Starting Over

There are people everywhere you look. You have to try to get by yourself, to get away from all the humanity. The people living out in the small towns, out in the fields might wonder at the sanity of talking about a population problem. They see nothing but room around them, open space, empty fields, quiet. But plop them in the city, watching the cars pass in the thousands, and they’ll understand.

A reoccurring theme in literature is what happens when you have to start over. It’s happened in our history several times, the colonies, the space stations, the stranded explorers. A fight for survival when man suddenly has to take a step backward to take a step forward. The Lord of the Flies touched on this, boys trying to survive on an island, apart from civilization. The question is if untamed human nature will splinter and shatter and cave in upon itself. Entropy.

I’m reading The Stand by Stephen King, and the very same thing is happening. 99 percent of the world’s population is wiped out by a super flu, and the survivors are left to rebuild society. I wanted to read the book because the thought of a plague was interesting, but now the even more interesting part is watching the survivors cope. Watching the empty towns disintegrate and wander what will happen with all their inhabitants dead. Nature begins to take over again, but how long will it take for nature to overcome a stranded truck, a stretch of asphalt, a lone house, let alone an entire town, or worse yet, a large city.

It’s all interesting stuff, especially when you consider the sudden role reversal. Artists and musicians and all kinds of workers are suddenly worthless. Your skill at fixing wiring is useless when there’s no power. Your skill at playing the guitar is worthless when you have nothing to eat.

Values are suddenly re-prioritized, and it makes me wonder why they weren’t that way in the first place. Some things are important, the rest is just details.

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