Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: People are what matter
By Liam O'Leary
What’s the most important thing in a zombie apocalypse? Well, if you saw this week’s Fear The Walking Dead, you know the answer…is people.
“Everything is about people, everything in this life that’s worth a damn.” These were the words of Dr. Eastman to Morgan in The Walking Dead’s Season Six episode, “Here’s Not Here”, and, they are especially true in a zombie apocalypse.
Why? Well, give me a couple minutes and I’ll explain.
In this week’s episode of Fear The Walking Dead, we saw the development of John and Naomi’s relationship.
First and foremost, the episode began with us getting a glimpse into the lonely existence of John Dorie. John spent his days cleaning his gun, clearing his land of infected, playing Scrabble (Alone), watching movies (Again, alone), and, well, barely sleeping.
That lonely existence brings me to my first point: We, human beings, are social animals. We always have been. We’ve always existed as nations, communities, clans, cliques, and families.
While some can defy this, most of us would, whether we realized or not, be adversely affected by extended solitude. We need people to talk to, interact with, and, as I’ve said before, watch our backs.
If we don’t have people around us, we can fall into despair, maybe paranoia, and, God only knows what else. How well do you think you’ll survive if you’re crippled by depression, or sliding down the slippery slope of paranoia?
“Not very” is the correct answer.
Along with keeping us from falling into a spiral of dangerous mental illness, people can also teach us things.
Sometimes, something as simple as a change in perspective can steer away from self-destruction. If we’re too focused on revenge or on what we’ve lost, or on the world we once knew being gone, it can lead to those problems I mentioned earlier.
That change in perspective may be impossible, however, without a different point of view being given to us. A friend or a loved one can help us look a things in a way that we never have or maybe even could have.
Unless you start hearing disembodied voices, we’ll never get a different perspective just from talking to ourselves.
Of course, as John relationship with Naomi showed,having other people can provide us with something that is absolutely necessary to survival: A reason to live.
As mentioned earlier, the world’s going to kind of go to pot after the zombie apocalypse kicks in. We’ll see the world as we know it crumble, and probably lose a lot of people we care about in the process. Despair is dangerously easy to fall into when that happens; solitude only exacerbates that.
If we have someone we care about — A friend, a lover, a family member — it gives us a reason to keep going. If you know that you’re not alone, you’ve got a reason to keep going. A person who knows a loved one is out there, will do everything possible to get a chance to see them again.
While our own instincts may spur us to live, it becomes much easier when we have someone to live for.
People need people. We need companions to watch our backs, friends to keep us grounded, and loved ones to give us purpose. Without people, the apocalypse might just be too bleak to withstand.
“Everything is about people, everything in this life that’s worth a damn.”
This is why you follow…The Rules.
Next: Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Sometimes you can't win
And that’s our survival rule of the week!! Hopefully, it’ll help you give you that mental edge that will prove so crucial once the dead start eating everyone.
If you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can get it on Kindle here and on iTunes here!