They're promoting a new show heavily on Discovery: "The Colony." Apparently it's a semi-reality show, featuring people trying to survive after a (simulated) end-of-civilization scenario (something about a virus and a political coup?).

As interesting as I find the concept of going "back to the land," as intriguing as the idea of trying to live off the grid is to me, I don't think I'll watch. The ads alone give me the fantods. It's set in a gritty, urban warehouse district (my back-to-the-land dreams focus on something like the side of an Alp or a meadow in the middle of a forest). And it's really starting from scratch - electricity is all gone, food is only what you can scrounge.

In my off-the-grid fantasies, I am still at least somewhat employed, money still is useful, there are still things to be bought. I would not be having to barricade myself in my house and defend my last few canned goods and my stash of wool from marauders. (And there wasn't a massive human die-off to get there. That's another idea that creeps me about the show)

And there are other people, other random survivors, in The Colony. And apparently you have to depend on them, however unpleasant they may be. (Satre's definition of Hell, right there).

Again, in my wooly little fantasies of running off to a flowery mountainside to bake my own bread and raise goats, there are other people - but I don't need 'em, except when I have to hike into town to buy more flour, or when someone hires me to do some writing/proofreading/however I make my living for them. I don't have to LIVE with them, especially live with them when soap is a distant memory.

It's funny - I'm surprised how visceral my reaction to the ads is. On one hand, I admit the intriguing quality of trying to see how modern humans would try to survive in a world where there is no support structure (no electricity, no running water...). On the other, the whole imagery of the ads tells me I'd be having giant nightmares after watching one episode of the show.

And maybe it's a horrible thing to say, but if civilization ended - I mean, really and truly ended, not just us going back to a more agrarian way of life (but with t.p. and vaccines and books still a possibility), I really honestly think I'd rather NOT be one of the survivors. Because I know I'd spend the remainder of my days daydreaming of a time when we had air conditioning. And when there was chocolate. And when you didn't have to chase down and kill your food before eating. And how I used to be able to come home from work, take a nice shower with good smelling soap, and then sit down and knit under an electric lamp while water heated on the stove to make tea with.

I like my little comforts too well to want to imagine a world without them. While there are things I'd happily give up (plane travel, for instance), there are other things that, if I had to live without all of them, I'm not sure it would still be able to be called "living," what I was doing...