The Collapse XLIII: Ordinary

28 October 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

Today as I was going about what has now become my “ordinary day”, it struck me that somehow “The End Of Civilization” to date is very different than what had been portrayed.

To be fair, I do not live  urban environment where I am sure things are far more difficult now than ever before. Our lives, at least in our small part of the world, are somewhat changed but not drastically at this point, at least not yet. We do not have power a great deal at all now of course, transit between here and anywhere else has ceased – or else become an expedition, and our converse with the outside world has dwindled to the occasional burst of InterWeb News or an update via a radio broadcast. In all of these things of course, life is definitely very different than it was before.

But we have experienced power outages before, snowstorms that buried us for days on end and made travel virtually impossible – and the loss of power and loss of travel made the outside world a far away things as it is now.

Yes, I understand that if left unchecked, things can become much, much worse. In some ways, perhaps this was a better way: an economic collapse at the speed it happened seems to have made a nuclear war a non-option at this point (of course, who knows), a sort of collapse without widespread destruction. And maybe the war will yet come, if some country is left with enough command and control structure in place in a world which seems to be struggling for survival now.

But today, things seem very ordinary. A little colder, a little quieter, a little less exciting in all ways – but still very ordinary.

I wonder if in the collapse of the great civilizations it all felt the same as well, a gentle settling until the water gracefully passes over the head without realizing one has slipped under.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca