Wow. This one really hits home. All the things we can't talk about...to the people who used to be our best friends and loved ones. Today I found myself explaining to one of my oldest friends about continuing to be covid-safe and I suddenly heard myself the way I knew he'd be hearing it ("Boy, she's really gone off the deep end") though he was too polite to say anything. And then I realized our differences made him unable to be honest with me, just the way I stay silent with others. How fucked up is that? Thank you for another brilliant post.
"We're miserable because this system forces us to participate in our own destruction."
--I've resisted single-use plastics in my own inconsequential way for the last 30+ years, while watching all around me eat boxes of individually-wrapped cookies and other snacks without a care. It is indeed too late and too insane, and you do console by articulating these things as you do.
I also have family in the path of this last storm and I was making phone calls today. We were fortunate in that the storm didn't hit them when it went through but what about the next one?
And that is the point. There will always be a next one with this climate change. It seems we are all playing dodgeball with these climate change induced natural disasters and it is only a matter of time before we get hit, no matter where we live. For us lucky ones, we get to watch those more unfortunate souls get hit and say a prayer of thankfulness to whatever Gods you wish, that it wasn't you this time.
I live in one of those areas that the weather seems to go around us for now. We get wet, and endure the occasional big thunderstorm, heat waves that bring on oppressive humidity but no tornadoes, hurricanes or floods, so far. I am expecting that to change.
I am one of the rare few that has traveled to third world countries and seen the devastation that extreme climate and wars have wrought on the peoples there. As I mentioned in another post of yours about homesteading, I grew up without modern conveniences such as a stable electric grid, cell phones and the internet. I haven't forgotten what that was like and although my skills are a little rusty with disuse, I could pick them back up again with minimal practice if disasters take out the infrastructure for a long period of time, if not altogether.
I am under no illusions about what is going on around me everywhere. The apathy in the U.S. and Europe is like a wet wool blanket. A lot of people are giving up. A lot more are getting angrier and angrier and that worries me the most. When Americans get angry enough, a lot of people get hurt and some die. They are very close to that now. The western Europeans are close to that as well in some places and they may follow the Americans into the abyss.
Until things get better or worse, I will continue to read everything I can to help me prepare for the worst and hope for better.
elegant, clear-eyed and potent reporting on willed-catastrophes. as a friend said, these leaders mistake the sound of a death rattle for saber rattling.
we want the misguided killing to stop. the money spent on infrastructure instead.
So true it hurts. I wish I could manage to write it all out like this. Ironically, I aspire to be a writer, but the burnout and depression keeps my creativity at bay lately.
"Do you know why people doomscroll? It’s not because they’re addicted to bad news or negative information. I don’t even think it’s solely to gather information about threats. Their phones are the only place they’re allowed to bear witness to the chaos. It’s the only place they see someone else express genuine emotion. It’s the only place where right and wrong still mean something."
That ... so true. I've been teaching biology, ecology in particular for more that 10 years now ... it's harder and harder to cover the part about climate change, it just kills me inside a little bit more every semester when it comes up. I've tried to spin it more positively as I know there are many positive examples of actions to damper species loss and mitigate climate catastrophes. It helps a little. This semester it's going to be even harder ... I teach in Raleigh, NC ...
We are miserable because we are Human. Our very nature drives us to the behaviors you describe. You want people to be reasonable, to care about others, care about their own future, to be reasonable and kind. We aren't like that. We are like what you describe. That's who we are at base. Not good, not kind, selfish and self destructive. That's who we are. You can't make a kitty cat act like a dog because they are not like that. You can't make people behave in a thoughtful, reasonable and kind manner cause we ate not like that.
I disagree, its the doctrine of sin that makes us sinners. Its 2000 years of Christian trauma that makes us fear brained suckers. Humans will never be perfect, but when nurtured well, are empathetic, caring and communal. It is this western society which is insane and we are insane because we live inside it. Humans can be better. Modern humans are lost and disconnected, the Catholic Church made sure of that.
no, that is not what I mean and not what I wrote either. That is your own misreading. When we believe we are innately evil, we behave in evil ways, a self fulfilling prophecy. In addition, trauma and bullying lead to harmful actions from a fear induced brain that is unable to respond well. The science is all there. I suggest you look into it. Furthermore, just because you haven't experienced kindness, does not mean it does not exist. What you are describing above is a hyper-vigilant Trauma Response and that is understandable, but it is inaccurate. The Catholic Church foisted a doctrine of sin on Europeans, tortured them, indoctrinated them, created on going heresy sweeps, etc, all to support their power and wealth, using the doctrine of sin as an excuse. People respond with trauma responses to protect themselves and spread more harm. The Catholic Church came out of Rome, a brutal political power. There are so many other examples of how humans can be good, if you don't just take European thought and history as a given. There are both possibilities of course, we can obviously be greedy and evil, but we an also obviously be kind and generous. It is our choice and we need to create systems that cultivate the latter. They did it in the Americas, many natives had systems of status based on caring, compassion and giving.
You claim in this written piece that there is a lack of transparency in society about your feelings and the experiences of living in a society living through the consequences of predatorial capitalism and much of what you are discussing in this piece is social anxiety of not conducting action sufficient to live in a thriving community not based on mere survival. In most matarialistic rich societies expressing one's feelings onslaught from the experience of suffering is ommitted from public life percisely because that is society's indoctrinationation of its very existence to persist maintaining the veil of ignorance that applying the knowledge that comes from suffering, requires change. The US is going to change whether it wants to or not and the inhabitants who are aware of the very things its' own government is doing that they have no apparent control of, can only intensify the very social anxieties expressed herein or by preppers. Either you relinquish your own responsibility to implement change, in your own life to church, state, authority, technocrat, social habit or whatever outside force you can blame for not finding solutions on your own or your mental health will never improve no matter how much you share your stories online with others whom have also suffered. You can perhaps offer sollutions but achieving solutions may require of you to learn that it is your own responsibility to realize that the place you are living can always be left behind regardless of the million and one justifications you might have for remaining. Do you think people in Gaza are having qualms about remaining in a territory onslaught by the horror of humans trying to eliminate them at every chance. They either fight back or those who are willing escape by any means necessary. Your privilage is no one is responsible to remove you from an area physically, to be in less environmental danger. You clearly have the privilage to have access to the internet to inform yourself about how to apply knowledge in order to create a better life than the one being offered by any third party source. Understand, I am not taking sides with the systemic corruption that is the state of politics in the US domestically nor geo-politically but trying to give you insight into how you might inspire yourself and others to find solutions to embetter your life because although you might be deeply saddened by society's decadence you certaintly are sacrificing a lot to maintain its own indoctrination of your complaints of its own willingness to acknowledge your suffering. Acknowledge your suffering but by all means use that anguish to readily achieve something that you can change or as with many privileged people remain a victim of your own accountability and ability to transform your own life for the better. Just another perspective.
"They have told us it will never happen" because it won't. Not until its all gone. More than people don't like hearing about the truth of the global state of affairs, people like you resent everyone else for acknowledging the writing on the wall. We can't create the world you want to create until this one has burned out. People won't let us. HOAs, police, politicians, corporations, zoning laws, general infrastructure built up through decades and centuries of short-sighted, uninformed and then belligerently ignorant progress. I don't want to get shot and killed for trying to create change that will be snuffed as easy as a cigarette under heel. I don't want to stand screaming and shouting and clamoring for a change that will be silenced with a hand wave by people better armed than me. I don't want to claw my way through hundreds of thousands of normal people hellbent on acknowledging nothing to burn out trying to reach the root of the problem. There IS NO HOPE. By the time humanity decides to move on mass to do ANYTHING, it will be after the current age has burned out, and for the current age to burn out enough for the threat of violence and exclusion to be past, the world will be 1000x further gone than it is now. The world will be so far in its self-destruct that new life will have to be formed/evolved for their to be a future of life on Earth. You are not allowed to win, so your voice is only a reminder to me that things CAN'T get better.
So fuck it. I will live as I have until its taken from me, and then I will take from everyone else and die. The traditional, eternal form of human living. Killing, abusing, and enslaving everyone else so you and your small in-group of collaborators can thrive and pretend that you were always morally superior because you won.
It’s definitely psychological overload that ppl are dealing with and it is hard to stay positive by doom scrolling. So much out of our control. But the oppressors want us to believe that. And that is what keeps me going. “Rage rage against the dying of the light”
Thank you, Jessica. I always feel better when I read what you write because I don’t feel so alone in my daily experiences.
As always, you have eloquently summed up how we’re all feeling and why.
Wow. This one really hits home. All the things we can't talk about...to the people who used to be our best friends and loved ones. Today I found myself explaining to one of my oldest friends about continuing to be covid-safe and I suddenly heard myself the way I knew he'd be hearing it ("Boy, she's really gone off the deep end") though he was too polite to say anything. And then I realized our differences made him unable to be honest with me, just the way I stay silent with others. How fucked up is that? Thank you for another brilliant post.
"We're miserable because this system forces us to participate in our own destruction."
--I've resisted single-use plastics in my own inconsequential way for the last 30+ years, while watching all around me eat boxes of individually-wrapped cookies and other snacks without a care. It is indeed too late and too insane, and you do console by articulating these things as you do.
I also have family in the path of this last storm and I was making phone calls today. We were fortunate in that the storm didn't hit them when it went through but what about the next one?
And that is the point. There will always be a next one with this climate change. It seems we are all playing dodgeball with these climate change induced natural disasters and it is only a matter of time before we get hit, no matter where we live. For us lucky ones, we get to watch those more unfortunate souls get hit and say a prayer of thankfulness to whatever Gods you wish, that it wasn't you this time.
I live in one of those areas that the weather seems to go around us for now. We get wet, and endure the occasional big thunderstorm, heat waves that bring on oppressive humidity but no tornadoes, hurricanes or floods, so far. I am expecting that to change.
I am one of the rare few that has traveled to third world countries and seen the devastation that extreme climate and wars have wrought on the peoples there. As I mentioned in another post of yours about homesteading, I grew up without modern conveniences such as a stable electric grid, cell phones and the internet. I haven't forgotten what that was like and although my skills are a little rusty with disuse, I could pick them back up again with minimal practice if disasters take out the infrastructure for a long period of time, if not altogether.
I am under no illusions about what is going on around me everywhere. The apathy in the U.S. and Europe is like a wet wool blanket. A lot of people are giving up. A lot more are getting angrier and angrier and that worries me the most. When Americans get angry enough, a lot of people get hurt and some die. They are very close to that now. The western Europeans are close to that as well in some places and they may follow the Americans into the abyss.
Until things get better or worse, I will continue to read everything I can to help me prepare for the worst and hope for better.
This obsession with constant ‘growth’ to fund dividends is fiddling while Rome burns.
elegant, clear-eyed and potent reporting on willed-catastrophes. as a friend said, these leaders mistake the sound of a death rattle for saber rattling.
we want the misguided killing to stop. the money spent on infrastructure instead.
Nailed it over and over, especially the list of things we can't talk about.
phew. Thank you Jessica.
Very well written. Thank you for giving me the words to describe why.
So true it hurts. I wish I could manage to write it all out like this. Ironically, I aspire to be a writer, but the burnout and depression keeps my creativity at bay lately.
"Do you know why people doomscroll? It’s not because they’re addicted to bad news or negative information. I don’t even think it’s solely to gather information about threats. Their phones are the only place they’re allowed to bear witness to the chaos. It’s the only place they see someone else express genuine emotion. It’s the only place where right and wrong still mean something."
That ... so true. I've been teaching biology, ecology in particular for more that 10 years now ... it's harder and harder to cover the part about climate change, it just kills me inside a little bit more every semester when it comes up. I've tried to spin it more positively as I know there are many positive examples of actions to damper species loss and mitigate climate catastrophes. It helps a little. This semester it's going to be even harder ... I teach in Raleigh, NC ...
We are miserable because we are Human. Our very nature drives us to the behaviors you describe. You want people to be reasonable, to care about others, care about their own future, to be reasonable and kind. We aren't like that. We are like what you describe. That's who we are at base. Not good, not kind, selfish and self destructive. That's who we are. You can't make a kitty cat act like a dog because they are not like that. You can't make people behave in a thoughtful, reasonable and kind manner cause we ate not like that.
I disagree, its the doctrine of sin that makes us sinners. Its 2000 years of Christian trauma that makes us fear brained suckers. Humans will never be perfect, but when nurtured well, are empathetic, caring and communal. It is this western society which is insane and we are insane because we live inside it. Humans can be better. Modern humans are lost and disconnected, the Catholic Church made sure of that.
Doctrine of sin makes us evil? You mean if we call evil good that will make it good?
no, that is not what I mean and not what I wrote either. That is your own misreading. When we believe we are innately evil, we behave in evil ways, a self fulfilling prophecy. In addition, trauma and bullying lead to harmful actions from a fear induced brain that is unable to respond well. The science is all there. I suggest you look into it. Furthermore, just because you haven't experienced kindness, does not mean it does not exist. What you are describing above is a hyper-vigilant Trauma Response and that is understandable, but it is inaccurate. The Catholic Church foisted a doctrine of sin on Europeans, tortured them, indoctrinated them, created on going heresy sweeps, etc, all to support their power and wealth, using the doctrine of sin as an excuse. People respond with trauma responses to protect themselves and spread more harm. The Catholic Church came out of Rome, a brutal political power. There are so many other examples of how humans can be good, if you don't just take European thought and history as a given. There are both possibilities of course, we can obviously be greedy and evil, but we an also obviously be kind and generous. It is our choice and we need to create systems that cultivate the latter. They did it in the Americas, many natives had systems of status based on caring, compassion and giving.
Like I said . . .
You claim in this written piece that there is a lack of transparency in society about your feelings and the experiences of living in a society living through the consequences of predatorial capitalism and much of what you are discussing in this piece is social anxiety of not conducting action sufficient to live in a thriving community not based on mere survival. In most matarialistic rich societies expressing one's feelings onslaught from the experience of suffering is ommitted from public life percisely because that is society's indoctrinationation of its very existence to persist maintaining the veil of ignorance that applying the knowledge that comes from suffering, requires change. The US is going to change whether it wants to or not and the inhabitants who are aware of the very things its' own government is doing that they have no apparent control of, can only intensify the very social anxieties expressed herein or by preppers. Either you relinquish your own responsibility to implement change, in your own life to church, state, authority, technocrat, social habit or whatever outside force you can blame for not finding solutions on your own or your mental health will never improve no matter how much you share your stories online with others whom have also suffered. You can perhaps offer sollutions but achieving solutions may require of you to learn that it is your own responsibility to realize that the place you are living can always be left behind regardless of the million and one justifications you might have for remaining. Do you think people in Gaza are having qualms about remaining in a territory onslaught by the horror of humans trying to eliminate them at every chance. They either fight back or those who are willing escape by any means necessary. Your privilage is no one is responsible to remove you from an area physically, to be in less environmental danger. You clearly have the privilage to have access to the internet to inform yourself about how to apply knowledge in order to create a better life than the one being offered by any third party source. Understand, I am not taking sides with the systemic corruption that is the state of politics in the US domestically nor geo-politically but trying to give you insight into how you might inspire yourself and others to find solutions to embetter your life because although you might be deeply saddened by society's decadence you certaintly are sacrificing a lot to maintain its own indoctrination of your complaints of its own willingness to acknowledge your suffering. Acknowledge your suffering but by all means use that anguish to readily achieve something that you can change or as with many privileged people remain a victim of your own accountability and ability to transform your own life for the better. Just another perspective.
"They have told us it will never happen" because it won't. Not until its all gone. More than people don't like hearing about the truth of the global state of affairs, people like you resent everyone else for acknowledging the writing on the wall. We can't create the world you want to create until this one has burned out. People won't let us. HOAs, police, politicians, corporations, zoning laws, general infrastructure built up through decades and centuries of short-sighted, uninformed and then belligerently ignorant progress. I don't want to get shot and killed for trying to create change that will be snuffed as easy as a cigarette under heel. I don't want to stand screaming and shouting and clamoring for a change that will be silenced with a hand wave by people better armed than me. I don't want to claw my way through hundreds of thousands of normal people hellbent on acknowledging nothing to burn out trying to reach the root of the problem. There IS NO HOPE. By the time humanity decides to move on mass to do ANYTHING, it will be after the current age has burned out, and for the current age to burn out enough for the threat of violence and exclusion to be past, the world will be 1000x further gone than it is now. The world will be so far in its self-destruct that new life will have to be formed/evolved for their to be a future of life on Earth. You are not allowed to win, so your voice is only a reminder to me that things CAN'T get better.
So fuck it. I will live as I have until its taken from me, and then I will take from everyone else and die. The traditional, eternal form of human living. Killing, abusing, and enslaving everyone else so you and your small in-group of collaborators can thrive and pretend that you were always morally superior because you won.
It’s definitely psychological overload that ppl are dealing with and it is hard to stay positive by doom scrolling. So much out of our control. But the oppressors want us to believe that. And that is what keeps me going. “Rage rage against the dying of the light”