The End of the World and Why Humans are Weird

I was reading an article earlier today about how the sun is going to be sending out larger solar flares and inevitably causing a massive planet-wide electricity shortage sometime in the next fifty to a hundred years. Hopefully it’ll end up being one of those things I remember years later and laugh about, but it reminded me of a particular drama on Channel 4 (I think) about how society would function without electricity and power. In short, it didn’t; it all went into panic mode and lots of people died and it was frankly rather horrible.

All this has made me think about how conditionalised we’ve become to comfort and security. (Microsoft Word is telling me that conditionalised isn’t a word but I’m sure it is. Get it together Microsoft.) I’ve been born into this world to expect easy warmth and food, preceded by generations of people who have had the luxury of easy warmth and food. Now I’m not going to go all survivalist, but if it really did come down to hunting for food and creating our own shelters, I’m pretty sure that most of us – especially me – wouldn’t have a clue where to start, and would unfortunately be doomed. The very fact that we name these once imperative skills as “survivalist”, as if it’s an outlandish hobby, emphasises to me how comfortable we are in our brick huts with our magically controlled invisible fires.

That’s why an electro-magnetic pulse apocalypse would be my least favourite kind of apocalypse. One thing that electricity has done so well lately is providing communication. The entire world is in touch with each other (give or take a few countries) and the only thing worse than dying of starvation and disease in the dark is dying of starvation and disease in the dark alone. I’m not sure if this is normal or if I really am just a hyper-internetual (making that word up) junkie, but in the rare occurrence of me lacking the ability to connect to the internet, I feel this strange emptiness inside; a sort of loneliness. It’s almost like I’ve become more of a singularity and less of a communal being. I know that’s all psychological and I most likely am a hyper-internetual (proud of it) junkie, but it’s a real feeling and I’d hate to feel it all the time.

Speaking in a wider sense, we’re conditionalised to a whole range of things which are frankly unnatural. We consider normality to be living confined within shaped cloth, staring at moving colours for hours, walking up the road to fetch pre-killed and sometimes pre-cooked prey, sitting in and apparently controlling big metal noisy things to get where we want to, and talking to each other via magic in everyday life. This is all looking through the eyes of a caveman of course, but it’s interesting to see things from the perspective of what a natural human really is and how different technology, electricity or not, has changed us.

Speaking of apocalypses, by the way, the world was meant to end today. The Vikings said so. I personally think that it’s extremely rude that we would listen to the crazy sacrificial Mayans, but not to the… well… crazy, barbaric Vikings.

EDIT: I almost forgot to put the link to the article about the EMPocalypse (I’m calling it that from now on). Someone posted it on Twitter and I have no idea if it’s valid or biased or whatever but here it is: http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/this-is-a-monster-sunspot-now-larger-than-jupiter-continues-to-unleash-solar-flares_02112014

Getting Introductions Out of the Way

I’ve been advised to start a blog, so if you’re wondering why I’m here, this is it. I’m a little excited to get writing, but quite apprehensive as well, seeing as every project I’ve ever started on the internet has flopped quite dramatically. That would be my biggest fear, I suppose; to put a lot of time and effort into this (and some money too if all goes to plan) and for it to go nowhere. But I do intend to put time and effort into this, which may well prove to be the advantage over my previous projects. A couple of them were even blogs, but as a thirteen year old, I’m sure I entertained nobody but myself.

As an introduction, I suppose I should start by saying that at the time of writing, I am eighteen years old. My goal in life is to write novels which become wildly popular (go figure), and also to spread optimism, I suppose. People aren’t happy enough. I can understand why, but I’d like to amend that, if at all possible. That being said, I don’t hail myself as some saviour to the world. I have my many flaws and I try to avoid arrogance. I try to be a good, level-headed person.

Oh dear, I might be boring you already. As for the direction of where this blog will go, I’m honestly not quite sure. The idea is to write about writing and my life as a Creative Writing university student (which I’m one of, by the way), but I am quite possibly the king of tangents. Even in speech, I’ll interrupt myself mid-sentence and go on a minute long spiel about some other thought that just occurred to me, until I forget what I was originally saying and spend another minute backtracking.

In short, I talk too much.

I plan on writing about anything that interests me, mostly. I run the danger of having no central subject matter at all, though, which is a big turn-off for a lot of readers, I’d imagine. I’ll try and keep things to a general theme, but I want to have my freedom too. Forgive me if the first few months are rocky in that respect. Much is yet to be decided as to how I’ll administrate this blog and just what content will be featured, but hopefully it’ll end up as a good read.

As for the kind of novels I’d like to write, I’m thinking modern fantasy. But nothing cliché. In fact, I’d like the fantasy in my stories to be quite subtle. I like the extraordinary-person-in-an-ordinary-world idea, but I don’t want to go into Nicholas Cage (all hail) film type storylines. And above all, I want to experiment and be completely unique. I don’t want to read something you’ve read before, or contribute to an existing genre in which we all know the conventions to. I want to think – and write – outside the box.

But when it comes to me as a person, I like to think I have a sense of humour. I’m taking this blog seriously, but not business-level seriously. My posts should be light-hearted, with the occasional attempt at wit and a large focus on the topic at hand whilst avoiding the curse of being boring. If I become boring, for heaven’s sake tell me to stop, or I’ll just witter on without a care in the world and be oblivious to the snoring.

So, some more basic information about me, before I lose myself in another tangent: I am short. I have lived in the same city all my life, and am currently in my first year of university. I like to read books, to play video games (PS3 and PC) which I shan’t be blogging much about; to pretend that I am a social creature by venturing out once every few weeks, to make terrible puns, to spout utter nonsense in the general direction of my closest friends and to walk. I live within walking distance of my university and I love my walks there and back. Music-wise, I typically listen to rock, metal, the occasional drum n bass or dubstep; I abhor pop culture and music, typically because of subject matter. Of course, there’s more to me than all of this, but I don’t want to focus on me too much as you should just pick up on who I am through my future writing.

Oh, and I’m sure my first readers already know all of this. So that’s a problem.