Why is the world (not) ending again?
For millennia people have been obsessed with horror stories about the end of the world.
Even in rather primitive societies, they had concepts like big floods, deadly fires, hurricanes and stories of wild beasts to scare the crap out of each other. Than, of course religion came and the whole idea was leveraged to the new level. Not only nature, but now also the supernatural could kill you. Ghosts started to dwell in empty houses, werewolfs took over the forests and vampires could kill you in your deepest sleep. Although lacking any evidence or solid ground, these stories worked great around the campfire. For some reason we as humans have some kind of inclination to occupy ourselves with this topic. It shows us, that this world might not be the only one that could exist and it gives us some sense of mortality, without which, nobody would make it over ten years of age…
Some societies took the concept so far that they almost based their whole existence around the world’s end.
Take Mayans for instance. They even tried to calculate when the world should end. It sounds pretty silly now, but it surely did not before 2012. I was myself victim to the so called ‘bubble’. It really was somewhat a collective hallucination. I still remember what was happening to me on the last day of the Mayan calendar.
I might have been so brainwashed by random YouTube videos and documentaries that I was even trying to prepare for the end of the world. Now, of course it looks like a stupid idea. But hey, I just turned twenty and I wanted to survive that sh*t. So just about few months or weeks before the event, I have started my prepping operation. As all the possible scenarios were on the table, I didn’t know where to start, but at the same time I didn’t want to spend too much of my precious time on the preparation. After all, what if the world is not gonna end right?
So, I went on one of the bigger online army stores and start scrolling through their inventory. I would click BUY on anything that resembled survival to me. Soon enough, my shopping cart would be worth few hundred dollars and I had to check what did I actually put in. From knives to camping gear I had it all. Magnesium fire starting kits, so called last help packages, heck, I was almost buying a crossbow. Now I kinda regret I did’t…
When the package arrived few days later I though: ,,Damn, if I’ll ever have to use these things, it will be a pretty wild world.’’ To my surprise I actually did use almost all of the products later, after the world did’t end. Luckily I didn’t go full on aluminium foil, doomsday prepper mode and saved some money for the rainy day as well.
When the last day finally arrived — it was 21st December 2012 — I thought, well, let’s do this one different. I’ve decided not to eat on that day. Actually it was a first day in my life when I consciously fasted. Boy, was it a great day. I am not sure now, but I thing it was Sunday. Or at least I had no obligations on the last day of the Mayan calendar whatsoever. It was really a special day. Everything seemed weird as f*ck. People acted weird. Something was up in the air. You know that feeling like on Christmas eve for example, when there is a big expectation everywhere and it creates this mental fog…
I am not sure what was my program from the sunrise to the sunset, but I remember I’ve met up with one of my best friends to kind of celebrate the end of the world day. Me and Simon went to a tea house together to smoke shisha and have a cup of Assam. We were both amazed how our days went by and shared some great stories with each other. One of us, or both even saw a guy in native American outfit. Just pure madness all around. The signs were all there, but the world didn’t stop spinning just yet.
Now, ten years later, the world is on the verge of collapse, yet again.
Different story, same concept. Scare the crap out of an average Joe. People that are scared are easier to control. Not sure who said it, but it was surely somebody like Caesar already…
So, what are we looking at now? We have the pandemics, wars, food shortages, crazy weather incidents and soon maybe UFO’s? Isn’t this enough to think the world could end on every given day? Let me tell you, why I think we will get through this like a knife through butter.
At the moment the biggest fear is probably the escalation of the war with Russia. Where could it possibly lead to or how could it end you might ask? Well, not even Henry Kissinger has a crystal ball and if it is not just a total TV show, nobody really knows. I would assume, based on my believe in afterworld and creationism of some sort, that the powers that be will not blow up the world into pieces. Even if there is some nuclear weapons potentially deployed as early as this or next year, I am overly optimistic about the whole problematic. Take for instance Cernobil — also Ukraine by the way — a nuclear power plant disaster, which now, few decades later is a beacon of wildlife and there are no double headed deer with glowing eyes running around in masses. It just seems to me that the whole nuclear radiation thing might not be so bad as they pretend. It is after all a scare tactic of the countries that have nuclear missiles against the ones that don’t.
Hiroshima is another big legend. Are mutants walking around this Japanese town? Doesn’t seem like that right… So, for me the threat of some nuclear apocalypse is too far fetch and I am not willing to be preparing for such scenario at all. If there will be the blast with the radiation all around, I wish to be rather the one who has it quick.
So what about the other threats? We have all successfully survived two and half years of the pandemic. Again, based on praxiology and shear observation, we are doing pretty damn good. We are still alive and well. Preparation for such crazy and unexpected events is anyways almost impossible on individual level. The state with it’s police forces, army and medics must act in times like these. They sure did in the past two years. If for good, the better or the worst, that is up to each individual to decide. After all we were just mere subjects in the whole game. Collective over individual kinda makes sense in such scenario, even though me as an Individualist, I struggle deeply with all sorts of restrictions and mandates.
Now comes the times of big accounting I am afraid. The price to pay for two years of lockdowns will finally be printed out and we will be presented with the bill. We are seeing the beginnings of it already. Inflation is a big one. The government’s very own secret tax, raised by it’s reaction to the virus, financial support of inactivity and endless money printing are all the roots of the big tree bearing a bitter fruit. Some countries are pretty familiar with inflation. Take for instance Argentina or Turkey. Their populations know that savings are safer in US dollars or goods of any sort. Only the ones in the first world countries like the Eurozone or the US doesn’t know the concept yet. And it is the dollar now that is being devalued. Nobody is safe from this. The higher classes of rentiers and big company owners will just rise their pricing, but what an average Joe does? Can he be buying food for five years to come, with his hard earned money now, to save the purchasing power? Not really. Good luck storing fresh food for longer than a month. So on that note, most of us are doomed and there is very little we can do about it. Sure we can speculate in cryptocurrencies, properties, gold and other investment vehicles, but ultimately, the prices of food will surprise us in the near future.
So how am I preparing for the high prices and collapse of the supply chain? Well not much really. I do try to keep some cash on me at all times and costs. I do have a bug out property in a cheap eastern European country, I have some precious metals, crypto and hope that we all get through this as humanity, without too much of a bloodshed.
After all, we’ve been here before. The world was ending numerous times and people survived. I have no doubt that we are not gonna make it to the other side. If the price of beer will be too high, people will start brewing their own. Simple math. So, cheers to some prosperous days to come and don’t let yourself being drawn down with the ever present fear porn.
Until next time,
Tomi Drakov
