Jess, this stopped me in my tracks. It’s hauntingly honest, and achingly human, grappling with loss, systems that fail us, and the quiet resilience of simply going on. Thank you for putting words to what so many feel but rarely say aloud.
Earlier on in my life I got to deal with my mother brother and sister all with the same cancer then without any good method to interrupt / glialblastoma / which essentially sucks the life out of a person over a few months while adding pain - oddly the hospital gave me fentanyl to administer for my brother with some instructions and gloves and it works for maybe 12 hours relief.
I was holding my mother’s hand when she pasted . There is no way to get used to this except understand your knowledge you can continue the best a dying individual has to offer and add comfort to others knowing you did your best
I’ve read a lot of essays about collapse. Most of them try to predict it, romanticize it, or sell you a prepper course. But this one felt like what it’s actually like to be awake inside it. Not apocalyptic. Just quietly unlivable.
Still, we’ll plant the tomatoes anyway. Light the candles at the birthday anyway. Not because it will save us. But because it's the last resistance we have.
And when all is said and done, a comet could hit us and none of this will matter.
If someone has accepted the collapse narrative, I think the first questions are who is going to be included in your unit of survival and where are you going to locate? In my mind, places that already have food sovereignty and potable water are first on the list. Also, I think it is wise to expand the search to include countries outside of North America. Considering that Americans are armed to the teeth, I wouldn't want to be there when the shit hits the fan.
More and more I take what I learn from other people and incorporate more 'Do for myself" options. This week, because of one of your previous articles (and some more I found), I'm taking steps to move away from Google as much as possible. I cleaned everything out of any Google share drives I had and moved the content onto my hard drives and I have spent the rest of the week (in amongst a few other things) building my own private email server. I found the software apps I needed and I busied myself learning how to set this up and get it secured (that's still a work in progress). Once I have that up and running like I want, I will divest myself from Google (I am not looking forward to moving back to Edge). I will have to figure out how to tighten up everything else. I may still end up using the browser as I seriously dislike Edge with it's clunky behavior and advertising that I can't turn off. I thought about using a Linux OS and Firefox browser, and I still may sometime in the future. I have three loaded onto virtual systems I can use.
Beyond the IT stuff, my wife and I have moved completely away from store bought bread now (we bought a bread maker). Her little gardens are giving up their produce this time of year, so, little by little, we're becoming more self sufficient. I'm still waiting for news of a long lasting storage battery for my solar panel system, that will last more than ten years and not cost me the price of a cheap car.
Other than that, we're waiting for the stock market to crash as we move into a major recession/depression. More and more economists are predicting one to start for around the first of October. Umair Haque is predicting this time frame because history tells us so. He's rarely wrong.
Well done Jessica it’s brilliant and in some ways the truth is we need to blend to survive . Hybrid with the new way like a judo thrower - be like the willow . Yes it is about some survival techniques ( I’m
An ex soldier environment blending is a taught skill ) . But learning to the skill of side hussling is a necessary one - in uk we have a struggling but available healthcare system , my son has a transplant so we are dependant , I’m 63 with only a state pension but I’m an osteopath and coach , my mum
Is 92 , my daughter has a pituitary tumour . So there’s a lot to carry . I use chat gpt to help me knock out treatment programs for my clients , evidence based informed and self motivating with their ownership of the plan . Realistically there’s a need to traverse the world that binds us and keep our values with still a focus on independance by being as off grid as is possible . Jessica your list of supplements and “
Other ways “
Is both wise and informed , that paralleled with good health practices and mind and spirit ( identity and purpose ) will keep us afloat long enough to be the voices that count in whatever is to come
The health costs you mention leave me speechless! And this is added to the emotional stress many health events cause. I’m fortunate to live in a country that still delivers health care free at point of contact. The medicines that keep me alive would cost around $1.5k/pm if I had to pay. Currently they are free and I’ve contributed a considerable amount of “national insurance” towards the cost during my career. But we have fascists who want to introduce the American way, because they smell profit and don’t give a shit about people. It will always amaze me that the civilised world has given up on health in return for profit. I’m beginning to feel we deserve the end of the Anthropocene period and our extinction. The trees would love it!
This one hit hard. My neighbor here in New Mexico is from Boone, NC, and their stories of what happened with Helene—and going home to help with the cleanup—broke my heart.
Just a thought: the new world might actually be better. Not utopia—just different. Slower, smaller, weirder. We keep thinking collapse is all bad, but change isn’t always the enemy.
I’ve been writing a story where folks live through that shift in real time—quiet disasters, tiny salvations. Your piece reminded me why I started it.
Eat the best food you can find. Stay in peak physical condition - you don’t have to be muscle-bound but lean and strong. Help others to do the same, if they’ll let you. Care for everyone in your field of vision to the greatest extent you can. Be lucky and live long enough so that you won’t worry too much about meeting your maker before you get a few things done in life. If you can cash in a few chips from those you’ve supported through the years when your time comes, wonderful. If not that’ll be ok too - you don’t do good deeds for a reward or return. For some peripeteia hits early. It can kill you, depress you, engender feelings of nihilism, or - free you of illusions and set you on a path to helping others.
I feel we are living in a bit of each dystopian novel all at once. I can hardly care for myself much anymore. I just can’t bear the fact that my son has to live through this. He also does rely on me for some emotional support now through these times more so now than ever. I don’t want everything I have worked for taken away because I die. If they figure out a way to saddle your family with your medical debt, I believe they will do that. I do believe this administration will do everything in its power to grift as much money as they can. In addition, I believe we are three lines into the Then They Came For Poem.
My spouse works in the disease care system serving in a clinical role. Sometimes they do some great things, relieve people's pain and suffering and save lives. For that, I am grateful. However, on other occasions, tests and procedures are no doubt performed which are either medically unnecessary or ineffective. Chronic and acute stress, sleep deprivation, junk and fast food diets and a lack of movement and physical activity all impact both the quality of care being administered and the health and well-being of patients regarding the choices they make every day. And the costs! Yikes!! Talk about exorbitant. So many people are underinsured or uninsured and afraid to see the doctor or go to the hospital unless they absolutely have to. No wonder so many people take medical vacations. At least there are organizations like Undue Medical Debt (<https://unduemedicaldebt.org>) working to alleviate the impact of this problem.
I’d like to update my own medical adventure . 10 weeks ago I ran my own little business . Drove and walked around and basically did everything a very healthy 74 year old did and more . Then one morning I discovered I could not drive / the world was confusing so off to the hospital and five days later I awoke to fine that someone had removed a baseball size part of my skull and glued it back on . I have invasive melanoma ( skin cancer) but not on any outside part of me but rather metastasized into my brain and various other areas even though I walked into the hospital feeling well . After ever test scan etc known , some radiation we are starting an immunotherapy treatment schedule for months to a few years . Cost is $250000 per treatment less the discounts Medicare and hospital system provide . So over nite I went from well feeling and being just older to a partial vision loss/ no more driving and limited ability to walk far or really work hard at all and a staggering cost to get what is supported to being a good possibility of a cure. I’m fortuate to have a few assets and the ability to get through this but for others it would be a catastrophe
I do so agree. My only full sister turned on me also. She took my younger half sister with her, whom I'd been like a mother to all her life - quite the most painful and shattering event I have ever been through.
It's been very hard over the last few years to watch people we trusted abandon us, but I agree with you here that the worst part isn't even that, it's the judgment they heap on us. I guess they need to justify it in their heads before they leave their friends and family behind.
My sibling has alienated pretty much everyone in the family. I don't know if she has any friends. I'm guessing she's in MAGA at this point. It started decades ago.
Ditto my sister. Her son has cut all contact with her also. She is controlling, power hungry, paranoid, and aggressive, and I doubt she has friends either.
Jess, this stopped me in my tracks. It’s hauntingly honest, and achingly human, grappling with loss, systems that fail us, and the quiet resilience of simply going on. Thank you for putting words to what so many feel but rarely say aloud.
Thanks for the note! I'm glad it resonated because writing these posts and finding the words is also how I deal with it all.
Earlier on in my life I got to deal with my mother brother and sister all with the same cancer then without any good method to interrupt / glialblastoma / which essentially sucks the life out of a person over a few months while adding pain - oddly the hospital gave me fentanyl to administer for my brother with some instructions and gloves and it works for maybe 12 hours relief.
I was holding my mother’s hand when she pasted . There is no way to get used to this except understand your knowledge you can continue the best a dying individual has to offer and add comfort to others knowing you did your best
This hit somewhere between my chest and my spine.
I’ve read a lot of essays about collapse. Most of them try to predict it, romanticize it, or sell you a prepper course. But this one felt like what it’s actually like to be awake inside it. Not apocalyptic. Just quietly unlivable.
Still, we’ll plant the tomatoes anyway. Light the candles at the birthday anyway. Not because it will save us. But because it's the last resistance we have.
And when all is said and done, a comet could hit us and none of this will matter.
But we’ll still make the cake.
Thank you for telling the truth like this.
"Quietly unlivable." Perfect description.
Definitely. It's like declaring we're going to prepare for survival, but in the mean time we're going to live.
Reminds me of, Place, by WS Merwin, “On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree.”
If someone has accepted the collapse narrative, I think the first questions are who is going to be included in your unit of survival and where are you going to locate? In my mind, places that already have food sovereignty and potable water are first on the list. Also, I think it is wise to expand the search to include countries outside of North America. Considering that Americans are armed to the teeth, I wouldn't want to be there when the shit hits the fan.
More and more I take what I learn from other people and incorporate more 'Do for myself" options. This week, because of one of your previous articles (and some more I found), I'm taking steps to move away from Google as much as possible. I cleaned everything out of any Google share drives I had and moved the content onto my hard drives and I have spent the rest of the week (in amongst a few other things) building my own private email server. I found the software apps I needed and I busied myself learning how to set this up and get it secured (that's still a work in progress). Once I have that up and running like I want, I will divest myself from Google (I am not looking forward to moving back to Edge). I will have to figure out how to tighten up everything else. I may still end up using the browser as I seriously dislike Edge with it's clunky behavior and advertising that I can't turn off. I thought about using a Linux OS and Firefox browser, and I still may sometime in the future. I have three loaded onto virtual systems I can use.
Beyond the IT stuff, my wife and I have moved completely away from store bought bread now (we bought a bread maker). Her little gardens are giving up their produce this time of year, so, little by little, we're becoming more self sufficient. I'm still waiting for news of a long lasting storage battery for my solar panel system, that will last more than ten years and not cost me the price of a cheap car.
Other than that, we're waiting for the stock market to crash as we move into a major recession/depression. More and more economists are predicting one to start for around the first of October. Umair Haque is predicting this time frame because history tells us so. He's rarely wrong.
Well done Jessica it’s brilliant and in some ways the truth is we need to blend to survive . Hybrid with the new way like a judo thrower - be like the willow . Yes it is about some survival techniques ( I’m
An ex soldier environment blending is a taught skill ) . But learning to the skill of side hussling is a necessary one - in uk we have a struggling but available healthcare system , my son has a transplant so we are dependant , I’m 63 with only a state pension but I’m an osteopath and coach , my mum
Is 92 , my daughter has a pituitary tumour . So there’s a lot to carry . I use chat gpt to help me knock out treatment programs for my clients , evidence based informed and self motivating with their ownership of the plan . Realistically there’s a need to traverse the world that binds us and keep our values with still a focus on independance by being as off grid as is possible . Jessica your list of supplements and “
Other ways “
Is both wise and informed , that paralleled with good health practices and mind and spirit ( identity and purpose ) will keep us afloat long enough to be the voices that count in whatever is to come
It's definitely a lot to carry, but we're carrying it. Fist bump.
The health costs you mention leave me speechless! And this is added to the emotional stress many health events cause. I’m fortunate to live in a country that still delivers health care free at point of contact. The medicines that keep me alive would cost around $1.5k/pm if I had to pay. Currently they are free and I’ve contributed a considerable amount of “national insurance” towards the cost during my career. But we have fascists who want to introduce the American way, because they smell profit and don’t give a shit about people. It will always amaze me that the civilised world has given up on health in return for profit. I’m beginning to feel we deserve the end of the Anthropocene period and our extinction. The trees would love it!
This one hit hard. My neighbor here in New Mexico is from Boone, NC, and their stories of what happened with Helene—and going home to help with the cleanup—broke my heart.
Just a thought: the new world might actually be better. Not utopia—just different. Slower, smaller, weirder. We keep thinking collapse is all bad, but change isn’t always the enemy.
I’ve been writing a story where folks live through that shift in real time—quiet disasters, tiny salvations. Your piece reminded me why I started it.
Eat the best food you can find. Stay in peak physical condition - you don’t have to be muscle-bound but lean and strong. Help others to do the same, if they’ll let you. Care for everyone in your field of vision to the greatest extent you can. Be lucky and live long enough so that you won’t worry too much about meeting your maker before you get a few things done in life. If you can cash in a few chips from those you’ve supported through the years when your time comes, wonderful. If not that’ll be ok too - you don’t do good deeds for a reward or return. For some peripeteia hits early. It can kill you, depress you, engender feelings of nihilism, or - free you of illusions and set you on a path to helping others.
I feel we are living in a bit of each dystopian novel all at once. I can hardly care for myself much anymore. I just can’t bear the fact that my son has to live through this. He also does rely on me for some emotional support now through these times more so now than ever. I don’t want everything I have worked for taken away because I die. If they figure out a way to saddle your family with your medical debt, I believe they will do that. I do believe this administration will do everything in its power to grift as much money as they can. In addition, I believe we are three lines into the Then They Came For Poem.
My spouse works in the disease care system serving in a clinical role. Sometimes they do some great things, relieve people's pain and suffering and save lives. For that, I am grateful. However, on other occasions, tests and procedures are no doubt performed which are either medically unnecessary or ineffective. Chronic and acute stress, sleep deprivation, junk and fast food diets and a lack of movement and physical activity all impact both the quality of care being administered and the health and well-being of patients regarding the choices they make every day. And the costs! Yikes!! Talk about exorbitant. So many people are underinsured or uninsured and afraid to see the doctor or go to the hospital unless they absolutely have to. No wonder so many people take medical vacations. At least there are organizations like Undue Medical Debt (<https://unduemedicaldebt.org>) working to alleviate the impact of this problem.
I’d like to update my own medical adventure . 10 weeks ago I ran my own little business . Drove and walked around and basically did everything a very healthy 74 year old did and more . Then one morning I discovered I could not drive / the world was confusing so off to the hospital and five days later I awoke to fine that someone had removed a baseball size part of my skull and glued it back on . I have invasive melanoma ( skin cancer) but not on any outside part of me but rather metastasized into my brain and various other areas even though I walked into the hospital feeling well . After ever test scan etc known , some radiation we are starting an immunotherapy treatment schedule for months to a few years . Cost is $250000 per treatment less the discounts Medicare and hospital system provide . So over nite I went from well feeling and being just older to a partial vision loss/ no more driving and limited ability to walk far or really work hard at all and a staggering cost to get what is supported to being a good possibility of a cure. I’m fortuate to have a few assets and the ability to get through this but for others it would be a catastrophe
🫂 It's bad when a friend turns on us, but exponentially worse when it's family. My only sibling turned on me, so I understand your pain.
I do so agree. My only full sister turned on me also. She took my younger half sister with her, whom I'd been like a mother to all her life - quite the most painful and shattering event I have ever been through.
It's been very hard over the last few years to watch people we trusted abandon us, but I agree with you here that the worst part isn't even that, it's the judgment they heap on us. I guess they need to justify it in their heads before they leave their friends and family behind.
My sibling has alienated pretty much everyone in the family. I don't know if she has any friends. I'm guessing she's in MAGA at this point. It started decades ago.
Ditto my sister. Her son has cut all contact with her also. She is controlling, power hungry, paranoid, and aggressive, and I doubt she has friends either.