Every catastrophe in history has left behind writing. Samuel Pepys recorded the Great Fire of London in his diary in 1666, including the detail that he dug a pit in his garden to bury his wine and his parmesan cheese. During the siege of Leningrad, people kept diaries through starvation and shelling, and some of those notebooks are now among the most important records of the war. Writing is one of the first things people return to when the world breaks, and one of the most useful. So here is how writing survives the apocalypse, and the small practical details that decide whether yours does.
Why people write
- To keep their minds steady. Journaling is one of the most widely recommended ways to process stress, and the people who kept diaries through wars and disasters often said it was what kept them sane.
- To remember what happened. Memory under stress is unreliable. Writing it down the same day is how you know later what actually happened, and when.
- To pass on knowledge. How to fix the pump, which plants made someone sick, how many days the food lasted. A written record means the group learns, not just the individual.
- To reach people who aren’t there. Letters to missing family, even ones that can’t be sent yet, are a way of staying connected, and sometimes they get delivered after all.
What to keep a record of
A survival log is more useful than poetry, though there is room for both. Every day, note:
- The date (you will lose track faster than you think)
- Weather and temperature
- Food and water used and remaining
- Anyone who arrived, left, got sick or got hurt, and what treatment they received
- Anything learned: what worked, what failed, what you saw on a supply run
After a month, that notebook is the most valuable planning document your group owns.
The trivial details that matter
Pencils beat pens. A pencil writes when wet, cold or upside down, and graphite does not fade or run. Ballpoints skip in the cold, gel and fountain pen inks smear in water, and every pen eventually dries out. Keep a few pencils and a small sharpener, or a knife.
Choose paper that lasts. Cheap paper yellows and turns brittle over decades because of the acids in it; acid-free paper lasts far longer. For field notes, waterproof notebooks made for surveyors and hikers will survive rain that turns ordinary paper to pulp.
Protect it. A zip-top bag doubles a notebook’s life. A notebook kept in an inside pocket survives far more than one kept in a pack.
Write clearly. Your handwriting is a code that only you can read when you are tired and in a hurry. If a record matters, print it in block letters and date every entry.
Writing together
Storytelling around a fire is the oldest form of entertainment, and in a world without screens it comes back fast. Groups that read aloud, swap stories or keep a shared journal build a common history, and a group that remembers together tends to stay together. Our post on recording your family’s stories is a good place to start practicing now.
Do you keep a journal? Tell us in the comments what you’d want someone to find in it a hundred years from now.