Richard Fernandez takes kind of a dark view of the near future with this analogy:

What “too late” means was driven home years ago when one of the volunteer members of the Philippine Airlines cadaver recovery team described an accident which took the lives of 5 members of a university mountaineering club.  The party was trekking along a dry riverbed on the lower slope of an 8,000 foot volcano in Mindoro.  The weather was fine and the mountaineers were doomed.  Unknown to them a squall had dumped a slug of rain on the peak high above them.  The first warning they had of oncoming tons of water was a rumbling sound round the corner of the gorge.  Then the flood came and only those fast enough to clamber up the riverbanks survived.

The issue to which he’s referring, specifically, is the wave of invading migrants in Europe, but there are any number of issues that would qualify, as well, from the economy to superviruses.  In a worst case scenario, the “slug of rain” will open up a number dams along its way, trigger a mudslide, and scare all of the man-eating critters from the mountain down on us all.  Fernandez’s conclusion applies pretty much across the board:

The fact is, for West to survive, it must become something other than what our PC leaders have tried to make it.  For it is written that “the stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.”  It’s poetic justice to be sure but we have to accept the justice if we are to save what’s left of the poetry.

Fortunately, the advice applies on an individual level.  Return to the basics and your own foundations.  That’s what will remain when all else is washed away, and it better be enough.