What are the signs of the end of the world? Or even still, the end of time?

When you start to think about it you realize that the end of the world and the end of time are two different things in a sense. The end of time is more of a universal thing (the actual universe), whereas the end of the world is just that, our world. Religions, philosophers, shamans, prophets, and even "nut cases" (you know, those on the street corners with the signs as we so often think of t hem) all have their own ideas and times as when the world will end. And the thing is, they don't entirely all agree on how or when. But pretty much they all would agree that sometime, eventually, the world will end and probably the universe too.

So how will the world end? Will the end of the world come at the finger of a man controlling the nuke button? Will the end of the world come with a natural space-born disaster such as an asteroid? Perhaps the world will end when our sun expand? Maybe the world will end when a deity will return to earth? When it happens, it won't really matter -- that'll be it. But what does matter is how people prepare for it. And what's not too surprising is the preparations are the same no matter what you believe. Even if you believe that God will return, there's no reason not to prepare for an asteroid impact! It's perfectly likely that we'll have another one. We've had thousands in the past, and they haven't stopped yet.

It doesn't really take that much effort to prepare (as much as any human without government funds at least). Really, everyone should be doing this as it is anyway! And it's quite simple:

• Stock up on canned foods -- rotate the stock, but always keep at least 6 months supply on hand (with rationing at the least).
  
• Stock up on bottled water (or if you can find out how, bottle your own).
  
• Get battery-powered devices, "green" power (solar panels & small wind turbines), and power generators
  
• Keep a can opener and some "camping" cooking utensils by the food
  
• Keep an "emergency" food and first aid kit in every car (even if just simple camping stuff), AND at your workplace at your desk
  

Now the first time you buy the stuff, you're going to have a huge bill compared to normal. After all, you are buying enough canned goods for 6 months (assuming you eat only 1 canned item per day, that's 180 cans for one person; 300-360 for two [sharing cans], etc). And that's a LOT of cans! They'll take up the majority of anyone's pantry. It's probably best to also buy a commercial food cart to store the foods on. They come in different sizes, are designed for food storage, meet food service guidelines, many/most times are on wheels, and they're designed to hold 500-2000lbs. Why bottled water? They'll be a shortage, or just the tap will be undrinkable (not to mention high prices in stores).

Well the second the world's coming to an end (like an asteroid or some other problem) what do you think will happen? People will rush to the stores. And if you're lucky, really, really lucky the governments will put a lock on all prices before all the goods sell out. And they will. Pop, water and canned goods will be gone within minutes of an announcement. People will rush to the streets to get to the stores. Now if you stock up in advance, you'll be fine! No need to rush to the store, no need to even leave the house. All you'll need to do is make sure others don't know you have food (otherwise they'll probably break in to steal it, killing you and your family in the process). And don't let the religious people or any "good natured" people fool you. When the world comes to an end, people will revert to animalistic "kill or be killed" instincts. Your friend today will be enemy the second the world's end is near.

But it is very, very important to cycle the foods! Keep on shopping as normal. Buy foods to replenish those eaten, just put the new cans in the back -- remember oldest goods get eaten first (so push the goods forward, and stock the back). The same goes for water! Water can't be saved forever; it has an expiration date (for one reason or another). So treat it just like the other foods.

And even if the end doesn't hit in your lifetime (even though I'm betting something really "world ending" will happen by 2060), being stocked up on food is good for any "minor" disaster such as earthquake, flood, tornado, volcano, etc. And the thing is, you'll actually be eating the food, so it's not like you're wasting money (so much). Even if the government does the right thing when the end of the world's announced, by having food stores for people, do you really think they'll have enough for everyone in the country to eat for six months? Of course not! For one they figure many of the people will die. But no matter what, you'll be forced to eat whatever they give you without choice (any religion-based diets, vegetarians, etc would be pretty much, well, screwed). By stocking up now, you'll be prepared for the world's end when it happens.

But for the end of time, in a universal aspect, there's not much you could do. On the plus side, most likely no one will be around to see it. So end of time, end of the world, world's end, end of existence, extinction level event (ELE "ellie") -- whatever you want to call it, it's time to be prepared. I personally don't believe in using guns. You have a gun, neighbor has a gun, comes down to using guns the winner's the best shot or just the one who pulls the trigger first -- and really, when all life might be ending a person's survival instinct will cause them to charge a man (or woman) will a fully loaded shotgun if that person has what they need. Why? While you might shoot them (and they'd die), if they don't, they'd die; but if they charge and you miss, they live.

Now there's a lot more for the end of the world stuff that needs to be done. Much, much more. But for now I'll end it here. I have detailed plans for everything needed to survive during an end of the world event, or at the least survive longer than others, that everyone can do. And if implemented, could save the lives of almost everyone not at ground zero for the event. Of course, extinction level event method greatly influences this (i.e. planet-sized asteroid impacting = kiss butt goodbye [food or no food], small meteor striking the earth = potential for survival of almost everyone).

Beginning or the End

Everything's been done. Everything's already been said. Nothing is truly new. It's all just a variant of things past.

As life keeps on ticking on, people keep on repeating the same chores day in and day out. Work, eat, sleep. But nothing is ever really done. No matter how much work people do, it's all futile in the end. They get money that's used for food and shelter, and the toys that make life "worth living" but nothing else. Humans have become so dependent upon their technologies that they wouldn't be able to survive if it all were to be wiped out tomorrow.

We may be intelligent. Highly evolved. Perhaps even spiritually advanced. But we are so tied up doing unimportant things that we've forgotten the basic needs of ourselves.

How many of us could start a fire without matches or any other man-made device? Or even grow crops to support our families? Build shelter? How about know how to bend wood to make a wheel? Make the cloth for clothing? Make thread? Shoes? Or even simpler: know which plants can be eaten that grow in the wild, and which can't? How about make brick? Make tools from metals?

These simple things required for all life on the planet have been outsourced to others. Efficient, and allowing people to become more advanced - perhaps. But they aren't even taught anymore. People aren't even aware of the warning signs of a volcano erupting, even a tsunami -- if they were hundreds-thousands wouldn't die what seems to be every time one happens (extenuating circumstances being excluded).

But what will happen when we have a massive volcanic eruption, a so-called super eruption, that sends the planet into massive cooling -- or even an asteroid or comet hitting the planet? And yes, I say when, for it will happen. It has before, it will again. We'll be cut off from our satellites causing a lot of our technology to stop working, or at the least lose a lot of functioning. Crops will start to die off, as well as animals. Power systems will fail taking out heating and cooling systems to billions of people. And what will people do then?

We haven't been trained to know what to do. There's no foraging classes taught that are required. No "keeping warm without power". We can't even imagine living without power. My grandparents didn't live without power, even my great-grandparents had power for most of their lives. Take that away, and we're lost. All work stops, people panic, food spoils. A simple 72 hour power outage can cause a family to lose most of their food. But it's all due to technological advances and people's fast work schedules. Everything has to be "now" or "five minutes ago". Canned foods make up a small portion of many households, replaced in favor of frozen foods -- yet these foods are impervious to power outages. Many can even be eaten without being reheated.

Canning itself is a modern technology too, simple in it's implementation -- yet how many people now even know how to do it?

Everything we have that makes us so advanced will be our downfall. The beginning of every new technology, while a wondrous achievement, just adds to our loss of knowledge. For every advancement, we take steps backward in the simplest of things. And one day, it'll be the collapse of our civilization -- the human civilization.