Thoughts on Surviving versus Living

On Survival Chick's newly revived blog, she recently posted a preview of a new post-apocalyptic movie based on Cormac McCarthy's book, The Road. While watching the movie doesn't particularly interest me, I was curious about the book. I found it in the library yesterday and finished it last night.

I didn't finish it in a single day because it was one of those books you can't put down; I finished it because it was a fairly quick read due to the style used by the author. I wasn't crazy about his style, but it was effective for this book. The world he portrayed, after some unnamed apocalyptic event has destroyed most life on the planet, was dreary and bleak, gray and hopeless.

The two central characters, a man and his son, are on a journey to the coast in hopes of finding warmer temperatures. Their lives consist of traveling, by foot, in ash-covered landscapes full of dead trees and no other life whatsoever save the occasional other human. And not all those humans are ones they want to encounter. There is no joy, there is no rest, there is no comfort, and there is little hope. Each day revolves around survival, trying to find something to eat where everything is dead and trying to avoid the "bad people" who take advantage of the only remaining living creatures - humans - on the planet.

What struck me while reading this book was wondering why these people - the good and the bad - had such a drive to survive. This was not a temporary situation that could be remedied with good compost, conserved water, and a few seeds. This was the end of life on the planet. I see no nobility or heroism in slowly starving to death while living every moment in fear of being found by others who would hurt you, kill you, and, yes, eat you. In their world, it won't be all that long until the last cans of foods tucked away in someone's remote home or bomb shelter will be found and eaten. There will be no food left, there will be no way to grow food, and there will be no more people left. Death is a given for them.

I've looked at some of the reviews of this book and many people seem to have liked it. They were moved by the father's love for his son and willingness to do whatever it took to keep going. Perhaps I don't share this view because I am not a parent, but maybe also because I don't see making it through another day, just to make it through another day, while starving a little bit more as a positive life-affirming approach. The boy's witnessing of the worst that humanity on the brink of extinction can offer will not make him, in my opinion, a better person. He will still die -probably soon - along with everyone else after the book ends.

I'm all for learning skills to live through the harder times I think humanity is going to face soon due to climate change (rising sea levels, drought, crop pests expanding their range, pandemics, melting glaciers leading to freshwater shortages, more severe coastal storms, famine, etc.) and peak oil (the end of "cheap" energy). We can adapt and live more simply without rampant overconsumption, we can transport ourselves with our own energy (feet or pedal power), we can grow gardens, and we can work as communities to supply our needs locally. Life is still possible, even if it becomes much different and more difficult than what we are accustomed to now. There is still hope and we can still find satisfaction and joy in it. Where there is only death, however, where there is no hope, there is nothing.

It is one thing to know that conditions on this planet may become extremely challenging for humans by the end of this century. If we pass all the tipping points, and some experts think we already have, pockets of humanity will likely still survive, and carve out new lives, on a more hostile planet of our own making. If the planet is dead, however, there is no life. There is only survival, and that only until the food runs out. That would not be a world worth living in, at least not for me.

Time to read a more hopeful book, Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change.