Wow. This one really hits home. All the things we can't talk about...to the people who used to be our best friends and loved ones. Today I found myself explaining to one of my oldest friends about continuing to be covid-safe and I suddenly heard myself the way I knew he'd be hearing it ("Boy, she's really gone off the deep end") though he was too polite to say anything. And then I realized our differences made him unable to be honest with me, just the way I stay silent with others. How fucked up is that? Thank you for another brilliant post.
I also have family in the path of this last storm and I was making phone calls today. We were fortunate in that the storm didn't hit them when it went through but what about the next one?
And that is the point. There will always be a next one with this climate change. It seems we are all playing dodgeball with these climate change induced natural disasters and it is only a matter of time before we get hit, no matter where we live. For us lucky ones, we get to watch those more unfortunate souls get hit and say a prayer of thankfulness to whatever Gods you wish, that it wasn't you this time.
I live in one of those areas that the weather seems to go around us for now. We get wet, and endure the occasional big thunderstorm, heat waves that bring on oppressive humidity but no tornadoes, hurricanes or floods, so far. I am expecting that to change.
I am one of the rare few that has traveled to third world countries and seen the devastation that extreme climate and wars have wrought on the peoples there. As I mentioned in another post of yours about homesteading, I grew up without modern conveniences such as a stable electric grid, cell phones and the internet. I haven't forgotten what that was like and although my skills are a little rusty with disuse, I could pick them back up again with minimal practice if disasters take out the infrastructure for a long period of time, if not altogether.
I am under no illusions about what is going on around me everywhere. The apathy in the U.S. and Europe is like a wet wool blanket. A lot of people are giving up. A lot more are getting angrier and angrier and that worries me the most. When Americans get angry enough, a lot of people get hurt and some die. They are very close to that now. The western Europeans are close to that as well in some places and they may follow the Americans into the abyss.
Until things get better or worse, I will continue to read everything I can to help me prepare for the worst and hope for better.
"We're miserable because this system forces us to participate in our own destruction."
--I've resisted single-use plastics in my own inconsequential way for the last 30+ years, while watching all around me eat boxes of individually-wrapped cookies and other snacks without a care. It is indeed too late and too insane, and you do console by articulating these things as you do.
elegant, clear-eyed and potent reporting on willed-catastrophes. as a friend said, these leaders mistake the sound of a death rattle for saber rattling.
we want the misguided killing to stop. the money spent on infrastructure instead.
We are miserable because we are Human. Our very nature drives us to the behaviors you describe. You want people to be reasonable, to care about others, care about their own future, to be reasonable and kind. We aren't like that. We are like what you describe. That's who we are at base. Not good, not kind, selfish and self destructive. That's who we are. You can't make a kitty cat act like a dog because they are not like that. You can't make people behave in a thoughtful, reasonable and kind manner cause we ate not like that.
You claim in this written piece that there is a lack of transparency in society about your feelings and the experiences of living in a society living through the consequences of predatorial capitalism and much of what you are discussing in this piece is social anxiety of not conducting action sufficient to live in a thriving community not based on mere survival. In most matarialistic rich societies expressing one's feelings onslaught from the experience of suffering is ommitted from public life percisely because that is society's indoctrinationation of its very existence to persist maintaining the veil of ignorance that applying the knowledge that comes from suffering, requires change. The US is going to change whether it wants to or not and the inhabitants who are aware of the very things its' own government is doing that they have no apparent control of, can only intensify the very social anxieties expressed herein or by preppers. Either you relinquish your own responsibility to implement change, in your own life to church, state, authority, technocrat, social habit or whatever outside force you can blame for not finding solutions on your own or your mental health will never improve no matter how much you share your stories online with others whom have also suffered. You can perhaps offer sollutions but achieving solutions may require of you to learn that it is your own responsibility to realize that the place you are living can always be left behind regardless of the million and one justifications you might have for remaining. Do you think people in Gaza are having qualms about remaining in a territory onslaught by the horror of humans trying to eliminate them at every chance. They either fight back or those who are willing escape by any means necessary. Your privilage is no one is responsible to remove you from an area physically, to be in less environmental danger. You clearly have the privilage to have access to the internet to inform yourself about how to apply knowledge in order to create a better life than the one being offered by any third party source. Understand, I am not taking sides with the systemic corruption that is the state of politics in the US domestically nor geo-politically but trying to give you insight into how you might inspire yourself and others to find solutions to embetter your life because although you might be deeply saddened by society's decadence you certaintly are sacrificing a lot to maintain its own indoctrination of your complaints of its own willingness to acknowledge your suffering. Acknowledge your suffering but by all means use that anguish to readily achieve something that you can change or as with many privileged people remain a victim of your own accountability and ability to transform your own life for the better. Just another perspective.
Thank you, Jessica. I always feel better when I read what you write because I don’t feel so alone in my daily experiences.
As always, you have eloquently summed up how we’re all feeling and why.
Wow. This one really hits home. All the things we can't talk about...to the people who used to be our best friends and loved ones. Today I found myself explaining to one of my oldest friends about continuing to be covid-safe and I suddenly heard myself the way I knew he'd be hearing it ("Boy, she's really gone off the deep end") though he was too polite to say anything. And then I realized our differences made him unable to be honest with me, just the way I stay silent with others. How fucked up is that? Thank you for another brilliant post.
I also have family in the path of this last storm and I was making phone calls today. We were fortunate in that the storm didn't hit them when it went through but what about the next one?
And that is the point. There will always be a next one with this climate change. It seems we are all playing dodgeball with these climate change induced natural disasters and it is only a matter of time before we get hit, no matter where we live. For us lucky ones, we get to watch those more unfortunate souls get hit and say a prayer of thankfulness to whatever Gods you wish, that it wasn't you this time.
I live in one of those areas that the weather seems to go around us for now. We get wet, and endure the occasional big thunderstorm, heat waves that bring on oppressive humidity but no tornadoes, hurricanes or floods, so far. I am expecting that to change.
I am one of the rare few that has traveled to third world countries and seen the devastation that extreme climate and wars have wrought on the peoples there. As I mentioned in another post of yours about homesteading, I grew up without modern conveniences such as a stable electric grid, cell phones and the internet. I haven't forgotten what that was like and although my skills are a little rusty with disuse, I could pick them back up again with minimal practice if disasters take out the infrastructure for a long period of time, if not altogether.
I am under no illusions about what is going on around me everywhere. The apathy in the U.S. and Europe is like a wet wool blanket. A lot of people are giving up. A lot more are getting angrier and angrier and that worries me the most. When Americans get angry enough, a lot of people get hurt and some die. They are very close to that now. The western Europeans are close to that as well in some places and they may follow the Americans into the abyss.
Until things get better or worse, I will continue to read everything I can to help me prepare for the worst and hope for better.
"We're miserable because this system forces us to participate in our own destruction."
--I've resisted single-use plastics in my own inconsequential way for the last 30+ years, while watching all around me eat boxes of individually-wrapped cookies and other snacks without a care. It is indeed too late and too insane, and you do console by articulating these things as you do.
This obsession with constant ‘growth’ to fund dividends is fiddling while Rome burns.
elegant, clear-eyed and potent reporting on willed-catastrophes. as a friend said, these leaders mistake the sound of a death rattle for saber rattling.
we want the misguided killing to stop. the money spent on infrastructure instead.
phew. Thank you Jessica.
Nailed it over and over, especially the list of things we can't talk about.
Very well written. Thank you for giving me the words to describe why.
We are miserable because we are Human. Our very nature drives us to the behaviors you describe. You want people to be reasonable, to care about others, care about their own future, to be reasonable and kind. We aren't like that. We are like what you describe. That's who we are at base. Not good, not kind, selfish and self destructive. That's who we are. You can't make a kitty cat act like a dog because they are not like that. You can't make people behave in a thoughtful, reasonable and kind manner cause we ate not like that.
You claim in this written piece that there is a lack of transparency in society about your feelings and the experiences of living in a society living through the consequences of predatorial capitalism and much of what you are discussing in this piece is social anxiety of not conducting action sufficient to live in a thriving community not based on mere survival. In most matarialistic rich societies expressing one's feelings onslaught from the experience of suffering is ommitted from public life percisely because that is society's indoctrinationation of its very existence to persist maintaining the veil of ignorance that applying the knowledge that comes from suffering, requires change. The US is going to change whether it wants to or not and the inhabitants who are aware of the very things its' own government is doing that they have no apparent control of, can only intensify the very social anxieties expressed herein or by preppers. Either you relinquish your own responsibility to implement change, in your own life to church, state, authority, technocrat, social habit or whatever outside force you can blame for not finding solutions on your own or your mental health will never improve no matter how much you share your stories online with others whom have also suffered. You can perhaps offer sollutions but achieving solutions may require of you to learn that it is your own responsibility to realize that the place you are living can always be left behind regardless of the million and one justifications you might have for remaining. Do you think people in Gaza are having qualms about remaining in a territory onslaught by the horror of humans trying to eliminate them at every chance. They either fight back or those who are willing escape by any means necessary. Your privilage is no one is responsible to remove you from an area physically, to be in less environmental danger. You clearly have the privilage to have access to the internet to inform yourself about how to apply knowledge in order to create a better life than the one being offered by any third party source. Understand, I am not taking sides with the systemic corruption that is the state of politics in the US domestically nor geo-politically but trying to give you insight into how you might inspire yourself and others to find solutions to embetter your life because although you might be deeply saddened by society's decadence you certaintly are sacrificing a lot to maintain its own indoctrination of your complaints of its own willingness to acknowledge your suffering. Acknowledge your suffering but by all means use that anguish to readily achieve something that you can change or as with many privileged people remain a victim of your own accountability and ability to transform your own life for the better. Just another perspective.
Thank you for introducing me to Kanter’s Law. Thank you for a light on the dark. Thank you for not giving up.
Thank you for introducing me to Kanter’s Law. Thank you for a light on the dark. Thank you for not giving up.