We are fucked! We are so fucked!
– a doomer
It’s not that I am rooting for civ to survive. I believe and hope that this civilization is on its last legs. My unciv credentials remain unimpeachable. It’s the other stuff that bugs the hell out of me.
I am sick and tired of all the mantras of doom offered up in daily genuflections by “our kind” of people. Haven’t they noticed that the Spectacle promotes endlessly depressing messages, and has done so for ages? Custom dispiriting propaganda for different population targets! And we have helped it along through a regular menu of bleak scenarios, reassurances of very grim events looming just ahead, and perpetually hopeless computer simulations. You see, whatever we do — repeat after me — we.are.fucked.
Meh. It’s gotten boring, folks.
Isn’t it just a variation on the same millenarian bullcrap spouted by those crazy-eyed folks who assure us that the world will end next May 21st? Nobody knows the future. Nobody. Therefore we cannot know whether we are fucked or not. Ain’t that nice? Having those dismal tidings perpetually running through our heads gets in the way of sensing possibilities that have so far been missed. And guess what: the puppet-masters of the Spectacle want us to miss them!
So I am drawing a line. I will no longer repeat and pass on those tunes that flow out of the ol’ doomer hurdy-gurdy. I henceforth throw my lot in with those of us who are busy sensing transformative ways of proceeding, seeing new visions, finding and walking new paths. To think that we could know the future with the help of smart machines! What an exquisitely bizarre turn of the familiar hubris screw. Forget about those oh so slickly persuasive scenarios. Let us instead bet heavily that Gaia has something else in mind. Let us assume that the endless complexity that is the universe can morph into something unprecedented, swayed by the flapping of a butterfly’s shimmering wing or by a sudden wee burst of lovingkindness. The future I have in mind and heart begins in some tiny thing I do today that amplifies in completely unpredictable ways and tomorrow brings forth a … surprise.
I have been reading an ambitious, sprawling economic history of this civilization. Graeber’s ‘Debt: the first 5,000 years’ is a creative, eye opening work worth a series of winter evenings. I want to quote from its last chapter; to share some lines that hit me square in the solar plexus.
For most of the last several centuries, most people assumed that … the future was likely to be fundamentally different. Yet somehow, the anticipated revolutions never happened. The basic structure of financial capitalism remained in place. It is only now, at the very moment when it’s becoming increasingly clear that the current arrangements are not viable, that we suddenly have hit the wall in terms of our collective imagination.
There is very good reason to believe that, in a generation or so, capitalism itself will no longer exist – most obviously, as ecologists keep reminding us, because it’s impossible to maintain an engine of perpetual growth forever on a finite planet… Yet faced with the prospect of capitalism actually ending, the most common reaction – even from those who call themselves “progressives” – is simply fear. We cling to what exists because we can no longer imagine an alternative that wouldn’t be even worse.
Maintaining [the military] apparatus seems even more important, to exponents of the “free market,” even than maintaining any sort of viable market economy. How else can one explain what happened in the former Soviet Union? One would ordinarily have imagined that the end of the Cold War would have led to the dismantling of the army and the KGB and rebuilding the factories, but what in fact happened was precisely the other way around. This is just an extreme example of what has been happening everywhere. Economically, the apparatus is pure dead weight; all the guns, surveillance cameras, and propaganda engines are extraordinarily expensive and really produce nothing, and no doubt it’s yet another element dragging the entire capitalist system down – along with producing the illusion of an endless capitalist future that laid the groundwork for the endless bubbles to begin with. Finance capital became the buying and selling of chunks of that future, and economic freedom, for most of us, was reduced to the right to buy a small piece of one’s own permanent subordination.
In other words, there seems to have been a profound contradiction between the political imperative of establishing capitalism as the only possible way to manage anything, and capitalism’s own unacknowledged need to limit its future horizons lest speculation, predictably, goes haywire. Once it did, and the whole machine imploded, we were left in the strange situation of not being able to even imagine any other way that things might be arranged. About the only thing we can imagine is catastrophe.
The system wants it so that the only thing we can imagine is a catastrophe. People trapped and thrashing in the sticky web of perpetual doom will rather stay with the devil they know. And that serves the elites just fine. Fearing a popular alternative, they felt constrained in the Depression to make concessions, and to spread wealth around after the war. Once that alternative was discredited, they concluded that anything goes. And so “anything went.” And this same “anything” is still going down. But a new game is afoot. They’ll never realize it until it pokes them in the eye. We know the Spectacle is not real. It only exists because people keep watching it and dancing to its tunes.
Since doomerism has become part of the Spectacle, yet another way to keep people fearful and stuck, it no longer serves our interests. Dwelling on ghastly scenarios once had its charms; now it’s just another distraction. Let us imagine something that the puppet-masters hope we’ll fail to see in our mind’s eye — a world that works, a world where life thrives, a world where being human is an adventure — and give that world our undivided attention.
November 19, 2011 at 5:38 pm
Bravo! I’m with ya’ there. I do see a role for some of the bad-news-”dwelling”, albeit in a much more balanced fashion, but i’ll explain my take on that perhaps nextime.
November 19, 2011 at 5:58 pm
I find the passivity of dedicated doomers really puzzling. It always seems to me that, when the realization sinks in that we’ve made a terrible blunder, it’s only rational to stop the self-destructive behavior and to begin working out a better approach. There are doomers who seem to relish the feeling of hopelessness and who like to shoot down any suggestion that changes for the better are possible.
Maybe they fear change of any kind or maybe they feel an aversion to taking responsibility, I don’t know.
If, as you suggest, doomerism is just; “yet another way to keep people fearful and stuck”, it seems to work pretty effectively. As the message of doom becomes fashionable, books can be sold, careers built, based on spreading hopelessness and anxiety. It all advances the agenda of the puppeteers.
I suspect that our personal and collective will is being steadily softened so that everyone will eventually accept a “solution” offered by an unexpected rescuer. The machine will be kept running at much lower power with most people shackled to their places in it like galley slaves. This would not be a good outcome.
Yes, let’s ignore the depressing puppet-show and not only imagine and think through “a world that works, a world where life thrives, a world where being human is an adventure”, but let’s begin to create it and live in it as well. Right now, this IS the adventure of being human..
November 19, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Oh how you make my heart sing, thank you Vera for keeping us afloat.
Our greatest asset is our imagination.
November 19, 2011 at 7:27 pm
Wonderful!
G. G. Welles along with predicting the Twentieth Century, and possibly helping to bring it into being, had a doomer character in War of the Worlds. He was always planning and scheming, working himself up with just how bad everything was. In the end, our hero finally realizes this guy won’t do anything but run on his wheel of doom-saying while remaining safe in his cage.
The Spectacle loves a scary story. And knows how to turn it into a commodity.
November 20, 2011 at 9:07 am
Safe in our cages. Yes. Anything to keep us in our prison; if gloom will do it, the system will support those who feed the gloom.
“let’s begin to create it and live in it as well. Right now, this IS the adventure of being human..”
Thank you all… so glad it resonates!
November 20, 2011 at 5:26 pm
This was very timely. Thank you. Got a bit doomed out myself. Went and turned over the compost heap instead. That helped. I know that ain’t gonna do it. But it helped.
November 20, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Hey. So good to see you again.
November 22, 2011 at 12:59 pm
[...] * At this point, the author of Leaving Babylon may be leaving us… [...]
November 23, 2011 at 4:24 pm
I puzzle over this issue, too, though my public comments are undoubtedly the sort to which you object (whereas my private life is somewhat different). Much as I want to believe in the exhilaration and ecstasy of a potential open future, I can’t yet quite overcome the agony and anguish of the assured one. But that’s the future, which as you point out no one can quite fully predict (though the outlines are awfully clear), and our everyday living and breathing are rather meaningless if all we live for is either version of the future. In the meantime, I eat good food, make music, read and write, and nourish the relationships in my life.
November 23, 2011 at 7:05 pm
Welcome, Brutus!
Generally, I don’t believe in assured futures, though I guess we could bet on the odds…
Loving that. Exactly. And futures are made out of what we *do* today, not out of what we fear, ey? (Did not mean to suggest that *my kind* of future is the one to live for.)
November 24, 2011 at 11:00 am
Thank you so much for this writing.
I’ve been living under a black cloud lately. No hope. Bad moon on the rise and all that.
Between Activist Post and Wide Awake News and a few others I seem to have gotten addicted to – I was beginning to spread gloom and doom around myself.
One morning, when I didn’t even want to get out of bed, I noticed the sun shining, my daughter rising, my husband busy at work somewhere in the yard and realized – we have today. We’ll enjoy today. Doom can wait.
Lisa
November 25, 2011 at 12:18 pm
Lisa, welcome!
And thank you for speaking of the resonance. Your story of a morning puts it right where it belongs; amidst all our real human lives.
And here is a brief explanation on why the future of any complex system is unpredictable.
http://www.schuelers.com/ChaosPsyche/part_1_16.htm
November 26, 2011 at 10:30 am
Seems like i sort of threatened to explain what i see as the “on the other hand” here, the flip side to keep in mind that tends to always be there when we talk about reality. In this case, how does doomerism serve some, if not crippled by it its depressing aspects? Indeed the main “catastrophe” is the lack of collective imagination emerging in time to save humankind from their collectively childish ways. Will the mega-crisis inspire the metamovement, as some call it, to co-crystallize a vision free of the repetition-of-history-syndrome-pit which generation after generation seems to earnestly dive into? Something truly sustainable? Agreed, not if we keep our eye only on the burning ball…
At the same time, it’s hard to see the scenario for anything that stands much of a chance on a large scale before things get enough worse that we’ve lost the breathing room…Let’s face it, the allure and negative potential of the shallow reformism seemingly imagined by “the 99%” hasn’t been nearly realized and exhausted yet. I think all of us here are here because we know the “positive” potential of it is sadly insufficient. The implications of which are dire, of the refusal to face how bad things really are, accepting that the rot has spread too deep into the core….
But is my/our brand of hopelessness including clear-eyed imagination, or just ultimately paralyzed by doom and gloom? No we don’t “know”, but IF it’s true that civ IS most likely irreversibly screwed now, the thing about some degree of doomerism (hopefully in balance rather than fixated dwelling on the negative, which is the worst scenario of all, agreed), is that if we don’t prepare for the most likely conditions, and focus instead too much on the hopeful theoretical possibilities which are actually highly unlikely, we screw ourselves that way too. Which seems to be a sort of common reference point for us who hang around here.
So is there a solution not mired in pessimism that we might be leading up to? To my mind, there is. Focus foremost on finding enough of the few of us who are actually readying to do something definitely different, and find some resources to do it with. With those resources, human and otherwise, fast set up some models we can learn from that are less focused on building physical stuff and other relatively slow-motion results, than on the question of how in hell are we going to (can we?) get along well enough to rapidly co-evolve in a synergistic environment? Birthing grounds for new culture and consciousness as they co-create each other. The example(s) will spread to the extent it works and others are ready for it. Otherwise, we stay stuck. Speaking for myself, i stay stuck in the Quagmire i was born into, lost within it save some words i manage to spew forth here and there, and some collaborators in that process, but ultimately going nowhere fast. Seems to me we need to leave this yukky, slimy, suffocating Quagmire behind, and being doomy and gloomy about this Quagmire of a world and its chances (again, balance being the key) are a main motivator for me, at least…which sounds sort of like the main point of this blog! The main “problem” seems to be, who is ready to help each other out of the muck and get on with it?! Where are we hiding, where are we already doing it?
November 26, 2011 at 11:25 am
Well, I’ve always been one to look at the world as an “outsider” anyway so…perhaps that helps these days to just sort of watch it all unravel. I don’t have a great investment in this society.
Our family already lives differently than most – small, home-made cottage, garden, artist and musician incomes, living off the throw-aways of the wasteful…
I hesitate to bring this up because I don’t want to be misunderstood. It might be better to say nothing than to say something and have people take it wrong.
But…here goes.
I am a disciple of Christ. I don’t really call myself a “Christian” anymore because of all those who call themselves that who don’t at all live by what He taught. A true disciple loves his enemy and prays for those who would persecute him and does not give back evil for evil but gives back good. So many who go by the name “Christian” these days…well they’re wolves in sheep’s clothing. They may call themselves sheep but…they don’t act like it.
That said – the way I see the world is that it’s all Babylon. And when the beast runs around behaving beastly – that’s what one would expect. There should be no surprise there. When the “whore that rides the beast” (the organized christian church) acts her part – again – no surprise.
So…I already don’t find any use in trying to “reform” it. God calls His people to “come out of her”. In Revelations He shows us how the kingdoms of the world will act. And that is the way they’ve been acting for the last 2,000 years. And they will continue to do so. It’s the nature of the world kingdom…of Babylon…of Egypt.
November 26, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Lisa, this is a Plain people and Anabaptist-friendly blog, so please don’t feel that it’s not welcome to share where you are coming from. I myself think that when Christianity married power under Constantine, that’s when much of the promise was lost. But of course the revolutionary stuff kept re-emerging over the centuries, despite persecution. And I also think true followers of Jesus walk in his footsteps… We are all together, seculars and religious and in-betweeeners, in seeing Babylon for what it is, and seeing our true brothers and sisters in those who not only understand, but also give themselves over to living it. Living the life that leads out of the bondage of Babylon.
No, there is no surprise in Babylon behaving as it does… and it began with the Sumerians, already way back 6,000 years ago. Remember the song Babylon is fallen? It mentions the “coasts of Shinar.” That’s another word for Sumer.
Hey Jay D: do you still really find it motivating to hear all the doom? I did at first, but by now, it’s become just another distraction. I guess what I was trying to say is that perhaps we get to a place when the profusion of doom becomes counterproductive (besides being manipulated by the Spectacle). I want to focus now primarily on our chances to walk away and to seed another world. It’s like with cancer… survival depends not on dwelling on all the odds for death, but on finding and amplifying the odds for life, even when, and especially when! the odds are small (as they are in some cancers).
You say: “IF it’s true that civ IS most likely irreversibly screwed now, the thing about some degree of doomerism … is that if we don’t prepare for the most likely conditions, and focus instead too much on the hopeful theoretical possibilities which are actually highly unlikely, we screw ourselves that way too. Which seems to be a sort of common reference point for us who hang around here.
Hm. At first I was gonna say I agree. But now I am rethinking it. I am not aiming to grow a portion of my food and take part in the food economy as a way to prepare “for the most likely conditions” – I want to do it because I want to live a life that makes sense, not only to me, but to a world that cares about future generations. And that goes for other things as well as the food. There are certain things that are doable and that can seed more favorable odds. The rest is out of my hands.
Still, your phrase “focusing on hopeful theoretical possibilities that are unlikely” resonates with me. I think that’s pretty much the realm of the techno-salvationists, nah? But coming up with stuff that helps us connect with others and get the hell outa here, so to speak, even if it begins in theory, that makes a lot of sense to me. I think it’s a valid point you are making, and something we should keep an eye on. Maybe it involves a certain balance?
“set up some models we can learn from that are less focused on building physical stuff and other relatively slow-motion results, than on the question of how in hell are we going to (can we?) get along well enough to rapidly co-evolve in a synergistic environment? Birthing grounds for new culture and consciousness as they co-create each other. … The main “problem” seems to be, who is ready to help each other out of the muck and get on with it?! Where are we hiding, where are we already doing it?”
That’s it, ey? And I think there are many people already doing it. And the less Babylon knows about it, the better. Which means we need to look harder to find “us”…
November 26, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Ah, leavergirl, you know a bit of history…that’s very good as it helps us to keep things in perspective. And you’re right – Babylon extends, in spirit, way past 2,000 years ago. I was just referring to the Church (not to be confused with the organized church) age.
Recently I was reading “The Little Ice Age” by Brian Fagan. He helps us to see how global warming and cooling naturally occur and have been occurring for thousands of years of recorded history. The earth has been much warmer than it is today not that long ago, relatively speaking, and that helps to put our present situation in perspective. How the process of warming and cooling affected mankind isn’t always pleasant – especially in the days of subsistence farming. Something to think about. But in the days when it was warmer, people were able to farm areas that would be unthinkable to farm today. Transitioning between the two extremes was difficult as people weren’t prepared for the changes.
So, my advice for anyone who is running around proclaiming the sky is falling – just calm down and roll with it. Sometimes the sky does fall – Libya comes to mind. But when we can adjust and adapt…then we’re better able to weather the storms.
And thank you for being “friendly”. lol.
November 26, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Heh. Well, you know, a lot of people nowadays are prejudiced against religious folk. Maybe it’s payback for all that time when it was the other way around… Not the way I want to play the game, though.
Brian Fagan is one of the people from whom I too have been gathering information about our earlier history. Wish that the history of H. sapiens were more widely known. We have indeed weathered many changes, and many climatic disasters. Like the 6 year winter of the Toba super-volcano explosion. Hard to believe *any* people could survive, yet they did.
The little ice age did in the Vikings in Greenland because they refused to adapt… they were just too “advanced” to learn from the skraeling “savages” and perished with their Babylonish pride. Does Fagan go into that sad story?
November 26, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Hm…well, I’m not religious. Jesus spoke out against organized religion.
Especially the pride of the religious. The religious think that by their own efforts they may attain what Jesus freely offers. There’s a difference.
But anyway, yes, Fagan did say that people found the remains of the Viking settlements. Things didn’t go well for them in the end.
We live in Wisconsin and sometimes I wonder how we would manage without the lifestyle we’re used to. Then I think of the natives that lived here for generations before us – without anything for heat but a campfire, gathering water from the stream, hunting, fishing, gardening and farming, living in “primitive” dwellings…
no cars, no grocery stores, clothing stores, store-bought and paper-wrapped meat and no sliced bread. No Home depot. No pizza hut. ack! lol.
Some people live so primitively in this world and they thrive and then there are those so removed from the soil that…to lose the lifestyle they’re familiar with would literally kill them. It’s happened in other societies before.
November 26, 2011 at 5:50 pm
I understand about being religious vs being a follower of Jesus. But most folks just lump it all together… makes for some tapdancing, finding common language!
Yeah, life close to the land can be difficult, unless you live in some tropical paradise… but don’t you think that if we pull together and live by other agreements than those that civ forces on us… we need not live in a camp by a fire, with only a skin to lie on…
Not that I dislike camping… but as a permanent sort of arrangement, I don’t think I would be a “happy camper.”
November 26, 2011 at 6:42 pm
No, I wouldn’t be a very happy camper, either. lol.
For one thing…I haven’t found an alternative to needing thyroid medication.
And I’m pushing 50. A primitive life would kill me.
I “tent camped” once when I was 18 and it was a miserable experience.
But, yes, most certainly I think if we, as you said, pulled together and lived by other agreements – we could be even better off than we are!
The way our society is laid out now – we’re so fragmented. We are all in our little boxes – some boxes being larger than others – watching our tvs or messing with our computers. Most of us don’t even have sidewalks making paths to our neighbors.
There have been times when the power has gone out for awhile and people have come out onto their front lawns and front porches and started to just talk with each other.
Unfortunately, I think that’s what it will take to get us to do that.
Some of us can begin –
But the rest won’t join until there’s no alternative.
Those of us who enjoy gardening can share our experience with others – a neighbor or nephew or niece. Those of us who love to raise small livestock can share that, too. I’ve given chickens to my brother and mom and dad and now they love raising them, too.
Do you have any ideas for sharing a different kind of life-way with others?
November 26, 2011 at 7:27 pm
Hi
Just another doomer here, dropping by to comment point out the transition network, just on the off-chance that it’s not something you’ve encountered in your travels, as unlikely as that seems. Life’s too short, have fun while it lasts and all that good stuff. Peace! 
November 27, 2011 at 12:18 am
Lisa sez:
Under the right conditions, especially if they’re forced, one can get used to just about anything.
I was a Boy Scout in my youth and did a lot of camping in all sorts of terrain and weather. Nothing felt so good as coming home after a cold, wet, winter campout and feeling human again. But one can’t have that sensation if without leaving one’s creature comforts behind. I feel the same way about endurance racing (sprint triathlons and foot races up to about 5 miles). The exhilaration and euphoria of finishing (and getting to stop) make the discomforts experienced worth it. And I now know that I could suffer through the hardships if/when they became everyday affairs.
November 27, 2011 at 8:14 am
Well, I agree with you wholeheartedly there, Brutus.
For many years my husband and I have lived in homemade cottages that we built. My husband is a musician, not a carpenter, so the first two were, shall we say, “practice”. This third one is much more comfortable – yet it is still just a homemade cottage.
The first one, especially, was not well-built and we almost froze to death in the winter and cooked in the summer. Our wood stove kept losing its fire in the night and one particularly cold morning stays in my memory banks…I had the quilts over my head and woke up to this “crackling” sound. I had set a glass of water by the bed the night before. It had frozen so solid that the ice was bunching up in the glass.
So, yes, I know what it is to not have creature comforts. Most of our married lives we’ve lived without them. And it does make you appreciate comforts when they do come.
I learned to appreciate what so many others around me don’t see…
And the character I’ve developed as a result of living like this – whew! Sometimes I think I could do with a little less character! lol.
I suggest that if one is going to have a dwelling with only a wood stove for heat – get a good dog – and not a small one. Our old Maggie kept me alive many a night by keeping me warm under the covers. There’s a reason the natives of Alaska refer to some weather conditions as being a “three-dog night”. lol. I know just what they mean!
I’d like to share, though, one of my favorite stories. Don’t remember where I first heard it but it’s stayed with me over the years and pretty much defines why we live the way we live.
A poor man was sitting on his front step in the sunshine enjoying a plate of beans for his noonday meal.
A rich man came riding by, decked out in the finest clothes money could buy and riding a fine, white steed. He happened to be the boyhood friend of the poor man and when he recognized him, he reigned in his horse and spoke.
“My friend,” said the rich man. “It’s been so long since we’ve been together. Look at you! You, too, could have a fine horse, beautiful fashions and eat steak every night…if only you would learn to be subservient to the king.”
The poor man looked up at his old, boyhood friend and smiled.
“My dear friend,” he said. “If only you would learn to like beans…you would not have to be subservient to the king.”
That pretty much sums up why we live “eating beans”.
November 27, 2011 at 10:25 am
I appreciate your words, Lisa. The thing that speaks loudest to me is the comment about character coming out of hardship. I’ve often thought that one of the principal underlying purposes in life is to build and maintain good character. As the annual Black Friday feeding frenzy demonstrates, many people have no idea what that means. Hardships are not virtues, of course, but life made too easy is not how I want to live.
November 27, 2011 at 11:46 am
Hi Brutus,
I’ve learned a lot over the years just by living and making mistakes.
I was 12 when I first read “Walden” by Thoreau. That book had more impact on my life than any other until I was 41 and began to read the Bible.
As a kid, I’m afraid I rather romanticized the “simple life”. Sometimes over the years our lives crossed the border from simple to just poor. Living simple on purpose is one thing…living poor is another. Sometimes it’s just a frame of mind and sometimes it’s having made poor choices.
Years ago as a young bride I thought – I don’t ever want to take nature’s gifts for granted. I didn’t want to be warm as a matter of course. I wanted to work for it in order to appreciate it more. Same with all other necessities.
There have been times when I didn’t have money, but I had time. And I’ll take time over money any day. Time to enjoy the simple things in life that people with money can’t enjoy because they don’t have time. They’re too busy making money. Not that I mind making money once in awhile – but when your needs are few and you’re not in debt – that brings a freedom that money can’t buy.
It is those who have lived closer to the land – who’ve learned to make do or do without – that will have a much easier time when shtf.
Funny – I was lurking on a site called something like “Living Without Money” for awhile. They’re utopians, though. They say things like, “If all people would just………..” Well, all people won’t just…………..
They thought that everyone should live without money. That was their idea of utopia. I sat in the local Walgreens parking lot at about that time waiting for my grandmother to come out and I just “people watched” for awhile. I had to kind of chuckle as I thought of their idea that one day the day would dawn that people would stop using money on purpose. (If it becomes less valuable than tp – that’s another issue). But I saw women who I thought would never willingly go without hairspray – let alone go without money and begin a bartering, homesteading life. lol.
Those of us who choose this life do so because we choose it. Some would like “everyone” to join in – but they’re not going to. Like you saw the shoppers on Black Friday – that’s the way they are now and that’s probably the way they will always be. In a real life crisis – they’re screwed…and possibly somewhat dangerous to the rest of us!
November 27, 2011 at 12:56 pm
If you’re interested in such things, check out John Gray’s book Black Mass, which discusses apocalyptic religion and Utopian projects, among other things. Gray also writes elsewhere on the myth of progress, another of our everyday illusions.
Regarding your comments about folks unable to let go of things or do without (such as hairspray), I’m perfectly well prepared psychologically for austerity, but I’m just as much a sitting duck as anyone else when it comes to survival preparations for things like food, water, warmth, and society once infrastructure fails and people go feral. You sound better prepared.
November 27, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Better prepared than many but not nearly as prepared as some.
But, years ago my husband and I did a smart thing. We haven’t always done smart things – but we decided to never be in debt for our living quarters. Some people can do it. But he and I are not…mentally? emotionally? philosophically? able to grind it out at a job that we don’t necessarily like to attain a place to sleep between shifts.
We got an acre and a half of mostly woods, built our own place on it, put in a garden and a coop and spent a great deal of time tramping the woods that borders it for…the joy of it, mostly, though berries and mushrooms grow there. And deer. And rabbits, squirrels and turkeys.
My parents worked their butts off for years to pay off their mortgage and then their refinances every time they remodeled (and my mother will remodel when she’s tired of the color of the towels in the bathroom). They’ve got quite a place now – it’s very pretty and it’s big and it’s full of conveniences. But I wouldn’t want their insurance payments and their tax bill and the expense of the upkeep. They could lose it quick.
We built ours the way we did because we’ve thought for years that the s would htf a lot sooner than it has and we didn’t want to be vulnerable to losing our home. Our taxes are less than $300 a year – and that’s in Wisconsin. I think in other states it would be a lot less. We don’t insure it because it wouldn’t cost us that much to replace it on our own. I don’t wish to enrich any insurance companies if I can help it.
My parents have a great health care plan, though. For now anyway. Who knows how that will all play out in the future.
Anyway – think of what you wish you had stored up if you didn’t have access to a store anymore.
And you might not need as much as you think.
Stop and think – do I need this? Would something else work instead? Something i wouldn’t have to buy?
We have an outhouse so it’s no big deal for me to collect old, stained t-shirts from the thrift shop free box in town and cut them up in place of tp. I prefer it. Wet, they clean far better. I just throw them down the hole.
I use hankies. And make new ones out of things like old nightgowns that have worn too thin.
(Joe Salatin made the comment I heard today that if he and his wife could figure out how to grow kleenex and toilet paper – they could leave off shopping altogether). Well, I don’t use them!
Last summer we lost our running water because of pipe problems. At the same time we lost our stove. Well, I was angry about that for a day – especially after my husband said he wouldn’t be able to fix either for some time. Then, the next day I quit wasting time being angry, counted my blessings and began to find alternatives. I realized our neighbor had good, running water and it was fine with him for me to come and haul it home in buckets. One person gave me an electric frying pan and one gave me a crock pot. We adjusted. We collected a lot of rainwater, too. Eventually, we got our water and stove back – but in the meantime I lost like – 10 to 15 lbs.!
All the exercise was good for my buns and thighs and i wasn’t making cookies all the time! lol.
It’s all in the attitude, I guess.
Thanks, I’ll check out Mr. Gray’s book.
December 3, 2011 at 10:57 am
Lisa, thank you for sharing all that wisdom of the path you chose when young. I wish I had. I have done a lot of camping, and mostly enjoyed it, except clammy winter camping and high country brrr cold camping… but even there, how else would I have been able to experience that particular land? I do like hot baths in the winter though… some amenities are nice… then again, apart from a bit of luxury, like hot baths, most of the ways of peasants suit me just fine, far more than all the complications of city life. In the old days, I would have missed a good library. Now, with the web, it no longer matters.
As for how to reach out to others… the best seems to share seasonal chores, and to reach out via the gift economy… people who want to “educate” others to their own way seem to have less luck than simply being neighborly. At least in my experience. Anyone else? What works to spread the other lifeway?
December 5, 2011 at 10:25 am
Leavergirl wrote, “Hey Jay D: do you still really find it motivating to hear all the doom? I did at first, but by now, it’s become just another distraction.”
Well, i identify two parts of me. My conditioned-by-Civ ego is motivated to focus on changing that conditioning when i am daily reminded how things are getting worse; it justifies the way i am trying to find another way. The more aware part of me doesn’t need the “distraction”, knows what it needs to know to proceed and that’s all that’s left is to proceed. If anything, i find many of the comments on all the doomer blogs, and often this one too, in all honesty, to be more distracting than tracking the trends with an eye toward what we can do about it and stepping up personally and actually walking the talking.
I just finally got to Dave Pollard’s “links for the month” (of November) on his How to Save the World, and find myself in close alignment with his opening little essay there. Recommended reading, at least for those who care about where he and i are coming from on this. (Not to say we are by any means aligned across the board.) Here’s a teaser from that post:
“I think we will all have to achieve, in our own way, a high level of awareness of reality, and of self-awareness, and heal ourselves to reach a state of peace with that reality and with what it means, if we want to cope with what is in store for us in the coming decades.”
Dave goes on to say (about the promising part of the effect of Occupy and the “Metamovement”) that once we/they wake up to the fact that most of what we’ve been told are lies, maybe large numbers can move into actual preparation for collapse and building something healthy instead. However, who here would not say they agree with the above statement, yet do we take it deep enough to actually re-make the world? This is my concern, that this “healing” Dave’s speaks to requires a deeper probing than nearly anyone is doing; otherwise, fundamental change will continue to elude us.
So keep at it, Leavergirl, this forum is vital!
December 5, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Jay D…
Thanks for the input – and yes, I agree that we need to look at reality and at the same time look at what we can do.
I was reading a book last night called “Food not Lawns” by H.C. Flores.
She said that she was part of some groups for awhile that, she noticed, were always “against” something. Finally, she just wanted to be “for” something.
I agree with her there. She began a group called “Food not Lawns” where she has organized people in the community to get together and exchange stuff they don’t need or want (one man’s trash is another’s treasure)…and grow gardens together. They also share ideas on how to live on next to nothing.
One good thing about this latest debt crisis is the fact that it may open people’s eyes to the reality of what is going on – at least those that aren’t numbed and dumbed by tv and sports and celebrities. And, hopefully, may inspire people to be “for” something and not just “against” and begin to build for themselves more meaningful lives.
I won’t hold my breath on that – but a few might open their eyes and their hearts. Maybe a few around me – who see how we live rather abundantly on less than $5,000 a year. There are many things that we just don’t need – or want – that some people just don’t think they can live without. But, I don’t want to pat myself on the back too hard – there’s always more to learn and always room to grow.
December 7, 2011 at 10:50 pm
Yeah, Lisa, Food Not Lawns is a great movement that had to happen. And it’s great that more and more people’s minds and hearts are opening more and more. What “worries” me is that at the same time, the opposite trend is going on. Very scary implications, but I AM with Leavergirl when it comes to being pretty much ‘done with the doom’ as a daily diet. Just a daily reminder, like taking a vitamin almost, tends to do the trick now, rather than binge gulping at the other end of the spectrum.
Except i am also fascinated by what is going on in the world and cosmos, and want to be informed and closely attuned to shared reality. But not at the expense of that larger self awareness that is inspired to co-create a climate of the new. Let that be a shared reality much more closely attunable-to, and very soon.
December 8, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Good conversation here! There is a real problem getting past a mere change in thinking so that a real change in way of living becomes possible. I think the education process we have undergone has a lot to do with that. It can often be a huge impediment to transforming intellectual realization into actuality.
Embedded in the conventional pattern of thought/behavior taught in schools is a pervasive notion that physical work and know-how is inferior to a facility with words and abstract ideas. Anyone graduating from this indoctrination process believes that they now have something valuable; “knowledge”. They may not understand their severe lack of mental and physical capacity to do much in the physical world.
Back in the 60s and early 70s many groups tried to set up “commune” type alternative communities. Occasionally I was able to observe groups of that sort, and I was always struck by how many of these people thought that talk and ideas were sufficient as a valuable contribution to the group. They would sit for hours slinging the gab, mentioning books they had read, prominent people they had met, and so forth, perfectly content to let junior members of the group cultivate the garden or build a structure. Competent, productive people ended up serving these socially clever types, or leaving the community. Failure was pretty much guaranteed, I thought.
Once we humans entertained a fantasy about a future in which we all would recline in ergonomic chairs while instructing complex machines to provide us with everything we might desire. That fantasy is pretty much dead now, I think. We are beginning to understand that if the human species is to have any future on this planet, each one of us must develop a close and mutually nurturing relationship with the living earth. This requires integrating the functions of heart, body and mind; physical health and competence, with useful knowledge, independent, profound thought and (dare I mention?) love.
Okay, I’m off to the garden to put water-buffalo poop under a Neem tree and dig up some yams. Cheers.
December 8, 2011 at 9:50 pm
Hello Tamnaa, good to read these expressions of your perceptive thinkings. You seem to be “a natural” here. I interpret your words at pretty much right on, not least of which about the communes, a point which is an ongoing issue for ICs (intentional communities) to deal with. I was part of this scene in the early 80s, when to some extent the focus shifted in some areas, like the Californa coast, where i lived in a “New Age”y-type commune and learned a lot of what you are saying from both sides of that fence. As i say, sometimes you need to start out learning more about what does NOT work, but as long as we learn and apply that learning, we might get somewhere different. I still feel compelled to co-create that vision of living more deeply and tribally…
The integration you speak of (good you dared mention “the L-word”, cuz that seems foundational, no?) is key to changing anything nearly enough at this point, seems to me. I’m working hard at it these days, don’t seem to have much choice…how about you…any of you?
December 9, 2011 at 5:59 am
Jay D; It sounds like you had more experience with alternative communities than I ever did. The kind of impression which I described anecdotally made me turn away from the few communities that I saw back then. I don’t mean to seem opposed to community, though. Really, community is what we should all be contemplating. What is it? Can it be inclusive and non-hierarchical? Cooperative and caring rather than competitive and exploiting?
From my point of view, division of labor makes it easier to extract productive energy from others through intimidation, persuasion and trickery. It has led to the problem we now face.
Nobody’s work is worth more than anyone else’s. In a real community, everyone should do his/her share of the work and enjoy an appropriate share of what is produced.
In my earlier post I meant to emphasize also that “knowledge” prevents learning. Nothing more can be poured into a cup that is already full. Grappling with the realities of the garden, a sick child, a leaky roof, takes humility. To reach that receptive condition requires “unlearning” of inflated notions about the worth of one’s own current knowledge.
This might prove tough for a lot of people who have been cruising along on their “qualifications” until now.
As to love; well, I have found that deep, overwhelming joy comes from loving who I’m with, what I’m doing, everything around me. The other kind of joy that people strive for a lot, I think, comes from getting what one desires. I call that “triumph”, and it is fun, but it’s also addictive and involves defeating others. One can’t always win. There’s a very negative flip-side to this kind of joy which real love doesn’t have.
December 9, 2011 at 9:18 am
Exactly, Tamnaa! I just got an ultimate lesson in the difference between those two types of joy. My supposed “partner” of four years went for the “triumph” of her desire, dumped me with the help of a pack of lies, and within two weeks married the nut who didn’t even know her yet. Problem is, like the whole crazy-ass civilization we’re all embedded in, if it’s at someone else’s expense, they’re just keeping the sleep-walking paradigm going by fooling themselves that the “aliveness” they feel from that hormonal drug high is being :”awake” and aware of reality. When in fact it’s just like you say about the doomers who create careers around purveying this deer-in-the-headlights helplessness. Like a lottery we all envy the winners of, we (or “they” if i am in fact truly waking up) hope to someday “make it” ourselves, whether it be triumph at “love”, “career”, etc. It “works” for the few, while the many are left hurting from the fallout of the Lie. This is the “dark side” of our natures that i speak of. Sure, more to do with culture than genes or an innate fundamental flaw, but it’s still based on denial that keeps the whole game spiraling into oblivion.
Of course, the great gift of being on the receiving end of the suffering of the many, while the few “benefit” in the short term, is that if we can keep our hearts open, real love can enter and sanity can be restored. But “we” have got to make that inner change that will allow us to come together and co-create a saner and more balanced world for whoever can step up to that new Game.
Anyone else here truly getting close to ready for it? I’ll take no answers as “no” answers, since it ain’t worth much if we keep it to ourselves, eh?
December 10, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Yes, Jay D, I’m getting close to ready. The scope of mental change is nearly overwhelming, but I’m doing my best. I am also trying to bring a couple of others with me through that change over the space of years. It is quite alien to modern industrialized consumers, it is very difficult to actualize, but I can feel it’s “right.”
December 10, 2011 at 9:40 pm
“Modern industrialized consumers” is a very good name for them. And that is what I think needs to change first – for people to look at themselves as something other than that.
The “consumer” label has always irked me – but some people seem to embrace it.
I think of a song once that quoted an old tv show or movie that said, “I am not a number! I am a free man!”
Can’t remember the song. Can’t even remember the band. Iron Maiden? Rush? Metallica? Queen? I don’t know…does this ring a bell with anyone?
December 10, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Indeed, Lisa. “Irked” is an understatement … “offended” more accurately describes my feeling To realize we have been commoditized as “consumers” is eye-opening, to say the least. Many years ago I came to that realization – but I had no idea of the insidious, pervasive depth of dehumanization that the “consumer” transition embodied. And to think my university specialization was marketing. Now I agree with the comedian Bill Hicks about marketers being the spawn of Satan and they should all kill themselves for the good of society. Not really, it’s just a suggestion, as he says, but the sooner the better. I was trained in marketing, I know what it’s about … and it is not wholesome.
That phrase “I am not a number! I am a Free Man!” seemed familiar … my sometime-friend teh google reminded me it was from the TV show “The Prisoner.” No bells ringing about a song that incorporated that phrase.
December 11, 2011 at 7:12 am
When my brother went into marketing the family was pleased. “He’s finally settling down into a career!”
I was so disappointed. He eventually left it but…I’m still disappointed that he would do that. At least he left it.
Yes! The show “The Prisoner”! I never saw it…I think it’s old and possibly from England.
Now I need to look it up.
There have always been those of us who see life differently than the rest of the herd. And maybe that’s the way it’ll always be. I don’t see a “great awakening” or a “great dawning of awareness” coming. I see people running to Black Friday like so many sheep – and continuing to do so. That the stores were full of people eager, no – desperate, to get “stuff” in this economy – in this day of OWS and such obvious and blatant…what is the word I’m looking for – I think the word I’m looking for is bigger than the words I know. It’s more than thievery or being just “conned” – it’s world-wide.
It’s like the beast has led the people of the world into a trap and is about to snap it shut. And maybe it’s shut already.
Well, off to do some research. Now I need to know who wrote that song…
December 11, 2011 at 7:25 am
Of course…it was Iron Maiden.
Their song “The Prisoner” quotes the line from “The Prisoner”.
It’s all coming back now.
December 11, 2011 at 9:50 am
The lyric “I feel like a number…I’m not a number” figured prominently in a Bob Seger song from the 70′s or 80′s. But then he was always a powerful part of the Machine too, in his own way.
December 11, 2011 at 10:06 am
P.S. Trying to think of what came next in the song, i think it was “I’m a man”. Very close but not an exact fit without the word “free”, though it may just have not worked for the flow of the tune with the extra word. And/or he may have been saying that to “feel like a number” meant that he is not yet “free”..? Hmm…i wonder if that “Prisoner” episode came out before or after the Seger song.
December 11, 2011 at 12:41 pm
In the beginning of the song they play the exact quote from the show. Or the movie…whatever it was.
But in the lyrics, if I remember it correctly…
“I’m not a prisoner…I”m a free man…”
Just go on Youtube and it’ll be there and you can listen.
Haven’t heard it in years.,
That’s what i always liked about Maiden…they were always singing about odd stuff – not about “love” relationships and sex. They sang about Egypt and the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner…whatever they were interested in at the time.