How to Stay Bright and Breezy in the Face of the Apocalypse (or similar disaster)?

A cuddly dementor

I watched the news the other day. Big mistake.

All the soul-sucking ghouls of fiction - the ring wraiths in the Lord of the Rings, the dementors from Harry Potter - sound like cuddly bears in comparison to the real life villains out there.

Why are there so many people intent on blotting out all the happiness in the world? Can't they be miserable, and hate women, and human rights, and music, and dancing and generally squeeze the fun out of everything, one irrational rule at a time, in one SMALL area rather than strive for world domination? 

And what exactly are we supposed to do after we watch the news? 

Hey everyone! We're going to show you how unbearable life is for half of the population - and then you can carry on with your lovely dinner! 

I switched off the TV and noticed that my enthusiasm for life had promptly evaporated and I felt utterly powerless. 

Social media addict that I am, I reached out to Twitter for answers: 

Do you a) watch the news and feel doom gloom and helpless to change anything or b) not watch, remain ignorant but happier?

— Emily Benet (@EmilyBenet) July 2, 2015

Everyone replied 'B'. I suspect the 'A's' were too depressed to tweet because they'd just seen the news. 

Even with the telly off, you can't escape the evidence that, to put it lightly, human beings are a plague on the earth. Not light enough? As you can see, I'm really struggling to find my happy voice at the moment... 

Yesterday I took a snorkel to my local beach. On the surface it looks like paradise. What I saw under the water, left me feeling sick. There was a cemetery of plastic - bags, spoons, bottles, takeaway containers. I picked up a few pieces but I couldn't bring myself to touch the adult nappy. It was just further proof that we're completely disconnected from the planet we're living in and eventually we're going to poison ourselves to death. 

*Deep breaths* 

It doesn't really sink in until you see it for yourself. I always think if there was a live video of sweatshops when we went shopping, we wouldn't feel so happy about bargain clothes. But out of sight, out of mind, I guess. 

So, how do we writers keep our stories upbeat when the stories around us are so flipping depressing?

I don't know! I'm hoping you lovely readers are going to give me some advice...

Apocalypse Theory 2: Death of the Attention Span

Attention Span Test: How many tic tacs can you see?  

                                          

I owe you all an apology.

In an earlier blog I suggested the end of the world would be caused by endless rain. But as you know, as soon as I posted that blog post, it stopped raining. Fortunately I have a new theory.

What will actually finish us off will be the complete collapse of our attention spans.

Are you still with me?

Ha. You were about to click on something shiny weren’t you?   

If you’re on twitter then you have already been infected by the disease. If you used to write 300 hundred page novels but now barely manage 100 word pieces of flash fiction, then you’re also in grave danger.

I myself will be one of the first to fall.

Today I looked at my computer screen and found that I was simultaneously buying a book, editing a short story, tweeting about spelling mistakes, educating myself on internet marketing and of course, signing a petition to save the arctic.

Multi-tasking it was not. I was doing many things and doing them all badly. 

I failed to buy the book because I got distracted mid-payment, my short story was left unfinished, my tweets were illiterate, my self-education ended before I picked up one tip and I didn't manage to save the arctic because what with so much internet activity my computer crashed.

A month ago my attention span was already down to fifteen minutes.

Now it’s down to twelve and falling.

Admittedly, doing a bad job is not life threatening in itself. Unsatisfying, yes, but not enough to bring about the end of the world. The problem will come when our attention spans become so short we can’t concentrate long enough to eat a tic-tac.

There will be many markers along the way towards total disintegration.    

For instance, I’m writing this in the early hours when I should be asleep. 

Could I be awake because my shrinking mind can’t cope with the idea of doing the same thing for seven hours straight?

It’s a theory, take it or leave. I’m bound to have another one next week.   

  

The Apocalypse Method Revealed: Rain

We will need to adapt, and fast! Pic from 'Engelsman in Africa' 

I don’t know about you but I always associate the word ‘Apocalypse’ with fire.

I think of volcanoes popping up around London and submerging the entire country in lava.

In a more rational mind frame, I remind myself that ‘the end of the world’ really just means, the end of the world as we know it, i.e no twitter and people using their ipads to dig vegetable patches.

But now I realize how it’s all really going to end.

It’s the rain.

Quite simply, it will never stop raining.

If you live in England then you know what rain I’m referring to.

The constant one...

I had my epiphany this morning while reading the Metro.

It reported an ‘almost apocalyptic summer’ for wildlife.  

‘In some cases puffins have drowned in their burrows,’ it read, ‘sea birds have been blown off cliffs by gales and garden birds are struggling to find enough food for their young. It has become so bad there could also be local extinctions of rare and isolated insect colonies.’

It will begin with the insects but eventually it will come for us.

And it will destroy us in 2 ways.

1)   The obvious: flooding, contamination of carpets then water supply, ruining crops etc

2)   By Demoralisation: reducing us to shrivelled, sun-starved wrecks with no willpower to attempt survival

It might seem strange that the end of the Mayan calendar should end in fatal rain, when Mayan civilisation was itself wiped out by severe drought.

But I think it makes perfect sense.

It’s like when you open too many websites at once and your computer can’t cope and freezes.

Evidently they did too many rain dances and blocked the system, and their gods have taken this long to process their prayers.

Alas, knowing the reason behind the catastrophe will not help you survive it.

What we need to do is adapt, and fast!

I suggest we all lie in a bath of water for a few hours each day until our skin turns to scales.

If we’re lucky we might also develop gills and webbed feet.

We must adapt our digestive systems too.

Concentrate on flies and fish.

Eat both raw. By December the world will be too wet for fires so you had better get used to the taste now.

But most importantly of all,

learn to swim. 

Puffins are also fed up of the rain! From Puffinpalooza