About Cramming for the Apocalypse

Why am I on this journey and what can you expect from this newsletter?

The climate apocalypse occupies a whole lot of my brain these days. With every dire climate change report or extreme heat wave or massive flood or mega burn wildfire or <insert any major climate change-related disaster from this week’s news here>, I become more and more convinced that the world is going to end any day now. Amidst this impending doom what also keeps me up at night is that I have no skills to actually survive said apocalypse—both practically and emotionally. I’m not even prepared for any small-scale disaster that could befall my community as a result of climate change.

As I envision potential societal collapse amidst a changing climate, I realize how very unprepared I am to withstand any kind of apocalypse-level disaster (in the case that the initial events themselves don’t kill me in the first place).

And the truth is, most Americans are also not prepared for any disasters that might befall them. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) 2021 household survey found that the awareness of the need and how to prepare for a disaster was very high at 92% of respondents. But only 41% were confident that they could effectively prepare for a disaster. The other 59% are probably like me: aware that they’re unprepared and worried about it but have no idea how to move forward.

In my case, I can’t build a shelter, I only sort of know how to make a wood fire, and I kill just about every garden I’ve planted in the ground. Like all cogs in the capitalist system, I rely on faceless corporations to ensure my family’s survival.

This lack of survival skills leaves me without agency over my own fate and it worries me endlessly.

That’s why I’m on this journey. To force myself to exert that agency and to show others that there are creative ways to do so. I’m doing that by building survival skills as I prepare for the end of the world as we know it. This apocalypse-prepping quest is also my way of forcing myself to do my part in preventing the apocalypse in the first place.

The truth of the climate apocalypse, of course, is far more complicated than the immediate and devastating impact of, say, an Earth-sized meteor that could kill all of us in one fell swoop. Rather, in the case of a changing climate, the apocalypse is a slower-moving doom that, at each stage of catastrophe, we adapt or convince ourselves that we can just keep on keeping on in that mode. The apocalypse in this case isn’t one big event that changes everything, it is a series of events that will lead to further chaos and potentially societal collapse through the uncontrolled fall of capitalism and everything that goes along with it. It is an apocalypse in motion that we are experiencing as we speak.

And with time seemingly tick-tick-ticking away, I feel like I need to cram for a changing world just like I would do as I crammed for my high school chemistry tests that would result in a “C” grade (which, was always a relief to me). As such this process is my attempt at Cramming for the Apocalypse where I will build skills to hopefully survive the apocalypse while gaining more existential lessons along the way.

But this process required accountability. Like any human being, especially one with offspring, I’m up against a bunch of daily tasks that serve as perfectly good excuses to put off any kind of preparation for impending disaster.

That’s where the writer in me stepped in and suggested: “Why don’t you write a book about this process? Not only will this force you to actually prepare, but you may also find readers who can identify with this journey.” And so, the book idea for Cramming for the Apocalypse was born.

The experience since this book idea was born has, quite frankly, been transformative.

Over the past several months, as I’ve been developing the book proposal, I’ve started taking classes (e.g., foraging, clamming, and fire cookery!) and consuming books and podcasts to help provide context for the journey. These range from current topics around climate change to science fiction. All of this research put together is beginning to rewire my brain, if you will, to think more creatively about the future.

As such, I’m becoming more of an optimist as I push past the climate grief that has paralyzed me from action. I’m starting to see opportunities in different organizational models for community-building. I’m learning about important ways that social and racial justice can and should be included in the topic of preparedness. And I’m redefining what “resiliency” means in theory and practice.

It’s also been a fun and interesting process. And I want to share the process with you all as I work on this book.

That is where this newsletter comes in! In addition to the Cramming for the Apocalypse Instagram page—where you can see visual evidence of my terrible-but-getting-better gardening skills and more—I will be posting regular dispatches from this journey here on Substack.

What can you expect from this newsletter? The dispatches will be posted a few times a month (~4)—likely weekly, but I can’t promise you any specific days of the week (I’m all about managing expectations). Topics will cover a range of reflections on this journey from more detailed accounts of my terrible gardening skills, reflections from classes or courses I’m taking, book and other resource suggestions, ruminations on the more existential lessons, and the occasional interview with folks I’m talking with along the way. And of course, this newsletter is free to you, dear reader!

These dispatches will be fairly informal, will likely have typos and limited amount of editing (read: managing expectations), but I promise they will be well-written and completely unvarnished, fun to read, sometimes funny, sometimes serious, and always informative. My point is that I think you will quite enjoy being along this journey with me.

And I really do want you with me on this journey, so please feel free to chime in with comments and ideas about what these reflections bring up for you. Also, if you know of someone who you think might be interested in this topic, please send them this (or any) article and urge them to subscribe.

Happy cramming!