I had another attack of the fears last night. I know, I know, I really need to get this under control. 😦 The difference was last night I actually ran with it and tried to actually face precisely what I fear. It would help if I had exact details here but clearly my brain is happy to run with generalities. 😦
Whilst I lay beside Orik, putting him to sleep and later on after I got into bed I lay there and tried to pinpoint things. I worked out that I can imagine things I think the future will be like but I cannot actually envisage realistically what I think the future will entail in general. As in, not just the details of what my family and I will do on our little lock or even how the rest of Ballan will fare but globally. I then started raiding through memories of documentaries and books read ages ago, thinking about civilisation crashes of the past. And they have happened!
I had a go today writing a post about what I read and what I learned about societal collapse but I struggled with my words. I take that as a sign that it’s a post I shouldn’t be writing. In my research though I had opened a page up but become distracted and not read it. Until now. In the calm of actually having 3 kids in bed and asleep long before dark (major miracle that) I read this and have deleted all my poor words and instead I suggest looking at this article.
And today, to combat my fears I built an arch to sit over my garden seat in my veggie garden over which I intend to grow some grapes which will later be sent along the chook pen to help provide further shade. I also found another box and spread my compost out a little further. I’m not sure it will spread any further so next lot of cardboard kill mulch will be covered with the soiled hay my wonderful husband cleared from within the goats shed. 🙂 Legend!
Rabid Little Hippy 
Check out this link about locations where mass environmental destruction has been reversed. This gave me hope. http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/hope_in_a_changing_climate/
Me too Fiona and thank you for the link.
I’ve seen this before and it is truly amazing. I’ve also written before about a TED talk I saw on youTube of Allan Savory talking about reversing desertification which also carries incredible hope, not only for what is currently useless and burned out land but also for grazing animals and humans too. Oh, and also it’s great news for the environment and carbon levels. 😀 https://rabidlittlehippy.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/i-found-hope-for-the-future/
That’s a great site, Fiona! Thanks for sharing the link!
It seems we all are struggling with insecurities & fears! It would be nice to find this miracle cure 😉
😉
I found this interesting:
“Why would people perceive problems but still not solve their own problems?
A theme that emerges from Norse Greenland as well as from other places, is insulation of the decision making elite from the consequences of their actions. That is to say, in societies where the elites do not suffer from the consequences of their decisions, but can insulate themselves, the elite are more likely to pursue their short-term interests, even though that may be bad for the long-term interests of the society, including the children of the elite themselves” Same rings true right now doesn’t it?
One thing is sure though Jessie, we survive. We need to be a better people and hard times unite…we have seen that in our Christchurch – the main thing heard from people who have been through it is that it changes your priorities, what used to matter no longer does. The wellbeing of family and others is what matters.
I believe revolutions are sprouting up everywhere and this needs to happen for change to occur. For the little people to stand up and say “We care this is happening”. It’s unsettling but there are alot of intelligent people out there who, en-masse, can bring about change. Change starts in our own backyards, our own thinking and doing. We need to make our world better for our kids and grandchildren and people know it, even if governments don’t think in these terms right now.
I think we are all considering ourselves the elite though. That’s what worries me. We aren’t so bad right! China is the big bad polluter or we could lame the Americans. We are always very quick to absolve ourselves of the blame. Until we step up and take responsibility though…
Yes, your Christchurch and our Black Saturday and Brisbane floods. Crisis always brings people together here in a way that never fails to inspire me. Sure there are always shonks that take advantage but when the SHTF they won’t be any better than the rest of us and the shonks will e struggling to survive too.
Viva la Revolution! We need to relearn to think for ourselves instead of trusting others to make decisions for us (politicians).
Yes, we do need to relearn thinking for ourselves instead of putting all our faith in leaders, professionals, experts. I guess I am hoping for and expecting the best Jessie – because God knows many others feel the same way and are alot more proactive about it that I am, or many of us are. I just am cautious by nature, would rather have my security in some areas, the knowledge I have done my best with what I knew at the time.
My own personal way of dealing with fear is to embrace a contradiction. I don’t believe “something” will just emerge out of the blue to save the situation. I do believe something will emerge out of the blue. Both are true. There is a really good article about the timeline for climate change at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25187-how-much-hotter-is-the-planet-going-to-get.html?full=true#.UyIzpfmSySq.
One of the takeaways for me is that, in our lifetime, at least in Australia, we are the luckiest people in the world. This means we have an ethical responsibility to use not abuse this privileged position.
Another takeaway is that a big part of the problem in communicating the urgency of the situation is that the consequences are deferred. We know from raising kids that threatening a consequence too far in the future is useless, especially for young kids (and much of Australia is behaving like 2 year olds in ability to defer gratification or conceive of deferred consequences). So it’s important to act now.
But the third takeaway is that this very deferral creates a window for human ingenuity, human intelligence, human ethics, human spirituality to magic that “something” out of the blue. It is trust in the rest of us. You and I don’t have to solve it on our own. We have to do our bit, and beyond that, trust and hope. There is no other choice, but that’s a good choice to have.
Yes, it’s happened before; we tend to forget that in every age there are dangers that people feared and had to figure out a way to deal with. Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great plundering their way across half the known world. The Romans, wiping out so many small cultures. The Black Plague (and remember, not everyone died!) In Canada, the States, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and more, people have been wiped out, enslaved, etc. etc. etc. We have been fed on simplistic, happy views of our current culture (totally ignoring what others have paid in order for us to have what we have today) to the point where we have come to believe that the suburban cultures of the ’50s are not only good, but destined to last forever. I doubt it, though.
As you and Wendy and others have said, people re-think when there are disasters; they prioritize differently; they generally become better people. I bet if we were willing to do that without having our backs to the wall, we wouldn’t need the wall. But no, we’re like kids, as you say; or worse; we are drinking and driving and it’s all a big hoot until someone is killed . . . then the SHTF alright!
It’s a delicate balance, staying positive, doing our best to act for the common good as well as our own good (and survival), but we need to learn it, and soon! I think there are many who are doing just that and that alone gives me hope.
Hang in there, Jess . . . I think of the families (like my parents’) surviving the Depression, the Dirty 30s and then the War . . . but they did and they remembered to have some joy, too, for the most part. We can do the same, and we must.
We are a very sheltered society in western cultures these days. We use words to hide things (passed away/over instead of died for example) and we prefer not to see how things come to us (CAFO’s providing nice clean meat on a tray or clothing made in sweat shops around the world). But by hiding these thigns we’ve also weakened ourselves and left exposed a very large achilles heel. When the SHTF most of us won’t now how to kill our own meat (instead of cull), make our own clothes from scratch (not just fabric at the machine but actualy make the fabric). It’s going to be interesting that’s for sure.
It is a delicate balance. Working to improve ones chances and live ethically and frugally, try to relearn the lost skills and live a self sustaining life without alienating neighbours or getting local councils on your back, and trying to educate others without becoming known as the loca whack job in town. 😦 Still, there are more mad permies, crazy hippies and eco warriors around and there is always security in numbers I guess. 😉
Ahh, it’s good to hear my own thoughts and words of so many years now being echoed by you . . . I’ve tried for ages to get people to think, to see, to learn . . . but we each have our own path here. We seem crazy now, or at least people find it easier to see us that way than to acknowledge the degree to which the S has already HTF and begin dealing with it. If the ‘rulers’ from local councils to national levels would get behind this, it would make a huge difference, but so long as we elect the money-minders (take that both ways, too), we shall have to go on working together and separately. We are the yeast grains, separated in space (flour) but working together to raise the whole mass.
I have felt much better since I discovered so many likeminded people here in the village. 🙂 Makes it easier to be brave and go on . . .
Thats the spirit! Putting fear into perspective is the first thing. You can sit and focus on everything that is bad/wrong with the world but to be honest, even back prior to the damage that we have done you could have done that Jess…you need to be looking to how you can do the best for your family. Get out and galvanise yourself into action rather than sitting inside reading those fear filled doomsday posts that people so love to create. Negitivity breeds fear and you certainly don’t need any more of it :(.