Lessons of a Post-Apocalyptic Now

The buzz word of the year is the idea of the end of the world. Apocalypses, or apocalypti, have shown up in various forms from the plain old strike down from divine forces, to the zombie flavour, robo-originated, environmental, or human ignorance. Either way you take it, with or without sugar, the bitterness still lies underneath it all. Death and destruction is the theme we are going for here.

So, with all the hype leading into and out of 2012 it makes me wonder what could come after this intense trend of epic proportions. The only means of searching for a possible answer is through the breakdown of what it means to focus so heavily on global destruction, or more accurately, human self-destruction.

The end of the world has usually been connected with the death of the planet, but in reality all it really points to is the end of humanity. Life still goes on even if a nuclear winter blacked out the sun for thousands of years. Things manage to live off of nitrogen at the bottom of the ocean, and over millions of years will manage to grow some legs and bubble their way out of the waters once again. The planet itself is so massive that its destruction is actually impossible by any human force regardless of how egotistical we think we are. So, this apocalypse we speak of annihilates only the human world. Thats one thing that the Bible got right.

Lets assume that this trend will peak this year and gradually begin to fade off into the future and that the destruction of our civilization was only the work of fiction, what comes next is hopefully growth through unity. Seems like a big jump, from zombies to flowers, peace and love, but if taken the right way it is the only acceptable possibility.

The way I see it is that this focus on death on a massive scale is the way humanity is learning that the disappearance of their society is a possibility. It's like that toddler seeing the goldfish floating belly-up wondering where the toilet will take it as the water swirls into oblivion. We have started to connect with our own mortality in the same way that everyone on this planet understands that they will inevitably die. The only difference is that the destruction of humanity will come from human hands. Everything that can kill us is a result of our own actions.

The real, real possibility is, of course, climate change. It is the one thing we will never be able to control. Never. Zombies originally were because some nosy people cast some evil darkly magical spells. Later it was because of our own stupid synthetic virus made for our selfish desires for immortality. Robots are a no-brainer. And even the classic cleansing from above method is because of our own sins. Take a step back and religion, another human construction, is the cause.

We have to accept that extinction is a real possibility. Once we have, the steps towards self-preservation kicks in. When you learn you can die you start to fear it. We fear aging, we fear disease, we fear dying, and so we fight it with all our might. When humanity starts to understand the same it will, again, fight against it. Since our destruction is only possible through our own hubris, unity is its only cure. Learning to cooperate is how humans have managed to survive with our lack of claws, flat teeth, and meekly slow little bodies. Learning to cooperate is how we will continue to survive from ourselves. We embrace 'apocalypse' now in order to prevent apocalypse later. So, bring on the destruction! It's the only way we'll learn.