As the survivalist-in-residence, living a lonely, but joyful life out in the Victorian scrub in my camo four-man roomy tent, I have argued over the years against the socialist, community/communitarian types who always link disaster survival with being in groups. Sure, many people need this sociality, having someone’s hand to hold, but really, I would prefer to hoof it alone, given the idiot level of the modern population. Thus, I am always on the lookout for articles to boost my extreme, lone nut in the woods, backwoodsman mentality. Here is one recent story from the land of wacky windmills:
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2019/10/16/dutch-family-discovered-living-cellar-years-waiting-world-end/
“Authorities in the Netherlands have opened an investigation after a family was found living isolated in a cellar because they were expecting the “end of time” to occur. Officials became involved when the parents of a family living in the cellar of an isolated farmhouse near the town of Ruinerwold were flagged for not sending their children to school. The police were called to the home after a young member of the family was found wandering “confused” and “unkempt” outside a pub in Ruinerwold. The young man was said to have “never been to school.” “He said he needed help and wanted to put an end to the situation he was in,” Chris Westerbeek, the pub’s owner, told the the Dutch news outlet, Dagblad Noorden. Westerbeek added that the young man snuck out of the home in the middle of the night because he was closely watched during the day. When police arrived at the farmhouse, they discovered a secret staircase hidden behind a cupboard in the living room that led them to the living space underneath the house. Authorities discovered that the family had been living in the “enclosed space” for up to seven years and were cloistered there because they expected a cataclysm to befall the world. A neighbor told the Dutch newspaper that he did not even know that there was more than just the one person he ever saw living on the property. Authorities found that the family had created a self-sustaining vegetable farm and needed almost no contact with the outside world. Officials are still investigating and trying to ascertain the familial relationships between the seven people found living in the cellar.”
Of course, it is plain mean to involve children in one’s end-of-world prepping adventures and dark fantasies, but if you are a Viet vet, full of PTSD and basically on the way out, kinda like Rambo Last Blood, the most profound movie I have never seen, cellar living looks mighty fine to me … joyous, in fact. I seem to remember a story from youth, read by a teacher, about a character who dug a hole and lived in it to escape something, maybe people after him, or himself. Apparently, once he emerged in his only suit, he used a brush to clean up before going into town, probably to have nice pie floater meal. Perhaps, existentially we all live in such a hole. Well, maybe sometimes.