Ibon wrote:Finally, if your personal wealth, assets or quality of life experience a contraction, if your material dreams are abandoned, if society fails to deliver what you initially felt your entitled to, there is little reason to generate much anxiety when most of your fellow human beings are sharing the same experiences.
I can already see the emerging millennial generation re calibrating their expectations.
Why sweat it? Anxiety in times of overshoot is stupid and a waste of time.
Pops wrote:I am less anxious now. I'm not sure if it is simply age, less family responsibility, the life situation I have built. No alcohol is big I'm sure, nothing produces "free-floating anxiety" like a hangover, LOL. Maybe it has to do with developing type 1 diabetes and getting pretty sick, perspective.
Pops wrote:" and now I am seven,”
LOL
Ibon wrote:However, if you explore this deeply there is no other conclusion that one can draw except that the suite of feedbacks that will emerge in this century and beyond will represent the forces that will select and move culture forward.
If this be clearly understood why should we be anxious?
As puny tiny links in a long chain, what purpose does anxiety serve?
Finally, if your personal wealth, assets or quality of life experience a contraction, if your material dreams are abandoned, if society fails to deliver what you initially felt your entitled to, there is little reason to generate much anxiety when most of your fellow human beings are sharing the same experiences.
Loki wrote:Ibon wrote:However, if you explore this deeply there is no other conclusion that one can draw except that the suite of feedbacks that will emerge in this century and beyond will represent the forces that will select and move culture forward.
That's arguable. There is no predestination. The Long Emergency could just plunge us into a Forever Dark Age, red in tooth and nail.
anxiety is primarily focused on our little individual lives. Whether our "culture" will be "moved forward" in 200 years is utterly irrelevant when one is unemployed and worried about being able to pay the bills next month.
If anxiety is held to a low enough level, it can be a kick in the pants to make some necessary changes in one's own life. If you let it overwhelm you, it can prevent you from making said changes.
Pops wrote:In small doses, worry, concern, and yes, planning, can be a good thing.
But too much worry without action, or endless scenario building without resolution are surefire ways to make oneself completely miserable.
Loki wrote:But that's the thing, it's not really a shared experience. That old saying comes to mind, it's a recession when your neighbor loses his job, a depression when you lose your job. Losing your job, losing your house, losing your way in life is a deeply personal thing. Highways are still clogged with people going to work, you see new $50,000 trucks driving down the road hauling $100,000 worth of toys, constantly hear about how some folks are making bank on the stock market despite the economic downturn, etc. Even when things were much worse in the 1930s, some folks did just fine. Those who held onto their jobs actually experienced wage increases. Many considered taking CCC/WPA/etc. jobs as a sign of failure, and often wouldn't hire someone who had worked for one of the alphabet relief agencies. At least back then when you got food relief you stood in the soup line and could see that you weren't the only one down on his luck. Now you get a fake debit card and pretend to be like everyone else when you go grocery shopping. Being un/underemployed can be deeply isolating.
When you are not feeling held by your culture and you feel isolated and alone with your worry about security then this is a real source of being anxious. This feeling of helplessness as an individual and cutoff from the larger culture is really an artifact of our affluent, individualistic culture experiencing the first pangs of anxiety about losing autonomy.
But what action is possible when you are scrambling to hold on to the crumbs of a contracting status quo that still has quite resilient momentum? This is the big big challenge. Putting anxiety into action is much easier said than done in these times. All the goals of getting out of debt and consuming less etc. and building gardening skills as action points are great but kind of meaningless if you aren't able to move out of isolation and building relationships with others.
Pops wrote:
The "herd" has a few advantages for the individual:
1, it has more eyes and ears than an individual - unless it is a herd of ostriches
2, it provides camouflage "lost in the herd"
3, it provides a diversion: "I don't have to outrun the bear ..."
I'm 29 years old, and have been doing intensive organic vegetable farming and permaculture work for several years now. My dream has been to start a permaculture operation growing perennial medicinal and edible plants.
Unfortunately, I was bamboozled like many people of my generation into taking out a significant chunk of student loan debt many years ago to pay for an education that hasn't served my longterm interests.
I have learned a lot from my work on various farms and permaculture operations, but have obviously made very little money doing so. My skillset has grown significantly, but my debt has grown right along with it.
At this point it feels an impossibility that I should ever obtain land, even a modest parcel, let alone finance the beginning of an operation like the one I've envisioned all these years.
I've moved from rental home to rental home, trying to make ends meet while pursuing this self-directed education, but now feel completely stuck. And if what you are saying is true, then it is highly unlikely I will ever be unstuck.
Meanwhile, many of my peers in the young organic farming movement are in a similar situation: lots of skill and knowledge, lots of passion and commitment, but lots of debt and zero access to land or other resources as well. Our elders in the farming community tell us to work off our debts and build our credit with the intention of taking out loans for land someday. But we all know that with things the way they are that this is a futile road leading nowhere. That may have been an option for their generation, but it isn't an option for ours. Sometimes we joke among ourselves that we are likely to end up an entire generation of serfs. Now that the tremors of our time are growing in severity, the laughter is wearing thin.
America may be more diverse than ever coast to coast, but the places where we live are becoming increasingly crowded with people who live, think, and vote like we do. This social transformation didn't happen by accident. We've built a country where we can all choose the neighborhood and church and news show — most compatible with our lifestyle and beliefs. And we are living with the consequences of this way-of-life segregation. Our country has become so polarized, so ideologically inbred, that people don't know and can't understand those who live just a few miles away. The reason for this situation, and the dire implications for our country, is the subject of this ground-breaking work.
SOME folks in Texas recently decided to start a new community “containing 100% Ron Paul supporters”. Mr Paul is a staunch libertarian and, until recently, a Republican presidential candidate. His most ardent fans are invited to build homesteads in “Paulville”, an empty patch of west Texas. Here, they will be free. Free not to pay “for other people's lifestyles [they] may not agree with”. And free from the irksome society of those who do not share their love of liberty.
Cynics chuckle, and even Mr Paul sounds unenthusiastic about the Paulville project, in which he had no hand. But his followers' desire to segregate themselves is not unusual. Americans are increasingly forming like-minded clusters. Conservatives are choosing to live near other conservatives, and liberals near liberals.
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