Diary of the End of the World and the Beginning of My Life
A fiction that will not remain fiction for much longer
The End
Things were alright, until - SNAP - they weren't. When the crash of modern life came it really felt that fast. One moment we were eating at restaurants, going to the movies, drinking starbucks…and then the lights went off. When they flickered back to life we were fighting for our lives.
Here is my story.
I vividly remember a time not so long ago when the money in my bank account had value, when the fuel at the petrol station wasn't contaminated and you could rely on it to not only not destroy your engine, but to get you where you wanted to go so you could spend that money - money that still held meaning - on things you thought you “needed”.
But this was before everything unraveled and nothing could be trusted. We put our survival into the hands of corporations and it turns out that the billionaires who own and control everything are insane and thrive on causing harm. And boy, did they have us right where they wanted us.
Not long after the monsters willfully crashed everything I learned what a "need" truly was. Had I learned this and other lessons even a month sooner than I did, we (and many others) wouldn't have starved that first winter.
But then, most lessons in life are hard learned. Wisdom does not come free. You must fall before you can walk, and the blood you spill along the way is sort of a non-negotiable payment to the proprietor of that secret knowledge. But sometimes you can bleed too much. Sometimes the lessons cost more than you bargained for and the knowledge gained turns out to be something you never, ever, wanted to learn.
Knowledge such as this, is the pain of first watching the suffering and then the death of friends and loved ones, and I’ve seen and lost many. If I had just prepared in advance they could have been spared. But I wasn’t and I cannot go back and change it. I can only move forward and strive to ensure it never happens again.
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.
—Jonathan Larson
But that isn't to say that there is no silver lining in all of this because there absolutely is—you just need the right kind of eyes to see it.
Unprepared & Unconcerned
Before the grand metamorphosis that left us straddling 19th and 20th century living, I waltzed through life relying on others for literally everything without even recognizing it. Little to no thought was given to the complex infrastructure which allowed me to carry on in such a naive way: I knew without question that the store would always have fresh milk, that the fridge would never run out of electricity to keep it cold, that when I turned the knob on the faucet (clean!) water would flow...these certainties left me lazy, unskilled, disarmed, and … conceited.
After all, the wisdom of the TV assured me that only crazy nutters worried that this serpentine engine of modern exuberance could ever perish and so outsourcing every ounce of responsibility for my survival to an apparatus owned by wealthy psychopaths made sense….…right? Why not sit back and enjoy a carefree life when they had my back?
Well the mosheen did die. Actually, it didn't just die, it was brutally murdered. On purpose. And nothing has been the same since. And that knowledge gained about what life is really about has been a bitter/sweet pill for all of us to swallow. Some even choked to death on it.
Turns out going from a life of luxury to one of constant struggle is not for the spoiled and pampered and most definitely not for the unprepared. Which I've come to realize, almost all of us were.
Some have handled themselves better than others. The younger generations, however, were caught completely off guard and the abrupt shift away from smart phones and easy living hit them from both directions like two freight trains colliding at full throttle at the bottom of a steep hill.
The next bitter lesson hit like a lightning strike when almost overnight it became crystal clear that 'money' and 'currency' are entirely different animals.
"If only I had learned these lessons sooner!"
Even now two hellish years later, this ^ thought plays over and over in my mind like a broken record. Currency, I had. Money, I had not.
Nothing Can Be Trusted Any Longer, Except Us
There was a time when the food at the store wasn't filled with parasites and you could trust giving it to your children without meticulously checking it first. This was one of the first salvos in their war against mankind: While the stores were still stocked the provisions inside were often intentionally polluted with worms, maggots, and heaven only knows what else. Who knew you couldn’t trust a group of psychotic narcissists with your nourishment? And things have only degraded from there.
There was once fresh gleaming fruit, and salmon, and fat steaks, and chocolate. All of that is now long gone—a faint echo growing ever fainter.
Today, when the stores are even stocked you can fill your cart with ground up grasshoppers, recycled human waste, and mealworm flour. As the corporations continue to do all they can to humiliate and devalue us, we stick closer than ever to our farming.
It's so cold this winter. Unlike last year when the lights shined more than they didn’t, the power now only works for a couple of hours each day - if we're lucky - and this window of warm current is closing all the time. Anyway, the heater is making weird noises more and more often now. When it inevitably dies there will be no parts to fix it and we all know it.
One of those aforementioned silver linings is that as the last remnants of our old accommodating life fall away - as the last of our machines finally fracture and the energy flowing from the walls fades to nothing - we become progressively more hardened and self-reliant and as a result care less for what we've lost and are destined to lose.
It's winter. It's freezing cold. Our heater likely won't survive another week and the electricity is barely functional. There is no use crying about this. So we just layer on everything we own and go about our business.
What business is that, you ask? If it were spring or summer the answer of course would be farming. Fall would be the harvest. And winter... Well, aside from keeping alive, protecting what little we have left is our primary focus when our warm lonely star makes its way to touch base with the residents on the southern hemisphere.
Those that do not bother with agriculture from April thru November naturally have their own business to tend to and this is unfortunately where, they and we, find ourselves at cross purposes. With winter comes no food, with no food comes hunger, and with hunger come the raids.
What was that old maxim?
When there's food on the table there are plenty of problems. When there's no food on the table there's only one problem
Yes. The good news is that we have plenty of problems this winter: our harvest was the best its been (we're finally getting a handle on this whole agriculture thing). The bad news is that our biggest problem is that our grasshopper assailants have only one problem. And just as we've gotten better at gardening so they have gotten better at retrieving the spoils of our efforts.
Bullets are in short supply and that supply is getting shorter. What was that old saw?
God made man, Sam Colt made them equal
We learned very early on that without good ole Sam Colt and his ilk, all that hard work of tilling, planting, weeding, and harvesting was just us gathering supplies for the strongest bloke on the block.
But no man is bulletproof.
Damn! Wish I'd of bought more bul...
STOP! With the wishing already! Never forget:
If wishes were horses beggars would ride
And if wishes were fishes my daughter would eat
Angels aren't coming to save your hide
So get your gun and make them obsolete
I never wanted to hurt anyone, and often I've fantasized that if it were just me, I would throw myself to the wolves and then go trekking through that undiscovered country on the other side of this miserable reality. But I have people who need me and I've made promises: Sacred oaths that cannot be revoked or rescinded. And so I will stand at my post and keep the outlaws, the wishing, and the kicking myself at bay.
The Beginning
And to be honest, it isn't so bad. Our family has become connected in once inconceivable ways that I would never trade and we spend far more time together than we ever did before—what with no more gadgets to enslave our minds and with us huddling close for warmth and protection in the winter and working the field as a team for the rest of the year.
Never regret. It’s good. It’s bad. It’s wonderful. It’s horrible. It’s experience.
—Victoria Hold (paraphrased)
The truth is, we are far more alive than ever before, and certainly far more useful and resourceful than we ever were in that old world where the dishes washed themselves and search engines did the thinking for us. In fact, I do not even recognize who I was back then and when I do try to focus on that life I cannot help but laugh at how weak and fruitless my existence was.
Still, if I could send this letter into the past to reach my old childlike self, I would mortgage everything I have left in order to do so because every ounce of prevention would have been worth a pound of survival in this cold harsh and unforgiving land. But no such magic stamps exist, and so my loved ones shall rest in peace.
Coulda, woulda, shouda.
Outside of my frosty window a man is creeping in low from the south woods.
Locked and loaded.
I'd say wish me luck, but i'm through with wishing and with luck.
It's on me. Finally, things are on me. On all of us. No more convenience no more rescuers no more sacrificing self-reliance and growth for comfort and a Skinner-Box with a screen. We are back in our element: stronger than ever and getting stronger all the time.
Grown-up at last.
The thief is inching closer.
Gotta go.
One of my jobs is for a farm, selling their produce. I am grateful for it, every day.
I enjoyed this essay, but I am going to add one thing to your theme....
Never count God out.
Preparedness is great, and I do what I can on my hilarious income, but the craze for prepping reminds me a bit of the craze for "how can I Covid-proof myself" in the early pandemic. Which, again: it's great to take supplements and eat healthy and exercise and etc., etc,...
BUT
If God wants me sick, God's gonna get me sick--no matter all my precautions.
If God wants me immune, God's gonna have me be immune--no matter that I've been hanging with the contagious.
If God wants me alive, God's gonna keep me alive--no matter that I have no ammo stockpile, and only 3 cans of beans.
If God wants me dead, God's gonna kill me, even as I have food for 2 years and thousands of bullets, am in amazing shape and have a platoon of like-minded friends.
I think we are all in for many many moments that cannot be prepped for, much less foreseen. And I do not think they are all going to be bad moments.
Not only it's a great essay but it resonates with my observations of our world, but also agrees with my conclusions. Thanks!