Saturday, October 4, 2008

(h)arms race

preparing for the upcoming american revolution can be tricky. it's difficult to know what sort of items i'll need to outlast the initial surge. hidden knives in areas around my property/house/person seems tactfully-resourceful; kevlar is mandatory to help keep me from springing a leak; canned foods will provide adequate sustenance and energy when stores are no longer welcome environments; and whiskey will be crucial to keep the fear away. however, nowhere is it written exactly how much bottled water i should attempt to stock. when the unemployed and fear-fueled pillagers storm vengefully across the countryside, effectively choking any last embers of business, industry, and the american dream--it will be nice to have a little fresh water.

intensifying the situation is the fact that mass hysteria could erupt at any time, which makes me feel a frustrating sense of urgency to procure all necessary items and work on plans immediately. will i be home when the uprising begins? if so, how long will we hold our ground before choosing to flee? where will we meet if we are separated? should we buy two rifles in case we have to go separate ways to escape? how long does bacon last outside of a refrigerator?

i heard an interesting theory on public radio the other day. a group of psychologists surmised (and successfully convinced themselves by performing a series of experiments) that when human beings feel as though they have no control over a particular situation--that all their assumptions and knowledge about the world around them unravel suddenly--they begin seeing and hearing things that are unexplainable--i.e. people that are not there, voices and noises that don't exist, gremlins in their backyard eating mint chocolate chip ice cream out of the pope's skull, etc.. essentially, the basis of their fundamental knowledge about everything crumbles and their brains frantically over-compensate in a pseudo-preternatural way. the scientists suggest that the brain learns by building knowledge cumulatively, "stacking" known/understood perceptions on top of each other. we learn and interpret our world by relating new experiences/observations to this stack of known items, comparing and contrasting them, and then adding them to the top of the pile. if a traumatic situation occurs or a sudden devastating disruption/debunking/elimination of the low levels of this stack happen, it sends a shock throughout the brain causing erratic and hallucinatory confusion, hysteria, shock, and fear. think of playing jenga with a very inebriated keith moon, janis joplin, and a blind parapalegic with a small mouth.

since the 50's there have been people that have voluntarily (and involuntarily) fried their conceptions of reality beyond repair, consequently leaving them unable to trust their perceptions and saddled with conflicting conceptions of their reality. combining these distorted thoughts with live ammunition and molotov cocktails is like arming zombies. it's conceivable that not everyone will lose their grip at the same time, or to the same degree--if they lose it at all. i'm sure in come cases, people will join these zombies as a hasty and despicable attempt at survival--feeling justified by the immense chaos of the situation, not to mention compensating for poor planning and preparation on their part prior to the ordeal.

so what if my mind's foundation begins to crumble and i convulsively deteriorate into a well-armed paranoid, randomly looting and devolving into an animalistic state of survival? impossible, i say, as the aluminum foil hat i've made (and constantly wear) will surely sheild my cranium from any ill effects, keeping my synapses safe and my mind calm with genuine clarity as sleeveless militants methodically grill their pets over tiki torch flame in their back yards.


so .45 or 9-mm?


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