Was a realization that I’ve come to learn and internalize. It sounds fucked up to say and it is not to say I will stop fighting… But the weight and burden it’s lifted is a powerful thing.
For much of my life I have been so focused and driven to learn all I can about environmental and social issues. The driving thought process being that the more I learn and understand, the better the chance of being able to help bring forth solutions or make a difference.
But internalization of the grief and world’s burdens was and is not a healthy thing. It left me overly anxious, sick and angry (to skim the surface and be brief).
By refraiming it in such a way, I can prioritize my own happiness, feel empowered in the sense it would be wonderful by some small miracle to make a difference but it’s also not my fault if things still go to shit.
To dance and love every moment, the newfound peace is liberating. All the while decoupling from the issues on a personal level has left me fired up and feeling most capable of making a difference, I’ll be focusing on resiliency. (Specifically extreme weather resistant housing and food production).
Save the world, but it’s okay if we can’t. Save what we can, if we can. There is joy to be found in supporting one another and trying our best. The optimism of Solar Punk feels much better than complete resignation to collapse.
I am healing myself, so that I may help others through the stages of collapse awareness, and provide support through the crumbles.
That’s where it feels our efforts might be best spent. Prepare for the inevitable and build the information hubs / resiliency arks and safe harbours. Fight for such resiliency to help give the next generations a fighting chance (however slim) or the chance of a more dignified decline.
Something something, a phoenix rises from the ashes?
‘I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. “I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.” Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world – prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.’
—Emma Goldman, Living My Life (1931)
the source behind the T-shirt – “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to part of your revolution.”
I sometimes feel almost a sense of glee anticipating societal breakdown. I stand to lose a lot too, but I also know that this world must end to make room for a new one. It will be a painful birth.
My strategy to find joy in the decline is to realize that societal breakdown does not equal social breakdown. I can put more energy into building strong in-person relationships. Those who can maintain strong social bonds during the collapse will fare better, I truly believe that.
