Sometime or other I wrote here about how if I were to build a
doomsday bunker, it would not only be out of fear, but to some
degree also a slight attraction to the idea of living in a world
where most of the human population has been killed off by some
calamity or other. In practice I live far enough away from any
population centres that an actual 'bunker' would probably be a
little excessive, just some well-built building with a degree of
natural temperature regulation, in which to store supplies, should
be sufficient.
I don't really forsee such a calamity in the immediate future, and
I've got lots of other projects in the works which promise an
immediate reward, so I don't really plan to go down the 'prepper'
path. Maybe one day if I've got nothing better to do...
But I have been thinking deeper about what really attracts me to
the post-appocalypstic lifestyle. It's really quite a deep question
which probably touches on how I'm a bit different to most people. I
really like empty spaces. Just being alone in a space, especially a
building, there's a feeling of posession. Better yet, uncontested
posession, where it becomes your own. In this regard it may be a
power thing - I'm eternally a subserviant being waiting for his
chance to rule the world - but it's also about observation.
Observation might seem the opposite of power, because to observe
means that one doesn't influence events. But in human society the
power to observe how things work is often very strictly guarded, as
a method by which others retain power. Skills are guarded so that
only an admitted few may learn or practice them, technology is
guarded so that few can reproduce it, and organisations are guarded
so that people can't cast judgement their internal operations.
Observation in this world actually requires a great deal of power.
But the defence against observation is an active thing, whether
it's a dusty "no entry" sign or a bank vault hiding a trove of
documents, protection from the onlooking world must be sustained by
the people with an interest in it. History is told by the gradual
uncovering of truths as they are abandoned by their keepers, its
scope always broadening as events become more distant and their
implications in modern society become less significant for people
to defend.
To stop the present is to begin history, and in an empty world
everything is there to be seen, with nobody there to whome one must
account for taking the time and resources to see it. So perhaps the
appocalypse is the observer's utopia, and that's the real power
that I seek simply through surviving it.
Yet already there is more to observe in history than anyone could
care to see, and it is more accessible than ever. Already I'm
addicted to starring into this this observer's window pointed at
the past. Already I do little more to interact with society than I
can get away with.
My free time is spent away from people, emails unchecked, mobile
phone turned off, and just the noise of surrounding animals seeping
inside my home. There I read, watch, and listen about the world. As
it is today, last year, last century, whenever, however, it is
there to observe.
What more would it take to live much as I might in my
post-appocalyptic observer's utopia? If I were to give up on making
money, spend most of what I already have on a prepper's diet of
preserved food, keep the rest to placate the government's thirst
for taxes, and live off that while trying to set myself up for
complete self sufficiency?
It's only really a sudden jump into a lifestyle that is quite
popular already, although by nature the people who live it don't
stand out much. In fact as a socially awkward male with unusual
facial hair and a bit of a distinctive voice, I'm noticably well
fit for the Australian stereotype of that sort of person.
On the other hand I am also tempted by the power and security of
diving the other way and trying to make much more money, at the
expense of getting much more entangled in society. Plus that vague
old desire to meet women. Maybe I've already found about my best
compromise between the observer's utopia and the virtues of
participation (skewed quite a lot towards to former)? Aspirations
are such a distraction. Are the dreams that I most desire all the
ones that I've already sought?
I think everyone wonders this. I just happen to have some odd
dreams.
