Our new personalities at the end of the world
Lisa and I went out last night for the occasion of her visiting the East Coast, and our conversation took on the topics that are usually reserved for dinnertime: chaos, panic and genocide. We're so typical!
Actually, the conversation went more along the lines of human reactions to those things: what people do when they're taken out of their average lives and suddenly have to find ways to survive on their own. And specifically, what kind of people would we be? Even the worst lives of the people we know aren't lived in a primal mode of simple survival. We asked ourselves: If society suddenly collapsed, would I be...
- The clear leader, who calms people down and gets them to work together, eventually heading the reformation of society.
- The panic-stricken hysteric, running off in whatever direction is away from the alien spacecraft and the human-vaporizing ray that just did off with our best friend and that person from the office that we were more less indifferent to before the crisis (of whom our last image would be frozen with an expression of helpless horror as they vanished into nothing)
- The chaos vigilante, who would immediately find a gun and do whatever it took to survive: shooting, stealing and shoving whoever got in our way of that last piece of bread or the almost-forgotten thrill of the last Twix on earth
- The quiet, pragmatic survivor, who calmly looks around while others are running in circles and shooting each other and finds the tools and means to survive
11 comments:
You left out the religious freak that will just stand around quote scripture. In my mind he looks like that dude from one of the Poltergeist movies. He is in his holy temple.
Yes! Of course! That's perfect, Jen. Though things have to quiet down before that person shows up, when the sermons can have more of an affect.
Also, that person is the first to resort to cannibalism.
As for the rest of you...you were so good about commenting there for a while, and then you wilt in the face of an actual, outright question. It's like this post was an alien death ray and you were all its unwitting victims.
It's just not the easiest question to answer. I'm sure most of us would like to say we're either the first or fourth choice, but just like people who say they would never have supported American slavery or the Nazi party, we're all engaging to some extent in hopeful thinking. It all depends on the vagaries of circumstances, and it's impossible to predict.
It's THE easiest question to answer. It's open to any amount of smart-assery and creative script-writing. Hello! Are you really trying to tell me that NONE of you thought, "Oh, I'd be a zombie"?!
By the way, I'm following Hans when the apocalypse comes, and the rest of you would be wise to do the same. I've seen this man take over a late night tire-changing on 14th street with the kind of authority we'll need in the New World.
oh, that tire changing story reminds me - I'd just be drunk.
See, Doug! You just found another one: the drunk fatalist, the guy who wanders around the ragtag group's camp saying, "It doesn't matter! We're all gonna die when they find us anyway!" And the women hold their children close, and one of them even dares to say, "Stop it! You're scaring the children!" And then The Leader has to come over and punch out the drunk fatalist in a show of unfortunate-but-necessary violence, and then he gives a "hold it together"-type speech that keeps them going for another day...
"Not the easiest question", my ass.
Apparently I'd be the one who took everything way too seriously and wouldn't be able to find any humor at all in the situation.
Yeah. That's why we'd eat you first.
I would definitely be a coward, whatever that entailed. "Here, Mr. Martian... enjoy these babies and puppies. I'll be over here..."
Offering up babies and puppies for sacrifice will place you second-in-line for the throne. Well played, MG.
The Collaborater? That's so Dr. Baltar/Battlestar Galactica. :)
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