Apocalypse

“Everyone, deep in their heart, is waiting for the end of the world to come.” –Haruki Murakami, 1284

Constant worry is responsible for debilitating headaches, mood swings, insomnia, depression and panic attack. In the stress-filled environment of our complex lifestyles, 15 percent or more of we Americans suffer from anxiety.

The Beatles sang that “Happiness is a warm gun” but preppers today seek to live off the grid, stock bunkers, or at the least prepare survival kits called bug-out-bags. Unlike Slim Picken’s post-nuclear survival kit in the 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove,” which included all sorts of pep pills, Russian rubles and gold, bug-out-bags are stocked to keep you alive for 72 hours. The industry includes food, short-wave radios, fire starters, water filters, and even high-end slingshots in the bags, which can be purchased on Amazon for as much as $1,000.

Despite the threat of nuclear holocaust, when the big one is unleashed on the Big Apple, there are just as likely scenarios such as economic collapse, sunspot flares cooking computer chips with an electromagnetic pulse, San Andreas Fault activity, or a Yellowstone eruption. Don’t count out the asteroid hit as well, and as Donald Rumsfeld said, “ it is the unknown unknown that we must fear.”

So, as Nick Veasey states so succinctly, “a bug-out-bag may not get you very far, but it might buy time to say goodbye over a small fire,” and Elizabeth Kolbert writes, “not an asteroid or massive volcanic eruption will cause extinction, but ‘one weedy species.’”