Surviving an apocolypse
Feb. 22nd, 2010 08:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrsbrownI grew up in the nuclear era. I was convinced that I wouldn't make it to be as old as I am now. I really identified with the paragraph below, from an article that erudito linked to
Like the White Queen in Lewis Carroll Through the Looking Glass, I find it useful to practice imagining these "impossibilities" a little bit each day. "When I was younger I always did it for a half an hour a day," the Queen tells Alice. "Why sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."1 It is not bad to think of these impossibly dark possibilities. Contemplating one's own death, or even the death of billions, feels impossible, even though it is always a certainty from the day of our birth. Reflecting on death is an important part of spiritual practice in many different traditions. A little bit each day is a great way to focus life on really important matters. Taking the White Queen's lead, I try to do my imaginings before breakfast, so I can focus the rest of the day on accentuating and appreciating the positive in life.
The article goes on to talk about the single book that would be most useful to a group of people left after a catastrophic natural event. The author suggests a super eruption which would leave the US covered in about 20m of volcanic dust and trigger an ice age.
It's really a sales pitch or review of a book about the history of the world. And the author suggests that we all need to know about the progression of our current civilisation through hunter gathering, agriculture and the industrial revolution. Those survivors, the article suggests, should know about the periodic table so they can understand how to get the metal for spaceships.
I think I'd rather have a book that talks about the crafts we don't have anymore. Stuff that means that I can make stuff, grow stuff and deliver babies safely.
Like the White Queen in Lewis Carroll Through the Looking Glass, I find it useful to practice imagining these "impossibilities" a little bit each day. "When I was younger I always did it for a half an hour a day," the Queen tells Alice. "Why sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."1 It is not bad to think of these impossibly dark possibilities. Contemplating one's own death, or even the death of billions, feels impossible, even though it is always a certainty from the day of our birth. Reflecting on death is an important part of spiritual practice in many different traditions. A little bit each day is a great way to focus life on really important matters. Taking the White Queen's lead, I try to do my imaginings before breakfast, so I can focus the rest of the day on accentuating and appreciating the positive in life.
The article goes on to talk about the single book that would be most useful to a group of people left after a catastrophic natural event. The author suggests a super eruption which would leave the US covered in about 20m of volcanic dust and trigger an ice age.
It's really a sales pitch or review of a book about the history of the world. And the author suggests that we all need to know about the progression of our current civilisation through hunter gathering, agriculture and the industrial revolution. Those survivors, the article suggests, should know about the periodic table so they can understand how to get the metal for spaceships.
I think I'd rather have a book that talks about the crafts we don't have anymore. Stuff that means that I can make stuff, grow stuff and deliver babies safely.
