Unpopular Opinion: There Are No More Heroes

One of the shows that has lived rent free in my brain for the last ten years is The Walking Dead.

Not because of the zombies.

But because of the thought experiment it inspired.

What if something happened that was disruptive enough to shut down the systems we rely on every day? Not a zombie apocalypse, but something significant enough to interrupt the flow of modern life. No grocery deliveries. No online banking. Empty shelves. Delayed supply chains. Services that suddenly weren’t available when you needed them.

Where would I go? What would I do? How would I take care of myself and the people I love?

At the time, I came to what felt like a pretty reassuring answer. I would go to my friend’s ranch. He had land, a greenhouse, cows, a stocked pond, a water well, a sawmill, and enough practical skills to make himself useful in almost any situation.

The problem, of course, was that he had those things.

I didn’t.

My survival plan was essentially to find someone more competent than me and stand near them.

I’m the deadweight that dies in episode two.

The more I reflect, the more I realize that this wasn’t really a personal failing. It’s the logical outcome of living in a society that has become extraordinarily good at eliminating friction.

Need food? Go to the grocery store.

Need money? Open an app.

Need a new shirt? It can be at your door tomorrow.

The majority of the challenges that occupied human beings for time immemorial have been outsourced to systems operating almost invisibly in the background of our lives. And as a result, many of us never learned the practical knowledge that our grandparents and great-grandparents knew like the back of their hands.

In many ways, that’s a remarkable achievement. We should be grateful for it.

But more and more, I’m beginning to believe that it comes with a bright red asterisk.

When systems become more capable, individuals tend to become less so.

We stop learning skills that were previously necessary. We lose knowledge that no longer appears useful. We become consumers of expertise rather than practitioners of it.

For most of my life, this didn’t strike me as a problem. I hardly even considered it, as it was deeply integrated into the natural cadence of my life.

Then COVID happened.

During a deeply unsettling time, what came to the surface was how little agency I truly had. How my life completely relied on systems I had no control over and barely understood.

Whether farmers kept working.

Whether grocery stores stayed stocked.

Whether Amazon continued to deliver.

Whether the economy held together.

Whether I could continue generating enough income to buy the things I needed.

That uncomfortable feeling has lingered.

What troubles me is not that we rely on systems. It’s that many of us have forgotten that they are systems at all. We treat them like laws of nature rather than fragile networks built and maintained by other human beings.

When they work, they’re almost invisible. When they don’t, we suddenly realize how dependent we’ve become. And when something goes wrong, our instinct is often to look for someone else to fix it.

An expert.

A politician.

A corporation.

An institution.

A hero.

But the longer I watch the world, the more convinced I become that no one is coming.

And honestly, I find that conclusion liberating. 

Because if no one is coming, then we can stop waiting. 

We can stop assuming that someone else will solve our problems, advocate for us, or build the future we’d like to see.

We can stop looking over our shoulders for permission.

The answer isn’t to panic. The answer isn’t to retreat from society and build a bunker in the woods. (Despite the fact that some days that seems like the easier option)

The answer is to become a little more capable.

To learn how to cook.

To grow something.

To fix something.

To make something.

To teach something.

To build stronger families, stronger communities, and stronger local networks. 

To become more resilient.

There are no more heroes.

Maybe, there never were.

And if there’s one lesson I’ve taken from all those years of ruminating about zombie apocalypses, it’s this:

The people who make it through aren’t the ones waiting to be rescued.

They’re the ones who learned how to rescue themselves.

-HHH