Still ending...

If you're reading this, make sure you have read the previous post: "The End". DO NOT READ THIS if you haven't read that post; I'm not going to re-hash everything I said in it, and if you just jump into this post, you're going to be confused.

So:
Humans are flawed. Yes, I've said that a few dozen times now, but it absolutely bears repeating.
Stressful situations bring it out; there's a quote I've heard that says something about making sure you see a man at his worst before judging his character- anyone can be nice, and friendly, and generous, and act like a generally good person, when the world smiles upon them. Take away a squishy mattress and their Platinum card(s), and their food, and their water, and all of their comforts, and they have nothing to hide behind. They have nothing with which to calm themselves down; they don't have anything but their true personality.

"Dawn of the Dead" really played this up. There was the biker gang, all cowboy-style shooting and rough talk and macho, who invaded the mall. They were invincible; they laughed at zombies, taunted them before smashing their heads, and for a while they owned the place. But then they got comfortable; they relaxed; and suddenly, the zombies tore into them. They were caught up in their own greed; the situation which put them in power at the moment had reversed and brought them to their knees.

This isn't telling you how to survive the apocalypse. I'm not saying these things so that you'll then turn around and 'fix' yourself, finding the weaknesses and flaws in your own character and reinforcing them; no, because that's all false. Who we are isn't something that we can just change. A lifetime of living one way can affect us deeply, and can in fact change the way we are at our core, but it's not something that we can just look at and alter easily.
This is just... well, first of all, this is a sort of stream of consciousness. And secondly, I'm trying to prepare us- the reader and myself- for what could happen. If you go into the apocalypse expecting to be the hero, expecting that you'll lay down your life for anyone in a crisis, and then you find yourself taking the easy way out and hiding in fear, there will be serious mental repercussions. It will likely be pretty hard to deal with; we don't usually see our ugly core personalities, so having them suddenly rear up and stare us in the face will be a shock to many.

Zombies are many things today: they are the ultimate monster, for reason I said before; and they are a way to comment on the human condition. Zombies are no longer human. They are stripped of all reasoning, of everything which makes us "us". All that remains is some flesh and an insatiable desire to feed (usually on humans). And in such an unrelenting press of doom and death, we are ourselves stripped of all our accoutrements of civilization. A lot of modern zombie fiction focuses on the monster; they're action stories. Some focus on the "realities" of how to actually survive- Max Brooks says he is primarily focused on that reality of survival in a primeval world. Only a few focus on the people who are involved in a realistic, thoughtful way. Every zombie book I've ever read does feature the looters, the people who take advantage of the situation, but they are always faced by the clear "heroes" of the situation- men and women and sometimes children who valiantly refuse to give up, who always take the hard, but morally defensible, road.

Fiction is very nice to read when it has these people in it, which it usually does. These stories tell us that we'll be able to go through the zombie apocalypse, and we can start a new world, while holding our heads high and being proud of whatever we've come through.
I disagree.
While it is important for our humanity to do the 'right' thing- without what makes us "human", how are we different from the mindless creatures which pursue us?- but I don't think that anyone would be able to survive such a world with their morality intact. There is no 'deus ex machina' coming to save you; when you're surrounded by the creatures and you put the kids behind you, defend the women, and charge into battle like the Light Brigade personified.... well, the Charge of the Light Brigade kind of failed. They all died. And so will you. If you take each step with your made-up, high-horse-riding, pure-white personality up as a solid facade, I honestly don't see any way you could survive a zombie apocalypse. Men who have survived war are usually deeply changed; they know themselves, and they often don't like what they see. The man who blows his friend's head open to save him from the agony of dying slowly; the man who watches all of his friends dissolve into pink mist around him; the one who ducks instead of bravely facing the advancing enemy and survives because of it; these men have nothing to hide behind.

We lie to ourselves. Our facade personalities aren't just constructed so that we can hold our heads high in society; they shield us from seeing the dark, twisted person at our center. When we can't afford that facade, when it's torn down around us, then we see ourselves for what we are in truth. Many, many people are deeply and truly shaken by the experience.

That's all I really have for now.
No, this wasn't a zombie survival guide; I didn't discuss my ideal weapons, or where I would go to survive it, so if that's what you were expecting then I'm sorry to disappoint you.
Actually, no, I'm not sorry.
If that's what you were expecting, then tough. Deal with it. This is my blog; I don't write this to pander to you. I write this because I'm bored and my head spills over with stuff to say, and some of it comes out on here.

And now I'm finished. 'Bye.