The End of the World – It’s a Solution

It’s rather funny (Funny ha-ha and Funny sad) that a lot of people prepare for “The end of the world.”

The big question they don’t answer is after the end of the world, is it a world worth living in?

Consider. You’re a diabetic. You need insulin to stay alive. Without a reliable source of insulin, how long will you stay alive?

Stockpiling weapons and food isn’t a bad idea, but let’s be honest here. How many weapons can you really use at one time? And if you’ve got food and weapons squirreled away, how long before someone tries to take them from you?

To survive in that kind of scenario, you’re going to need a community. We’re not talking a couple of people fighting to stay alive. We’re talking a community of people to include medical professionals, craftsman, mechanics, carpenters. And don’t be surprised if you end up living less in a democracy and more a feudal society.

The best book that I’ve found that reflects that is “Lucifer’s Hammer” by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It’s an awesome read.

But why are so many people obsessed with the of the end of the world?

Maybe to answer that, we need to look back to Henry David Thoreau. In Walden, he made the comment (or something like it) that most people life lives of quiet desperation. Think about it. We have bills. Most of us worry about losing jobs. We worry about out health. We worry. We worry. We worry.

Now flash forward almost a hundred years after Walden. Earth has been invaded by Martians. A man has spent his last money to get him and his family out of New York City. As they flee the city, he thinks that with the world gone, he won’t have to pay his bills. True story. Happened during the broadcast of War of the Worlds.

The end of the world, at least to most, is a solution. It’s a solution to this big insane mess we call our lives.

Okay. I’m getting off my soap box and let’s talk about a plan.

What you should plan for is the things that could happen. Since I live on the edge of the Midwest, here’s a few things I get:

• Thunderstorms – We’re talking power outages here. Damage to homes, maybe even trees down.
• Tornadoes – We are talking about power outages here, disruption to utilities and traffic infrastructure. Structural damage and medical emergencies
• Flash flooding – My basement is now a swimming pool.
• Blizzards – Possible loss of utilities, not going anywhere, etc.

I could go through a lot of brain damage telling you how to do this. But since I don’t like reinventing the wheel, just go to Ready.gov. They have templates, sheets, and so on that will help you out.

Now here’s something they don’t talk about. It mentions you should have important documents duplicated and ready to go. That’s fine.

But if you talk to people who survived things like Katrina, it was never the big things that got missed. Most of that can be replaced.

It was the little things. Things like pictures of your mom and dad at their wedding. Pictures from when you were a kid, or your daughters third birthday. If those things are destroyed, they’re gone forever.

So, invest in a good scanner. Scan these pictures in. Upload them to a portable hard drive you can take with you. Or put them out in the cloud (remember where you stashed them and have your username and password).

You’ll thank yourself if push ever comes to shove.