{"id":66154,"date":"2023-11-15T13:37:22","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T18:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66154"},"modified":"2023-11-15T13:37:22","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T18:37:22","slug":"todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-clxiii-keep-calm-and-carry-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66154","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh\u00a0CLXIII–Keep Calm and Carry On"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh\u00a0CLXIII<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Mexico (1988). Photo by\u00a0author.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Keep Calm and Carry On<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Contemplation is my comment on a recent post<\/a> by Allan Urban that speaks to his experiences attempting to share his learnings on \u2018collapse\u2019. For those that have read it, you can likely recognise similar reactions from others; I certainly did.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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After years of experiencing the same \u2018frustrations\u2019 in attempting to share my \u2018insights\u2019 regarding our predicament, I\u2019ve come to understand that we all believe what we want to believe and that regardless of the evidence\/facts that point to our inevitable collision with \u2018collapse\u2019 most will reject the idea and carry on in the belief that tomorrow (and the future) will be much like yesterday and today. For the most part, that\u2019s a good belief system and one that has been proven correct again and again for people, and how others respond to challenges to this system are fairly typical.<\/p>\n

The list of psychological mechanisms to avoid anxiety-provoking thoughts is almost endless. And the idea of \u2018collapse\u2019 is most certainly anxiety-provoking. Fight or flight. Groupthink. Going along to get along. Deference to authority\/expertise (especially the ruling caste of our societies\u200a\u2014\u200ae.g., government, legacy media). Cognitive dissonance reduction. Stages of grieving (particularly denial of reality and bargaining). These are next to impossible to overcome.<\/p>\n

So, while I write about the situation (see https:\/\/olduvai.ca<\/a>) and my perspective on it, I don\u2019t engage too many others\u200a\u2014\u200aespecially in my personal, social circles\u200a\u2014\u200awith my views. The exception being those who respond to my writings and are interested in the topics involved.<\/p>\n

I have also completely abandoned any \u2018hope\u2019 that our political systems (or even most (all?) non-governmental ones) are the place to look for \u2018salvation\u2019. These systems are designed for the most part (and motivated by) self-preservation and the status quo. There are few if any that truly aim to \u2018deconstruct\u2019 our extractive\/exploitive systems that have led us to where we our. That\u2019s not their role; in fact, quite the opposite.<\/p>\n

Our governing systems in particular are pre\/historic institutions in place to maintain\/expand the control of wealth-generating\/-extracting systems that provide revenue streams for a select few. Their current iterations weave comforting narratives about \u2018representation\u2019 and beneficent policies\/actions for the masses, but these are propaganda meant to appease and mollify\u200a\u2014\u200anothing more. Their aims are primarily oriented towards growing these systems of extraction and exploitation, regardless of the social and\/or ecological systems costs.<\/p>\n

We have not only cyclical complex society \u2018collapse\u2019 processes to contend with in our modern-day experiment of a globalised (and financialised) system, but the various symptom predicaments of ecological overshoot as well\u200a\u2014\u200aespecially depletion of probably the most fundament of resources to our modern complexities: hydrocarbons.<\/p>\n

If pre\/history is any indication of how things will unfold (and I would contend it very much is), then most of us will deny\/ignore the signals long after our decline is well and truly underway\u200a\u2014\u200aas many argue it already is. We will carry on in our ignorance and complicity, believing things will improve and someone, somewhere will \u2018solve\u2019 all this. Keep calm and carry on.<\/p>\n

Keeping the ruling caste\u2019s feet to the fire is commendable (if the pressure directs them in a way to degrow our existence, not grow it via even more \u2018green\/clean\u2019 technology) but ultimately will not result in system changes. It will be Nature that corrects our Overshoot, as it always does with species that blow past its natural carrying capacity.<\/p>\n

Perhaps our energies are best focused upon attempts to mitigate the consequences as best we can for our local communities. Relocalise and simplify, or as John Michael Greer has suggested: Collapse now and avoid the rush.<\/p>\n

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Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh\u00a0CLXIII Mexico (1988). Photo by\u00a0author. Keep Calm and Carry On Today\u2019s Contemplation is my comment on a recent post by Allan Urban that speaks to his experiences attempting to share his learnings on \u2018collapse\u2019. For those that have read it, you can likely recognise similar reactions from others; I certainly did. After […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4,5,6,7],"tags":[150,30371,23518,153,22093,658,5833,30370,33947],"class_list":["post-66154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","category-survival-2","tag-collapse","tag-collapse-cometh","tag-complex-societies","tag-complex-systems","tag-ecological-overshoot","tag-psychology","tag-steve-bull","tag-todays-contemplation","tag-todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66155,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66154\/revisions\/66155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}