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May 9, 2002

If the apocalypse comes, I'm toast

I've always been fond of post-apocalypse stories.  Books like The Stand, or Earth Abides, or A Canticle for Lebiowitz all the same plot premise: disaster strikes, and the trappings of the modern world are swept away.  City-dwellers, suburbanites, and famers are all left to fend for themselves and ultimately to rebuild society.  The stories are aways brutally Darwinian: those who can't adapt, die. I've often wondered what would happen to me in that kind of world.

My father was a man who worked with his hands; he spent 20+ years in the Navy as a machinery repairman, making parts to keep ships and bases running.  I inherited none of his skill or love of working with my hands. I’ve always been a creature of the mind, reading, thinking, never very fond of the outdoors. I’ve spent my life making a living on a technology of the mind, one that didn’t exist when my father was born.

I suppose the need for project management might still be needed. Assuming there’s enough of society left to try to knit things back together and rebuild, there will always need to figure out how to get things done.

 

Nah. I’d be toast.