The Desire for Disaster

Sometimes I wish something extraordinary would happen. An alien invasion. A massive natural disaster. Something that would fundamentally disrupt the world as we know it.

I don't want people to suffer. I don't want anyone to die. I don't actually want the destruction that would inevitably accompany these events.

But there's a part of me that longs for what might come afterward.

A world where the trivial things we occupy ourselves with suddenly become irrelevant. Where our differences matter less than our similarities. Where we stop arguing about things that don't matter and start working together toward something that does.

I said something like this to a woman I was dating recently. She didn't take it particularly well.

And I understand why.

On the surface, wishing for a disaster sounds pretty fucked up. It sounds privileged, perhaps even selfish. Especially to someone who has experienced real tragedy, or who has people depending on them.

But I think there's something worth exploring beneath that uncomfortable sentiment.

The Simplicity of Survival

Modern life is complicated.

We spend enormous amounts of energy deciding what to do with ourselves. What careers to pursue, what relationships to maintain, what possessions to acquire, what goals to chase. We manufacture problems, invent obligations, and fill our days with distractions.

And somewhere in all of that, we struggle to find purpose.

Survival, on the other hand, is remarkably simple.

Not easy. Simple.

When survival becomes the priority, the hierarchy of our needs becomes painfully obvious. Food. Water. Shelter. Safety. The people we love.

There's no existential debate about whether you're making the most of your afternoon when you're trying to keep someone alive.

Your purpose is right in front of you.

I think there's something deeply appealing about that clarity.

Not the suffering. Not the fear. Not the loss.

The clarity.

A Common Enemy

Human beings are extraordinarily good at dividing ourselves.

Politics, religion, nationality, wealth, ideology. We find endless ways to separate ourselves into groups and convince ourselves that our differences are more important than our similarities.

But occasionally something happens that reminds us how much we have in common.

A storm tears through a community, and neighbors who barely spoke to each other are suddenly clearing fallen trees together. People open their homes to strangers. Someone who was an adversary yesterday becomes the person helping you rebuild tomorrow.

For a moment, the usual boundaries seem less important.

I remember the early days of COVID, when there was at least a brief sense that the entire world was confronting the same problem. That unity was imperfect and didn't last. In many ways, the pandemic eventually drove us further apart.

But the possibility of solidarity was there.

And I think that's what I find myself longing for.

Not an enemy to destroy, but something important enough that we might finally recognize each other as allies.

The Privilege of Wanting Chaos

There's an uncomfortable truth here.

It's much easier to romanticize disruption when your life is relatively comfortable.

When you're not worried about feeding your children tomorrow. When you're not responsible for keeping someone alive. When you've never had your home destroyed or watched your community collapse.

I recognize that.

And I suspect people with more immediate responsibilities are often less inclined to entertain these fantasies. They already have a purpose that demands their attention.

Maybe part of what I'm describing is the privilege of having enough security to wonder what life would be like without it.

But recognizing that privilege doesn't make the underlying feeling disappear.

It just makes it more complicated.

We Like the Idea of Disaster

I think people are drawn to drama.

We watch apocalyptic movies. We play survival games. We consume stories about civilization collapsing and ordinary people becoming extraordinary.

And I don't think it's simply because we enjoy watching things explode.

These stories offer something our everyday lives often don't: a clear purpose, meaningful stakes, and the opportunity to discover who we are when everything else is stripped away.

There's something compelling about imagining yourself in a world where your actions have immediate and undeniable consequences.

Where helping someone matters more than your job title.

Where competence, courage, generosity, and cooperation become more valuable than status.

Of course, the fantasy conveniently leaves out the starvation, disease, grief, and terror.

Real disaster isn't an adventure.

It's suffering.

And I think most of us who occasionally entertain these thoughts would desperately want our ordinary lives back within days of experiencing the reality.

That's the contradiction.

We don't want disaster.

We want what we imagine disaster might reveal.

What Are We Actually Missing?

Maybe the more interesting question isn't why I sometimes wish for something catastrophic to happen.

It's why I feel that something so extreme might be necessary to experience the things I'm longing for.

Community. Cooperation. Purpose. Connection.

None of those things actually require a disaster.

We can help our neighbors without a tornado tearing through town. We can work together without an alien invasion. We can find purpose without being forced into a struggle for survival.

And yet, somehow, we often don't.

We become so consumed by the routines and distractions of ordinary life that we forget how extraordinary it is to be alive alongside billions of other people who are, fundamentally, trying to figure out the same things we are.

Maybe the fantasy of catastrophe is really a fantasy of escaping all that noise.

Of having the world make the decision for us.

Of no longer having to wonder what matters.

Because suddenly, we'd know.

The World Doesn't Need to End

I don't actually want the world to fall apart.

I want people to come together.

I want the trivial things we fight about to lose their importance. I want to experience the kind of connection that emerges when people recognize that they need each other.

I want to feel useful. Necessary, even.

And maybe that's the part worth paying attention to.

Because if I need to imagine the end of civilization to feel that kind of purpose, perhaps the problem isn't that the world is too ordinary.

Perhaps it's that we've built lives so full of things to do that we've forgotten what we're doing them for.

I don't want a disaster.

I want a reason for us to remember that we're in this together.

And I'd much rather we figured that out before something terrible forces us to.