Good Things About the End of the World

If you’re reading this, that means the world hasn’t ended. The apocalypse didn’t happen. Even though the blood moon on July 27th was supposed to herald doomsday, the world is still trucking along. Everything is still here. Like every prediction of the apocalypse before it, it was wrong. In fact, the world was predicted to end on April 23rd of this year too. But it didn’t.

It’s very disappointing.

When I was a kid, I wanted the world to end. I used to think about the end of the world on a daily basis. I wasn’t suicidal. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t really want the world to end either. What I wanted was to fight zombies or alien invaders. I wanted to drive a cool heavily-armored sports car across a radioactive wasteland. I wanted to experience the thrill that only the end of the world could provide.

I’m not a weirdo. I’m not only person who has fantasized about the end of the world. In fact, it’s a pretty common practice across a variety of human cultures going back millennia. Entire religions are based around the idea of the apocalypse. Even today, prepping for doomsday is a lucrative industry. There’s an entire real estate market for fortified bunkers and retail outlets that exclusively stock survival gear. Besides the countless post-apocalyptic movies that have been made, preparing for the collapse of civilization is also a…