Taking Life as It Comes
Are you doing anything to prepare for Armageddon or whatever the next national or international crisis might be?
If there is anything major, like the entire electrical grid being sabotaged in the United States as I spoke of yesterday or the nuclear threat of the cold war era, I doubt anything I could do to prepare would be efficacious for any length of time. To survive such a wholesale catastrophe would take a huge expenditure of time and money, to say nothing of skulking around to prepare in secret because if something did happen, the unprepared who knew what you had done would try to take you out to get to what you have.
But even without any sort of preparation, people can — and have — survived localized disasters.
I’m sure I’d be okay for a short time as long as I wasn’t ill or injured. I have one of those metabolisms created in less affluent ages, where systematic starvation was rampant. The less I eat, the less I need to eat without any loss of energy, which makes it almost impossible for me to lose weight, but in a time of hardship, I’d probably do fine.
Water would be a problem, so I do keep a few things on hand, like bottled water, a wee bit of food, and some common emergency supplies, such as flashlights and batteries, as well as first-aid supplies.
To be honest, I wouldn’t want to live in a time of chaos, where it is truly a dog eat dog or human eat human world. Though, also, to be honest, as long as I wasn’t in too much danger or suffering unduly, it could be interesting to watch such a scenario.
Either way, I’m not preparing for much of anything except my own uncertain future. (Uncertain because all futures are uncertain, although that isn’t exactly true. We know our ultimate fate; only the time, place, and cause are uncertain.)
It still amuses me the things people stocked up on when The Bob was first mentioned. Of all the necessary things, toilet paper wouldn’t even be on my mind. An old sheet cut into small pieces does the trick. Of course, you couldn’t flush it, but then, if civilization was in total turmoil, chances are no one would be flushing anyway.
I know I’m better off in my own house rather than in a high-rise in the middle of a city, so to that extent, I did prepare. I would never live in a highrise. If the electricity went out and I’m fifteen or twenty or thirty stories up, I’d be trapped. Nor could I ever live on a lower floor with a whole building above my head (an edifice built by the lowest bidder, I might add). I can just imagine my trying to sleep while feeling the weight of the building above me. Eek.
So to the extent that I think of such things and act on them, I do have a survivalist mentality. But for stocking up on toilet paper, stacks of canned goods, huge vats of fuel? No, that’s not for me.
If I’ve scared you now, and you want to prepare for calamity, there are all sorts of survivalist guides and kits out there. But for me? I’m taking life as it comes.
At least, I’m trying to.
***
If you haven’t yet read A Spark of Heavenly Fire, my novel of a quarantine that predated this pandemic by more than ten years, you can read the first chapter online here: http://patbertram.com/A_Spark_of_Heavenly_Fire.html
Buy it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0024FB5H6/
Download the first 30% free on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1842
