what is life about?

Over the past few months I have been watching "Jericho" on CBS. Something about this story of a post-apocalyptic world has really grabbed my interest and has given me a lot to think about. In fact, I had to stop watching the show live on Wednesday nights because my mind was so preoccupied with the storyline that I was having problems sleeping.

Last night I watched "The Day After Tomorrow" on a local tv station and again was left in a reflective mood. I think one of the things that preoccupies me about both of these stories is the idea of being confronted by a catastrophe that is totally beyond one's control, for which one cannot really adequately prepare, and that constitutes a continuing challenge to one's survival. I have thought a lot about what I would do if my city were to be hit with a nuclear explosion after the fashion of Jericho; really, there probably wouldn't be much to think about, because given where I work I would undoubtedly be dead. But if I happened not to be near the epicentre, if someone I survived, what would I do? Where would I go? What about my life now would no longer seem of any importance, and what would suddenly become of ultimate value to me?

As an active Latter-day Saint, these questions were largely resolved in the larger framework of the plan of salvation, the mission of the church as an institution, and so forth. This certainly brought me a lot of comfort, although as the years passed and I got older and did not follow in the normal pattern of things...that is, my parents and brothers never joined the church, I never got married, leaving me essentially alone in the church...this grew to provide less comfort, although I always held onto a sense of personal mission and purpose for my life.

After coming out and ceasing to be an active practising Latter-day Saint (although, apart from those aspects of Mormonism that are very church-institution-oriented, I don't think I live much different from how I did in the past), I have had to reassess these sorts of questions. I have come to adopt a kind of Christian humanism, I guess, that views humanity's purpose to be a striving to create an ever-more loving, peaceful, nurturing world where all persons are valued and given opportunities to grow and be happy. But then I watch these gut-wrenching programs with hypothetical futures that, at least in the case of Jericho, don't seem to be so far out of the realm of the possible. What then? Do the pleasing generalities of my so-called Christian humanism really cut it when one is faced with survival as job one and only?

What does it really mean to be human, and what do we really want to survive if a catastrophe ever does occur? Is it just survival for the sake of survival? Survival of the fittest? Survival of the noblest, of the most virtuous? Survival of the most intelligent?

And what of our collective accumulated culture, our civilization, do we want to keep? would we be able to maintain in the face of disaster?

And would I be willing to do anything to make sure that I survived? Or would I be ready to sacrifice my life to ensure that others do survive?

And does any of this mean anything for how I live now, in a pre-apocalyptic world? Should it make a difference to how I live?