I must admit to a total lack of motivation or raison d'etre at the moment. Sounds a bit like your condition Heineken but not as severe.

At work, I feel like the street cleaner who has been told to clear the leaves in early Autumn and there is a gale about to blow. Utterly pointless.

To prairiemule, well done. As I found myself, the only thing that gets you over the last girl is the next girl.

I feel like that a lot lately and I don't really seem to be able to figure out how to change it, small things seem like a huge effort too and I get a bit anxious from time to time feeling so aimless.

looks like you're not alone Heineken

This is I think, a fairly common experience for many people at some time or another in their lives. A philosopher would call it 'alienation'. A neuroscientist would call it 'cognitive dissonance'. - when what you experience in everyday life clashes with what you believe or know to be true.

The parallel is with sea sickness. The experienced feeling is due to a mismatch of info being supplied by the inner ears and eyes to the brain. The brain cannot reconcile what its being told by the two separate senses and freaks out. In the case of seasickness, the answer is to shut down one of the senses - either by lying down and keeping the eyes firmly shut, or by shutting down the inner ear with meds.

In the case of 'strange times', alienation, or cognitive dissonance, the answer is to shut down the brain, temporarily. Disconnect from whatever subject is causing the dissonance, in this case your vision of the future caused by PO - refocus on the everyday, go on a Catholic or Budhist retreat, or similar. Take up meditation or knitting

....Go back to ranch in Crawford and cut brush!

Somehow you've just got to stop thinking about it for a while and give the mind a chance to heal itself.

Indeed, you are not alone Heineken. I've had similar times in my life. One in particular was very much like you describe. I found that I needed to return to my roots, because "where I was" in my life just didn't fit. You can try to make yourself fit many places, but there is only one place you'll be comfortable. I had to learn where that place was and return there. It was a journey (just the self-discovery phase was a struggle at times), but I made it "back home."

Someone I respect said you cannot "should upon" other people. You should do this, you should do that... and it applies to yourself, too. Don't get yourself buried under all the things you "should" be doing or how you "should" be living.

Sit down and re-examine your current state of affairs. Like Pops said, it may just be that you've tried to fit into something/somewhere that just doesn't. Perhaps you've listened to one too many "shoulds" and it's time to just get back to being you.

Good luck.
K

Many excellent posts. I've read them all carefully. Nice to see some familiar, friendly names, as well as nice new faces.

I am struck by our demand, as individuals, for constant, high-quality maintenance. Not just for basics like food and shelter but also for inner, psychic equilibrium.

This maintenance requires so damned much ENERGY.

Maybe that's my problem: a personal energy crisis. What seemed fairly effortless and natural now seems like something I have to do consciously and against resistance.

I keep asking myself, Is the world changing, or is it me that is changing?

(Yes, T-bear, it could be my thyroid hormone levels. My brother says, "Everything is chemical.")

I nominate Pops as the most centered & grounded member of PO.COM !

I don't know how Pops does it, but I'm taking notes!

Exactly. I think I'll be able to cope with collapse better when everyone around me knows we're going through a collapse (and by collapse I mean peakoil, not the recession/depression, that one people are aware of) rather than being in denial right up to the point where we're falling off the cliff.

I have been aggregating every mainstream global warming and peak oil news link for over a year, obssessively, and yet I am really afraid to share this with anyone because I don't want to hear them slough it off no matter how tall the body of evidence is. It's like I'm collecting this shrine of spiteful "I knew all along" for the moment when the people around me take the blinders off. That and hanging around here is really an unhealthy addiction.

If I were as grounded as Pops is, I think I'd go crazy!

(I say that with kind intent, Pops.)

People are Strange

Hi Heineken--The best route to go is to rule out any underlying physical causes. Both my brother and my cousin have had thyroid problems and both identified it, initially, as depression. My cousin went on meds, as did my brother. My brother went off meds when he realized he could control his symptoms by eliminating sugar from his diet. There seems to be an association between wonky blood sugar levels and thyroid.

My brother's case was so extreme, he could have slipped into a coma, had an astute doctor not picked up on it. Other than mental fogginess, sleepiness and depression/anxiety, he had none of the other physical symptoms, like weight gain, etc...

When you have these conditions it's really easy to write them off as purely emotional, as the mind becomes a veritable anxiety or depression seeking missile, seeking subjects, opportunities, targets to express it's hormonal condition.

Heineken, I've been through phases similar to this. I think it's to do with a disassociation between reality and your brain. We've all spent so long here preparing for something, and suddenly this worldwide depression comes along and messes up how you see things. It's almost as if it is interfering with the true path of peak oil.

I've spent a couple of weeks recently in bed (ill-ish) when I should be at work. My family is in France while I'm meant to be working in Germany. It's a lonely existence.

What's worrying me more now is that my wife is showing genuine signs of depression living in the doomstead, with my half-finished projects lying around. E.g this weekend I destroyed half the chimney to put a new efficient wood stove in. I had to leave after summarily tidying up. But my poor wife is living in an old house with ongoing work. I need to get stronger and ensure she doesn't lose it, rather than allowing my own exestential angst to perpetuate the situation and end up divorcing.

It's not easy. Just try to stay focused. If that doesn't work, go for a holiday (I did this two weeks ago, and it really helped).

Edit: it was my first genuine (non-visiting relatives) holiday in twenty years.

I'm unwilling to go the doctor route on this, Threadbear. I have no health insurance, that's the chief reason. Recently I had a small skin cancer removed from the back of my neck and had to shell out $1,100 for two pathological analyses and two simple excision procedures. I won't walk through a doctor's door unless my back is truly to the wall.

I doubt if I'm going to find an answer at the doctor's for something so complex and so nuanced, in any case. The help I get from you guys is worth more.

I'm very active and muscular; I don't think the problem is hormonal, but of course I could be wrong.

The wife and I, try going away for a week each year...has to be somewhere new. Europe is especially a good choice . The first few days are wasted spotting the walking dead. Inevitably, you get absorbed in the history , the cultures, and antiquities . A sense of humility takes over and awe, from where you are, there lay cultures in various states of growth and decay...and in the ruins there is genuine beauty.

I think perspective soothes the weak and strong equally.

I think world events could be playing a role in how I'm feeling, davep, even though I've experienced little or no direct impact from them so far.

I do have my tree farm to get away to 90 minutes south of here, with its small cabin and its remoteness.

I feel for you regarding the wife. Although I have no wife, I do know what it's like having responsibilities for (and complications from) other life-forms in my life.

Was thinking of buying a bow and teaching myself archery. Something new to shake things up a bit.

Hang in there too. Some things you just have to tough out until time heals them.

Classic disassociative reaction due to awareness of rapidly approaching crisis. There are disclipines available to teach you to control your limbic system (Paleomammalian brain) such as Yoga, TM, etc. It will be vital to keep your cool while all the super-redundant others are losing theirs: panic is extremely contagious.

"It is perfectly true that only terror to the point of despair develops a man to his utmost." S. A. Kierkegaard