What a Way to Go: NetworkWe don't get to choose who's in the river
Okay, starting over... I had written several paragraphs when my baby grabbed the mouse and erased it all.
Basically I was writing about how I have been trying to convince and galvanize people about the seriousness of the situation and how that effort has come to naught. Family doesn't listen. Cohousing community-- some people are worried, more are not. This weekend, during a meeting in which "sustainability" was on the agenda, I felt extremely discouraged in the face of comments such as, "This is not the time to be preparing for some kind of crisis" and "I disagree with this fear-based view of reality." I think a lot of people dismiss me as a paranoid kook. This has taken quite a toll on me emotionally.
Tim's post about Uncle George was the best thing I could have seen today. It reminded me that when we let go of the shore, we don't get to choose who's in the river. We can only make that choice for ourselves. It doesn't make it easy to witness all the loved ones clinging to the shore. But maybe it is time for me to stop trying to change those to whom I've already offered information and my most persuasive arguments. I have to let them work it out for themselves at this point and just hope that they will venture into the current.
Meanwhile I am trying to take a good look at who is splashing around in the middle of the river with me. Hey, look, it's everyone on this network. I see my husband Tom, too... he splashes quietly but he is right next to me. There's a small band from the Permaculture Guild of Western Mass., having a potluck no less. There's even a few neighbors who are looking in this direction, thinking it might be a good time to doggy-paddle on over.
It's hard not to focus on those I wish were here. Where are my parents? my sister? my niece and nephews? most of my community? They are hanging out on the precarious banks, their hands clapped over their ears while they yell "LA LA LA LA" so as not to hear me.
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On reading "I disagree with this fear-based view of reality"...
On reading "I disagree with this fear-based view of reality", the first thing that came to mind is a line from Terry Gilliam's excellent film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. It's a comforting sentence and I like to repeat it to myself occasionally. So, the Baron is arguing with a town official, who tells him 'I think Sir has rather a weak grasp of reality', to which the Baron replies 'Sir, your reality is lies and balderdash and I am glad to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever!'. I just love that line.
And at times it does indeed feel like I'm living in a different reality to those around me. I can see and hear them, but it's as if they're in a parallel universe or I'm a ghost or something. Here are all these people blithely going on with their shopping sprees and having eight children and buying them all SUVs, completely oblivious to the elephant in the room. It is often very strange to feel so disconnected to nearly everyone around me.
One nice thing, though - I recently took the plunge and spoke to my brother, only to find that he thinks the same way I do and has done for some time.
Truth or Consequences
When I was a little girl I learned about two Jewish women living in Holland I think it was, during WWII. They were sisters, never married, maiden aunts type in their 50's and lived together in a small village. The Germans were going to invade and the sisters were advised to get out of the country. They refused, believing that no one would bother them and that it was all a big fear-based way of thinking.
Many German men entered their home, stripped the two women naked, stood them in a room with a lot of men interrogating them for hours, raped them many times, one died and the other was sent to a concentration camp. I never forgot the story and the lesson learned from it: face the truth.
Fear-based thinking or reality recognition? I think we're being hit with something this year - it just became REAL! When I woke up January 1, 2008 and the hard reality hit about what is going to happen THIS YEAR, I've been in a mind-numbing state ever since. I know I need to get through this and start action again. So far, all I want to do is surf the net and think. The solution of course is to have something concrete to hold onto as my "plan of action." I need to start laying out my garden beds.
Lua
surfing, thinking, gardening
Thanks for the reality-based view of reality (to paraphrase Tim). When I'm able to take a step back and not feel so disoriented by the vast illusions of others, I realize how solid and rational and necessary my fear is. In the face of serious threats, fear is what one SHOULD feel. I mean, duh.
I've been doing the surfing/thinking thing too, Lua-- I think this is a sort of internal "cooking and simmering" of the situation. Concrete action is called for, absolutely, as well. I think it's the most massive conundrum ever, this situation, this civilization, this way of being (or of being numb/misled) that it takes a whole lot of thinking and feeling and reading and talking and processing to even come close to getting a grip on what's happening.
We had a permaculture designer friend of ours do a garden design for the area around our house-- the land is all common land, but individual households are allowed to have some direct control over what happens immediately around their houses. So, in a small space, we are trying to create the most gorgeous, well-designed, multiple-functioning landscape possible, in the hope that it will not only provide us some sustenance but inspire our neighbors as well. We did some sheet mulching this fall and are planning to do a planting blitz this spring, mostly edible perennials. I'm also on the garden committee for the community and trying to motivate people to schedule a meeting and start mapping out the community garden (not enough space to feed everyone here, but it's something). I am sorely tempted to become a guerrilla gardener and throw seed balls in key areas around town and the community, then sitting back and seeing what grows.
You're luckier than you know
Hello Jen, your permaculture project sounds wonderful and I really wish we had the space for that here. Hope it goes well for you! I've been reading some of the comments from US posters talking about having land available and then I think of where I am, the UK, the most densely populated place in Europe and I really wonder how people will cope here when the SHTF. The US is such a huge place, with so many resources - you're luckier than you know.
Don't know what your gardening magazines over there say, but here, for a good three years now, they've been stuffed full of 'grow your own veg' with guides to making maximum use of space. I can't help but think that there's more to it than air miles and better flavour.
Ok, so what are you exit plans?
Ok, Treehugger, you live in a place you have decided will not be liveable in the future, right? So, what are your exit plans and how soon? Let's pretend you live in New Orleans right before Katrina hit. You know it's going to hit - you have advance knowledge about the levees breaking and the city flooding. You have no where to go, no one to take you in. You have no plans in place to make a nice cushy landing somewhere else. You have no car and no ability to pay for a ticket on a bus. What are you going to do?
The people that were trapped in New Orleans after Katrina could have walked out of the city before Katrina. After the hurricane, they tried walking over a bridge into nearby Geneva (an all white suburb with very little hurricane damage) but they were held back at gunpoint by the cops. If they had walked over that bridge before Katrina, in small groups without drawing attention to themselves, they would have been in a place where there was food and water at least.
My point being - you know it's coming. You know this. You say the UK is a really bad place to be. How are you going to try to leave AFTER the shit hits the fan? How bad will it be to attempt to get off the island then - with nothing - as opposed to now - with whatever you can take with you?
If I were living in an apartment in the middle of a city today without access to mountain land, with the same knowledge I possess today, I would be selling every single stick of furniture, every single knicknack, every single thing of any kind of value that I could dredge up, and use the money to buy a pickup truck with a cabover camper on it, then drive it away from the city (yes, even with kids living in it) find a job in a small town somewhere near a national forest, and live in the national forest in that camper rather than live in a city. The city is a death trap. The camper would be merely uncomfortable.
You will need to include a boat or a plane in your exit plan somehow, so it's a little more complicated. But, think about how complicated it would be AFTER tshtf. So - do you have an exit plan yet?
Lua
Plans
Hello Lua,
It's been hard to decide on a course of action - we've both been in that nasty frozen-head state for a good while.
For me, there is a mix of issues - there the 'how to plan' part of things and then the 'what do I actually want to be?' part. I dislike much of modern culture with an aching intensity - the constant drive for growth and consumption, the struggle just to survive, knowing that your hours of drudgery are filling another person's pockets. This isn't what I want for my life and I see the coming troubles as motivation to make a shift away from it, well, as much as one can these days. To that end, I've spent the last few years acquiring skills and am qualified/experienced in horticulture; I've done mixed farm work and worked on all aspects building renovations and, not least, I can cook. My partner is not bad at woodwork, even if his results do look like optical illusions! (we call it 'Escher carpentry') We're also quite good at being frugal and don't mind discomfort as much as many people do.
I think one option is to find a sustainable community to be part of and that is something we're looking for. There are a few around in the remaining rural areas of the UK. Like you, I certainly don't want to go back to living in a city, or even a town to be honest with you.
Going abroad is attractive but at this point it isn't an option, though many thousands of Brits are leaving in droves.
Getting the hell out...
What scares me is that I have no idea how to make it, be it in the city or in the country. I've lived my life totally uneducated because I spent most of my youth just trying to avoid abuse (unsuccessfully, I might add) and ended up taught virtually nothing. My entire adult life has been spent living off of the kindness of people who, eventually, grow sick of me and then I have to find some crafty way to find another place to go. I've tried work and all a thousand times, always to the same affect. When you don't know how to interact with people in that right-way manner, you end up being rejected quickly, by employers, friends, etc.
Right now I've a roommate who is increasingly showing to not really agree with my goals for the future and the revolution. He doesn't understand that I have spent far too long away from the real people I care most about. We're not moving back until after this next semester, but I don't want to even take this semester. What am I going to use it for? It's just droning. I was great at school, but it didn't teach me jack shit about how to live in the world... city or country or anywhere, and I'm terrified. Very very terrified. Put it this way... when I said I was "Jeffrey" from "My Ishmael" I have some differences... he had supporting rich parents. I have parents who neither had money nor imparted support. Period.
And now, I'm waiting until he can get his finances together, struggling with his overwhelming need to have zero debt before he walks away. I could tell him that debt doesn't matter when the crash hit, and he's still stuck in it that it's blasphemy to say that. And I just want gone.
To tell you the truth... I feel it in my bones. Bush has no incentive whatsoever other than to prolong his power, and by that I mean I'm scared of a tragedy that will result in his declaration of martial law... evacuation of Georgia oughtta be reason enough for him to try to force Georgia to be closed off. I need to get back if nothing else than to get with my people and make plans on what we'll do. These will be my support when, as you put it, tshtf... and I feel that poo flying, from the very depths of my being.
I have a dollar in my pocket, no vehicle, and zero ideas on how to get back. Guys... if you believe in prayers (and I have to admit, I don't these days) then I'm the kind of person you'd fling 'em at by the truckloads.
Ray, aka the PaganBear
http://www.thestumblingblock.com = my site
http://paganbear.livejournal.com = my blog
thepaganbear@yahoo.com
A couple of ideas
Hello Pagan Bear, have you thought about doing volunteer work in exchange for accomodation and food? There are a number of organisations that you could go through. The two I'm familiar with are WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) and HelpX (Help Exchange). They both operate in the US and have websites: http://www.wwoofusa.org/index.html and http://helpx.net/index.asp.
It might not be ideal, but it could give you an opportunity to reinvent yourself - you'd acquire some useful skills, learn a lot and meet new, possibly like-minded, people. You don't need to actually know anything to take part, just be willing to work and learn.
It takes you away from mainstream culture, meet new people, do something real and useful in the fresh air, get fit and still have time to think.
Whoa... I'm SO looking into
Whoa... I'm SO looking into these... thank you for this. In fact, it sounds precisely like the kinds of things I should be putting on my website as well. It amazes me how little I know about what's "out there"
Ray, aka the PaganBear
http://www.thestumblingblock.com = my site
http://paganbear.livejournal.com = my blog
thepaganbear@yahoo.com
WWOOFing highly recommended
Hey PaganBear,
I second the WWOOFing opportunities! You will probably meet some amazing people this way. Of course, there are all different kinds of farms/communities out there. But for the most part, people doing organic farming are pretty darn clued in, and usually very friendly, hospitable, and grateful for your help.
It's a fantastically cheap way to travel, too - well, as far as food and accommodations go. The actual transportation usually has to come from somewhere else. :)
Good luck, friend,
Paul
Find a lift
Thanks for the second on the wwoofing, Paul :-)
I found this site about car sharing - there are bound to be other organisations as well. It would be worth looking into if ready cash is an issue for travelling.
Good luck to all of us,
tree
Splish Splash
I've not seen that post, but I can tell you, I almost want to strangle people. If one more person tells me that they don't believe we're going to collapse and all is going to be okay... I'M GONNA FREAK OUT AND BREAK SOME NECKS!!!!!! And I don't say that as myself, because I'm not like that. They are literally driving me to the edge of my tolerance for this culture with their robotic and predictable replies.
I've given up Quinn's notion of "changing minds" because I simply don't have the power. That power may be in someone's grasp, but I'm too angry to do it. I am too busy wanting to smash people for it. I finally wrote in my blog that I am no longer playing around. I've died to that old self and am 100% and 24/7 about the cause. I have no time for idle chit-chat (that frequently tries to hint at making me drop the silly "phase" I'm going through). Those who aren't splashing with me are just not worth my time. I'm done with it.
I want to round up as many as possible, but let me tell ya... so far I think I have three people who still respond to my blog posts, and have pretty much lost everybody else. I don't miss them.
Ray, aka the PaganBear
http://www.thestumblingblock.com = my site
http://paganbear.livejournal.com = my blog
thepaganbear@yahoo.com
I wish I had a baby for an editor!
Thanks for this, Jen. Beautiful. So sad, how people, out of their own fear, shut down and refuse to hear and even go so far as to make you the crazy one. To paraphrase one of the people you quote: "I disagree with this non-reality based view of reality!"
Ah well, as you say, there's plenty of splashing elsewhere. Keep swimming. Reality will catch up with us all at some point.
Tim