Survival

In the novel 'The Road' the father, or the man as he is often referred too, was confronted by his wife who accused him of refusing of recognizing the truth. The truth that she talked about was that it was a given fact that they would die and the only choice they had was to decide when they were going to die. Wait, be abused, be killed, and then be eaten or to just end it all yourself before things spiral out of control. She then decided to leave her family and just end it herself. This lead to the discussion in our group that asked of us, "What would you do to survive?" Would you be like the mother and decide that fighting and trying wasn't worth the effort because in the end it would result on death? Would you continue to suffer through your health and expose your child to danger and pain and traumatic events like the father? Or would you turn to cannibalism like many of the other survivors did?

After a lot of thought and consideration I would have followed the mother's step. Yes, it is giving up without trying and yes it can be considered the cowards way out but realizing that nothing can be done when the majority of the masses have turned against their humanity does bring a person down. It is cruel to keep on living with a small hope that you will survive when you struggle to find food, shelter and safety. Mistrust of others would plague the thoughts of everyone. The mother, as hard as it is to understand and to accept was right. Death was coming to them all and it would all depend on how long it would take them to realize that death wasn't avoidable.

If I am in a situation that I know my survival chance is 0 and that death is for sure coming, I would not wait for it if I knew that when it came looking for me it would be more painful.