Apocalyptic State of Mind

Saturday morning, and after my second all-consuming week back at work I am enjoying the luxury of moving slowly. I lounge in bed, read some news online, take the time to think about the bloggers I read daily who, like me I sense, are going through some sort of transition. We aren't as available. Blogging and life goes full circle and becomes a more solitary endeavor. My life as I know it is ending and I will very soon be living alone, the prospect of which in weak moments turns me into the vulnerable Bridget Jones, who is sure she will end up a lonely dead alcoholic whose body is eaten by Alsatian dogs. On strong days I am Rocky, and my trainer Veronica is there in my corner, exhorting and washing the wounds. As I experience cataclysmic change in my life, I want to keep my presence of mind and not get too wrapped up in myself. I want to control my behavior.

"When it rains it pours", says Dolly.

In a related apocalyptic vein, speaking of human behavior in stressful situations and natural disasters like Katrina, Cookie (via Steve Gilliard, via Melanie) quotes The Thin Veneer of Civilization, by Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European studies at Oxford University and a Hoover Institution senior fellow:

The basic point is the same: Remove the elementary staples of organized, civilized life - food, shelter, drinkable water, minimal personal security - and we go back within hours to a Hobbesian state of nature, a war of all against all. Some people, some of the time, behave with heroic solidarity; most people, most of the time, engage in a ruthless fight for individual and genetic survival. A few become temporary angels; most revert to being apes.

[...]

There are intimations of this even in normal, everyday life. Road rage is a good example. Or think what it's like waiting for a late-night flight that is delayed or canceled. At first, those carefully guarded cocoons of personal space we carry around with us in airport waiting areas break down into flickerings of solidarity. The glance of mutual sympathy over the newspaper or laptop screen. A few words of shared frustration or irony. Often this grows into a stronger manifestation of group solidarity, perhaps directed against the hapless check-in staff. (To find a common enemy is the only sure way to human solidarity.) But then a rumor creeps out that there are a few seats left on another flight at Gate 37. Instant collapse of solidarity. Angels become apes. The sick, infirm, elderly, women and children are left behind in the stampede. Dark-suited men, with advanced degrees and impeccable table manners, elbow aside the competition, get their boarding passes and then retreat into a corner, avoiding other people's gaze - the gorilla who got the banana. All this just to avoid a night at the Holiday Inn in Des Moines.

Obviously, the decivilization in New Orleans was 1,000 times worse. I can't avoid the feeling that there will be more of this, much more of it, as we go deeper into the 21st century. There are just too many big problems looming that could push humanity back. The most obvious threat is more natural disasters as a result of climate change. If this cataclysm is interpreted by politicians as — to use the hackneyed phrase that they will themselves undoubtedly use — a "wake-up call" to alert Americans to the consequences of the United States continuing to pump out carbon dioxide as if there were no tomorrow, then the Katrina hurricane cloud will have a silver lining. But it may already be too late. We may be launched on an unstoppable downward spiral. If so, if large parts of the world were tormented by unpredictable storms, flooding and temperature changes, then what happened in New Orleans would seem like a tea party.

This description of the disintegration of human behavior in times of crisis and chaos makes me think of Mad Max. Especially Mad Max 2, The Road Warrior, starring Mel Gibson, who it turns out is another one of those "he's so bizarre you can't help but love him" actors that have made me the movie whore that I am. And his Max is another delightful "alienated hero of questionable morality".

A former police officer in a post-apocalyptic Australia, Max wanders around looking for what has become the most valuable commodity for survival, gasoline. He becomes the reluctant protector of a community of people who guard a small refinery from a terrorist biker gang. The movie seems a pretty realistic scenario of the near future, and peoples' behavior at gas stations these days, particularly while waiting in line at the one that's undercutting the station on the opposite corner, is a good example of "angels becoming apes". Gas is the new gold. (There's another one for the "Everything Changes" Game.)

In this phase of my solitary apocalyptic life, rather than the triumphant but sad Rocky, I shall be Max. Hell, no longer the 1960's invalid Elizabeth Taylor, I can "will" myself to be the soldier, the survivalist, the medic, the mechanic, the scientist. I McGuiver my way into the future, with strength, intelligence, dexterity, agility and a strong constitution. I will learn to use weapons, armor, medical supplies, take initiative, attack and be unafraid of death.

Above all I will have discernment of what is good and true. I'll be a quick learner and be prepared (All of that girl scout training wasn't for naught!). I will be unafraid and I won't be swayed. The future is chaos. Let's go.