This really resonates with me. I have much the same fears and reactions.
I already had a large amount to deal with as a member of the sandwich generation. Elderly parents on one side and struggling kids and one grandchild on the other. So anxiety was no stranger.
While digging deeper into what the future will bring I ran into the collapse theory, and all the ugly truths it brings to light. What little hopeium I had left was extinguished.
I've become accustomed to shutting down and finding an escape even before climate reality set in.
I find solace within music, art and creative outlets. I started a large polinator garden to save a tiny sliver of the natural world. Being engaged in something you know makes a positive impact, no matter how small, is as healing an escape can be, I think.
I will never stop panicking inside wondering if I should be prepping or building a family getaway that may be self supporting.
I'm getting a little old for that challenge.
I'm retiring soon, after 45 years in a great job, and never dreamed that all of the money I've set aside and plans I've created could all become worthless over time.
Funny how our coping mechanism will keep us from doing the hard stuff because that requires facing hard realities.
I will be getting more involved with orgs that are trying to help us save what's left, if for no other reason to be with like minded individuals. Misery loves company.
Mostly, collapse aware means the same to me. Instead of TV shows (my wife does that one), I live in video game worlds, usually playing a character who is my complete opposite. Presently, I'm playing Conan Exiles, which is a game set in the world of Conan the barbarian. I play as an extremely violent slaver who rarely speaks and has no friends (only "property"). The world is scattered with ruins of an old civilization that has long ago gone extinct. Tribes and clans remain, descendents of slaves of the old empire.
Honestly, the only thing I have in common with my character is that we're both tall and have long hair. I also have no friends, but I'm not about to go "collecting" some by means of bludgeons and chains. Somehow though, this setting, the brutality of everything, the absolute dearth of anything resembling human connection... It's bizarrely... soothing? I think it's like if you feel chilly inside your house on a very cold day, but you step outside for a few minutes into the frozen air. When you come back inside, it feels warm for awhile.
I have been collapse aware since 2010. What that meant to me was the death of an idea of modernity which after dying (and a period of grieving) left me free to see some atrocious things modernity did and why it is important to undo them to embrace any hope for a future.
Native Americans predicted that the white man would spoil and poison the land even as we ethnically cleansed them off that land. Their insight came from thousands of years of homeostasis on this continent.
Being collapse aware made me aware of colonialism as a virus.
Being collapse aware means I could see the inherent stupidity of the "western civilization" that folks on the alt right (like Jordan Peterson) think they are defending.
Being collapse aware gave me insight about the folley of Carl Marx in trying to write a theory about the fate of the working class struggle in assuming the means of production - in complete ignorance of the relationship we must have with the land.
Being collapse aware means that I have become community aware: where do we have actual community in the West when we put parents in nursing homes and have no traditions which bring us together to be real contributors to each other's lives? You won't find community beyond meaningless events, pot luck dinners, county fairs, and the like which do nothing like a community. You won't even find real community in that rave in the dessert where they bring a bunch of consumer goods in and pretend to live off the land for a week while pretending they have created an alternate economy, and that they have had a spiritual experience because they burned a giant wooden man at the end.
Being collapse aware means that I am aware of the destruction of community networks that existed first in Europe with the pagans, the gnostics, the Roma, and the gypsies; and then in the Americas where we ethnically cleansed the indigenous, killed off their food sources, and sent their children to boarding schools to learn our ways of resource and expansion based prosperity.
Being collapse aware made me realize that we must bring back, rebuild, and reinvent the human community traditions that colonialism attempted to erase.
Yup, all of that. For us it also means desperately trying to put together a functional community now that will survive collapse, even though we know it's probably futile and we all still have to work so we don't really have the time to sacrifice but we're doing our best and hoping we can get something set up before we all collapse ourselves from burnout. It's effing exhausting
Collapse awareness includes most of what you listed. Lo Siento is a term in Spanish that means "I feel it". That's what I say when I hear you and others like you speaking about this. Everyone who resonates with this should follow each other. Community is helpful. It helps regulate our nervous system. I am going to follow those who understand this.
Surprisingly few comments about this so far. I have had a bit of time to think this through (I became aware that this particular civilization was going down when I was flying around the country patching up computers for the Y2K bug). When people lost their minds over what was really a rather small technical problem, I realized that they weren't going to do very well when a real crisis came.
And I started reading up on possible futures.
Really, I still have high expectations for humanity for many thousands of years to come, but the short term view is pretty horrible, and didn't have to be like this.
We have hit peak oil and peak industrial output already, we will soon hit peak population and peak food production. I think we can save enough scientific and other knowledge to create a better system after the crash, but there aren't many people working on that yet.
And if prepping for yourself isn't exhausting enough, add prepping for kids and grandkids. I have two grandsons. Most of my neighborhood is also old farts, who consider me the young and healthy one. Bah.
This really resonates with me. I have much the same fears and reactions.
I already had a large amount to deal with as a member of the sandwich generation. Elderly parents on one side and struggling kids and one grandchild on the other. So anxiety was no stranger.
While digging deeper into what the future will bring I ran into the collapse theory, and all the ugly truths it brings to light. What little hopeium I had left was extinguished.
I've become accustomed to shutting down and finding an escape even before climate reality set in.
I find solace within music, art and creative outlets. I started a large polinator garden to save a tiny sliver of the natural world. Being engaged in something you know makes a positive impact, no matter how small, is as healing an escape can be, I think.
I will never stop panicking inside wondering if I should be prepping or building a family getaway that may be self supporting.
I'm getting a little old for that challenge.
I'm retiring soon, after 45 years in a great job, and never dreamed that all of the money I've set aside and plans I've created could all become worthless over time.
Funny how our coping mechanism will keep us from doing the hard stuff because that requires facing hard realities.
I will be getting more involved with orgs that are trying to help us save what's left, if for no other reason to be with like minded individuals. Misery loves company.
Mostly, collapse aware means the same to me. Instead of TV shows (my wife does that one), I live in video game worlds, usually playing a character who is my complete opposite. Presently, I'm playing Conan Exiles, which is a game set in the world of Conan the barbarian. I play as an extremely violent slaver who rarely speaks and has no friends (only "property"). The world is scattered with ruins of an old civilization that has long ago gone extinct. Tribes and clans remain, descendents of slaves of the old empire.
Honestly, the only thing I have in common with my character is that we're both tall and have long hair. I also have no friends, but I'm not about to go "collecting" some by means of bludgeons and chains. Somehow though, this setting, the brutality of everything, the absolute dearth of anything resembling human connection... It's bizarrely... soothing? I think it's like if you feel chilly inside your house on a very cold day, but you step outside for a few minutes into the frozen air. When you come back inside, it feels warm for awhile.
Also, whiskey.
I have been collapse aware since 2010. What that meant to me was the death of an idea of modernity which after dying (and a period of grieving) left me free to see some atrocious things modernity did and why it is important to undo them to embrace any hope for a future.
Native Americans predicted that the white man would spoil and poison the land even as we ethnically cleansed them off that land. Their insight came from thousands of years of homeostasis on this continent.
Being collapse aware made me aware of colonialism as a virus.
Being collapse aware means I could see the inherent stupidity of the "western civilization" that folks on the alt right (like Jordan Peterson) think they are defending.
Being collapse aware gave me insight about the folley of Carl Marx in trying to write a theory about the fate of the working class struggle in assuming the means of production - in complete ignorance of the relationship we must have with the land.
Being collapse aware means that I have become community aware: where do we have actual community in the West when we put parents in nursing homes and have no traditions which bring us together to be real contributors to each other's lives? You won't find community beyond meaningless events, pot luck dinners, county fairs, and the like which do nothing like a community. You won't even find real community in that rave in the dessert where they bring a bunch of consumer goods in and pretend to live off the land for a week while pretending they have created an alternate economy, and that they have had a spiritual experience because they burned a giant wooden man at the end.
Being collapse aware means that I am aware of the destruction of community networks that existed first in Europe with the pagans, the gnostics, the Roma, and the gypsies; and then in the Americas where we ethnically cleansed the indigenous, killed off their food sources, and sent their children to boarding schools to learn our ways of resource and expansion based prosperity.
Being collapse aware made me realize that we must bring back, rebuild, and reinvent the human community traditions that colonialism attempted to erase.
Yup, all of that. For us it also means desperately trying to put together a functional community now that will survive collapse, even though we know it's probably futile and we all still have to work so we don't really have the time to sacrifice but we're doing our best and hoping we can get something set up before we all collapse ourselves from burnout. It's effing exhausting
Collapse awareness includes most of what you listed. Lo Siento is a term in Spanish that means "I feel it". That's what I say when I hear you and others like you speaking about this. Everyone who resonates with this should follow each other. Community is helpful. It helps regulate our nervous system. I am going to follow those who understand this.
Surprisingly few comments about this so far. I have had a bit of time to think this through (I became aware that this particular civilization was going down when I was flying around the country patching up computers for the Y2K bug). When people lost their minds over what was really a rather small technical problem, I realized that they weren't going to do very well when a real crisis came.
And I started reading up on possible futures.
Really, I still have high expectations for humanity for many thousands of years to come, but the short term view is pretty horrible, and didn't have to be like this.
We have hit peak oil and peak industrial output already, we will soon hit peak population and peak food production. I think we can save enough scientific and other knowledge to create a better system after the crash, but there aren't many people working on that yet.
And if prepping for yourself isn't exhausting enough, add prepping for kids and grandkids. I have two grandsons. Most of my neighborhood is also old farts, who consider me the young and healthy one. Bah.