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If the apocalypse predicted for December 2012 is correct and he has not, for some reason, succumbed to other, more personal ultimate catastrophes, what's a boy to do? Could you please Go Survivalist?

If, against all odds, the self-proclaimed experts are right and, against all odds, humans of the earth have not all expired mysteriously of natural causes by that point, this self-proclaimed expert recommends that...well, you see, it all depends.

My answer to the question from "what's a boy to do"  was predicated on the idea that the earth would be destroyed completely. Decimated. Annihilated. But you're right, right-thinking critic, the previews for That Film suggest various cataclysms, not total ruination. Of course, if the latter had been represented, it would have been a very different film. Possibly a better film.

But the problem with cataclysms, you see, is that they're so very unpredictable. Floods might hit one area; earthquakes might afflict an entirely different area. Lightning might knock out one power grid, leaving another completely untouched. I just discovered (damn you, Nova Science Now!) that there are mysterious tremors under the American midwest that presage a coming earthquake disaster. I've been avoiding California for years, and now I realize that unintentionally avoiding the midwest for years has also been prudent. 

I haven't even begun to address the issues that will be raised by the roving bands of human criminals. They exist now; they will certainly exist in the world after Event Two (Event One being the Big Bang. I'm trying to lay the groundwork here for my own post-apocalyptic mythology so that eventually I can write and sell a film script). People will smash windows and steal food; people will kill one another over canned beans and the right to repopulate the world by breeding with Nicholas Cage.

Should you stockpile weapons that will most certainly be repossessed by The New Authority (film script again) and used to kill you? Should you retreat to a bunker that will be shaken and shattered by earthquakes? Should you retreat to a midwestern cabin and then discover you should have watched Nova Science Now? 

Absolutely. Do any or all of those things. Amass canned and dry goods. Learn how to hunt local vermin and cure their meat. Keep band aids around. That kind of paranoid preparation is the hallmark of a good catastrophizer. However, every good catastrophizer should also know and be haunted by the fact that whatever preparations are made, they will be undoubtedly prove to be either disastrously inadequate or disastrously futile.

Happy New Year!


POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough.


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The Catastrophizer will now, for the very first time, respond to a reader's anxious question for Dear Catastrophizer. This is the very first anxious query Dear Catastrophizer has received and I am pleased it takes as its subject a classic catastrophizing issue: the end of the world. I can only assume that questioners-on-the-cusp will be moved by the manner in which I inflame his anxieties and send in their questions as well, as this is also the only anxious query Dear Catastrophizer has received.

Dear Catastrophizer: I fear we are living in the end times. The Bible, the Mayans, Nostradamus, the Knights Templar, the Illuminati, all point to these being the end of days. Predictions say this will be the last Pope and the last President. It's all gonna blow on December 21st, 2012. What's a boy to do?


Well, a boy should catastrophize. That's the short answer. However, I've always been of the opinion that short answers are the hobgoblins of little minds, so I will elaborate (and do this despite the fact that I suspect the questioner, desperate to capitalize on the negative buzz generated by this site, is a representative from the publicity arm of the studio responsible for that Nicholas-Cageless-Nicholas Cage movie released recently).

If the prognosticators are wrong: It doesn't really matter, because you will ultimately and inevitably face your own personal apocalypse in that you will die. Ultimately and inevitably. As Philip Larkin wrote in his poem "Aubade": "Most things may never happen: this one will." The world may endure forever and forever after all those Illuminati have begun to fertilize sickly and shifty-looking geraniums, but that will make absolutely no difference to you personally because you'll be very dead. Will that catastrophizing be for here or to go, sir? Either way, you'll be needing it.

There is a good chance that the prognosticators will prove to be entirely wrong, because, and listen (because I assume you're reading this to yourself aloud in order to invest it with the proper resonance) carefully, gentle catastrophyte, because this will prove to be an invaluable aid to you in the future: when it comes to the future, nobody knows jack. 

If you want, find a few friends who are also fond of cowled robes, start meeting at mysterious, preferably ruined locations, convince yourself you're controlling the fluctuations of US currency, and issue a decree through some well known, alarmist website indicating that the world is going to end on some random future date. If you're going to try to do this thing right, go to the trouble of ensuring that this date corresponds with the world-ending date posited by another cowled-robe crew. Then simply wait and see how many people, on the eve of your Day, throw their belongings into the sea. I'll bet there will be a few. People like to get themselves worked up every fin-de-siecle or two.

If the prognosticators are right: please see paragraph one of "if the prognosticators are wrong" above.

POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough.

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The examples of catastrophizing provided elsewhere tend towards the personal; they instruct one in the art of, say, drawing an imaginary line between the loss of one’s keys and the failure of one’s marriage. 
It should come as no surprise, though, that the same technique that can conjure catastrophic consequences from personal oversights can also be applied to the realm of the public, the global. 

Indeed, the environmental movement has largely depended on catastrophisms to make its case to the public: if we exterminate a sufficient number of tiny organisms, we imperil the world, etc... Environmentalists have the unenviable task of convincing people that something tiny, something seemingly totally irrelevant, can have an effect on every other living thing. 

While catastrophizing embraces no one creed or cause, the budding catastrophizer should in terms of process emulate the environmentalist: he or she should make a habit of selecting from the news what seems to be an innocuous fact and extrapolating from it a series of decidedly unfortunate events. The topic of environmental collapse, though, should be avoided if the catastrophizer is devoted to truly honing his or her craft as it is such a familiar source of catastrophizing. 

If you are concerned that your catastrophizing studies are impractical, if your hectoring parents are demanding to know how catastrophizing in your room for hours will lead to gainful employment, never fear. Or rather, don’t stop fearing. A study of history reveals that catastrophizers always have the last, mirthless, laugh.

Do you know what started the First World War? I do, because I checked Wikipedia:

The assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, is seen as the immediate trigger of the war, though long-term causes, such as imperialistic foreign policy, played a major role. Ferdinand's assassination at the hands of Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip resulted in demands against the Kingdom of Serbia.[6] Several alliances that had been formed over the past decades were invoked, so within weeks the major powers were at war; with all having colonies, the conflict soon spread around the world.

One man is assassinated and ultimately the world is plunged into a war unlike any that had ever been seen before. How many men or women could have predicted that one shot would lead to such widespread devastation? Only the proto-catastrophizers (I, of course, am the original, founding catastrophzier).

It’s important, though, not to focus on events that are clearly worrisome, however small. The real challenge is to concentrate on a detail that appears to be totally inconsequential and to use that as the springboard for your catastrophism. Consider, if you will, the following sample catastrophism:

 On November 10, 1955, a boy was born in Stuttgart, Germany; 
He was drawn to the world of film, and began creating his own stories in that medium; 
He directed a dangerously subversive film starring only non-actors (Independence Day); 
After most likely being unable to sign Nicholas Cage because of a scheduling conflict, he convinces John Cusack to sign on to a new project; 
Promotion for the film 2012 is ubiquitous and unremitting; 
A young girl in Toronto, having watched Say Anything numerous times during an impressionable period, becomes obsessed with 2012; 
She destroys the world.

I became bored by this catastrophism, or else it would have seemed more  complex and fluid. My point, however, should be clear: the birth of one future Hollywood film director can, in a totally unheralded fashion, herald the end of the world. Now, once a day select one apparently insignificant detail from the news and connect it to eventual global destruction. Catastrophizer’s orders.
POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough.


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