Only three weeks have passed since it happened. It feels like so long ago, but at the same
time, I still can’t believe that my friends, my family, and everyone I knew, are
all gone. I guess you could call me one
of the lucky ones, although if you ask me, the lucky ones were the ones who
went early. Less pain that way. I’m still here, which means I get to go on
existing as everyone around me just adds to mass of mindless, depraved
creatures that currently roam the earth.
Sometimes I wonder if those of us who are left are really that
different, especially now. We may not
have turned the way the others did, but the purpose of our existence has
diminished into meeting our most basic survival needs. As the zombies walk in search of food and
brains, we search for food and shelter.
The Muir woods are a pretty adequate site, I must admit, as we can
retreat into our tree houses any time a large group of them walk by, but it’s
not the same. The potential of the human
race is no longer what it once was. For
all the scientific and technological advances we’ve made, we now have nothing
to show for it. Maybe it’s karma that
this happened, a cosmic message sent to us for the way we squandered what
potential we had before. Our race was
capable of so much. We could have
devoted our time and efforts towards sustainable, limitless energy, or deep
space exploration, but instead we’ve wasted countless years and countless minds
on fighting with the other inhabitants of the planet over who gets what land,
or who gets to have rights and who doesn’t, or which religion is the right one. If this really is a cosmic message to stop
bickering, we certainly aren’t taking it well.
Every group we’ve encountered on the way to our little spot in the woods
has acted hostile towards us, and we towards them. People are too suspicious of one
another. The only way a society could
ever hope to strive for utopia (and why strive for anything else?) would be to
trust each other. The only problem is
that when you trust people, they tend to take advantage of it, especially
now. If hope exists in this bleak world I
do not see it. However, as one of the
few remaining survivors, I feel I have an obligation to go on, even if I don’t
know why. The world has gone to shit,
but how can I possibly justify giving up when I’ve been spared and so many have
not? Whatever happens, or continues to
happen, I have an obligation as a survivor to remain alive on the small chance
that some hope exists for a world after zombies.
You also have another obligation, irretrievably linked to the first: you have the obligation to survive, and to document that survival. When the human race overcomes this obstacle, as it has every other (one of the most compelling reasons being our survival instincts remain intact in spite of our natural arrogance), it will look back on these first days of the New World, and learn from our mistakes, our inadequacies, and, of course, our triumphs. We need to rely on our capacity for survival, without getting caught up in the hogwash of sentiment. It is our duty to survive long enough to record what has occurred, we need to adjust our morality to accommodate the new rules of survival, and in those preparations and adaptations will spring Hope.
I very much enjoy the journal-writing feel on this blog post. I think recording things is very important in a post apocalyptic world where records are probably being destroyed. Documentation is a very important aspect of our history as humans, one thing that connects us with our past. I strongly agree with Rachel's comment and all the knowledge that can be learned from records saved in journals. Maybe from reading your journal in the future will help the human race think about morality and sustainable life instead of land ownership, and fighting with one another.