Why Zombies?

Post Apocalyptic novels and movies are some of the most intriguing and unsettling stories out there. For centuries, people have been creating apocalypse myths. Why? Well the answer is probably very similar to the reason why we have creation myths. The human mind, as I said before, does not like to deal with the unknown. Humans have a drive like no other to discover anything and everything there is to know about the world. Seeing as the creation of our world has already occurred, it is much easier to come up with why and how we were created. Our demise, however, is not so easy seeing as it hasn't happened yet. I find the apocalyptic myths vary greatly. In some cases such as Judgement Day, God comes and takes believers to Heaven while others wait to find out where they shall go. Whereas, today, a major theories could be the sun burning out, complete natural destruction of our planet, and most popular Zombies.

I have always wondered: why Zombies? While I still really can't answer this question, I do have at least a guess. Due to our technological advancements and scientific discoveries, it would seem very possible that a disease could be created or could be spread very rapidly through our world. Hundreds of years ago, traveling across seas wasn't that easy, nor was it common. This would have made a zombie apocalypse much harder to happen at such a rapid pace that we see in the movies where overnight it seems almost everyone in the world has become a zombie. Today, with airplanes and cruises, a zombie apocalypse at such a rapid speed, could very well be possible.

Another rather interesting thing you may notice in Zombie movies, is that they end with a ray of hope. A hope for humanity to prevail after such tragedy can be seen in several zombie movies. For instance in World War Z, Brad Pitts character ultimately discovers how to become immune from the disease and stop it from spreading. This, while doesn't completely solve the fact that millions of Zombies are still running around killing people, does shine some hope to at least prevent further infection and begin the new start for those still living on Earth. In I am Legend, the alternate ending not the original, it ends with Will Smith's character realizing that the infected still have some form of humanity seeing as the alpha male who is after him just wanted to get the female infected that Will Smith had taken at the beginning of the movie. This leads to Will Smith giving the girl back and being spared by the infected alpha male, unlike the original where he blows himself up to save the other two survivors. Even non-zombie apocalyptic movies have hopeful endings, Hunger games, ends with Katniss having a family and living happily ever after.

So why do these "myths" end with hope? What if the human mind just can't comes to terms with the ultimate demise? Hope is ingrained in our system. Even if the world ends, we like to think there is some light at the end of the tunnel. This explains why in you go to heaven or hell in some mythology after the world ends. So that you have something to look forward to or hope for even when you are gone. We will never know what will happen when the world ends or why it ends until it happens. My hope is that we as humans can find it on ourselves to want to save our world and try to live on it as long as possible. Our world won't last forever, just like we won't, but if we can give ourselves a few more hundred years, then why not?