The blackout has become the perfect pretext for the most gratuitous sensationalism on television. On Friday at noon, Ana Rosa's program, were interviewing a supposed survival expert. They had invited him to explain all the necessary elements in one kit basic emergency. The presenter gave him authority with a headline worthy of the most alarmist journalism: "José Luis, you've been preparing for the apocalypse since the 1990s.More than three decades culminated now in the display of his entire arsenal on Telecinco. The display of equipment was delirious. The table on the set was covered with all sorts of objects.It's a normal 'kit' for an area where you have basic supplies –said the man–. This is the backpack to leave home in a momentHe claimed that this was the minimum individual equipment for any person. As an anecdote, he noted that his two children and his dog had their own backpacks. José Luis, thirty-five years on the front line, spending his own money on equipment to climb Everest just to survive the city and machetes of all kinds), fuel elements (to light a fire in any circumstance), protective material (a tent, blanket, and sleeping bag, among others), storage utensils (such as a backpack and canteen), a range of ropes of different lengths and characteristics, and, above all, a medical bag to treat critically ill patients. All of this is a form of social alarmism that uses panic as a claim. Many of the audiences of these programs are people who under no circumstances can assume the preparation and use of these kits emergency radicals.

Last week, the European Union authorities presented a plan in which they asked the population to always have one on hand. kit survival for possible emergency situations in which we may find ourselves - such as natural disasters or even a possible war.

Abi Enrech, one of the best comedians and people I know, owner and soul of the bookstore La Llama, specialized in humor, has a wonderful monologue about the preppersThis term is the name given to individuals or groups who prepare for any type of emergency. They train in first aid and self-defense and stockpile supplies that will allow them to survive in the event of an attack. In her monologue, Abi gives a dedicated course on how to be prepper and, above all, it alerts us to what a ballast. And the worst burden is us people. "I'm a burden!" Abi shouts, something she never does offstage. We are indeed a liability, because most of us don't live with the expectation that the world could collapse at any moment and we have a relative stock of basic goods. I, for example, would be moderately prepper As for the pantry, because I panic if I run out of sugar, rice, coffee, or tissues. Or toilet paper and hot chocolate. Or sparkling water. I won't go on, or I'll give myself away. But we agree that, apart from the most carefree and the most sadly poor people, everyone has a defensible stockpile.

Western culture has generated so many fictions about its own demise (in novels, films, comics, songs) that the time seems approaching to bring reality closer to fictions. Perhaps the difficulties we now have in remembering the days of the COVID pandemic in detail have to do with their strange resemblance to so many stories of mass contagion that we had previously disseminated for many years: the memories of the days of strict confinement, and of the subsequent months of preventive measures, are confusing, imprecise, and fleeting. It all began with alarms that seemed exaggerated to us, with images of Chinese markets where bats were sold, with the refusal to wear masks that we ended up using universally. Masks, by the way, were a source of wealth for many: the usual smart ones marketed them illegally and illicitly, making a killing at the expense of the collective catastrophe. But many also marketed masks completely legally, in a thousand different colors, patterns, and models. The pandemic didn't make us better, but it did once again demonstrate capitalism's relentless ability to transform literally everything into market products, governed by the law of supply and demand.