Possession

Possession is a funny thing... no not the scary zombie movie sort, something much scarier - the delusionary belief that one can possess part of the world... while everyone in the game respects each other's claims, it seems we can congratulate ourselves on successfully dividing reality.

But each time we divide and take away a portion of the whole, destroy its natural interaction with the rest - it ceases to function and overall we are left with less.

Let me be a little clearer: when we take from the Earth or destroy it's natural functions, for the illusion of profit, we reduce the whole.

Only by sharing can we keep it all alive.

Raising Solastalgia

"Solastalgia describes a palpable sense of dislocation and loss that people feel when they perceive changes to their local environment as harmful." ~worldchanging

Without perception, there is no reaction. No solastalgia. It is impossible to perceive the natural environment through television or computer screens. All this news about the Gulf Crisis - the Gulf Oil Crisis - hmmm... the Gulf of Mexico Oil Crisis... well, that's just another news story to most of the human population on Earth. Just another distant abstraction. We've learned how to watch movies. We've conditioned ourselves as spectators. Removed from the people and events and dramas out there. They're cool to the touch. And they don't touch us.

No wonder "they" don't feel it. The sickening world. The death of species. The decline of life. It's all Out There. Who actually goes Out There anymore? Most surf tragic news from a safe distance - through their screens. Their cool screens which can't touch. Another story. Another movie. Some sports. Next!

But soon TV Land will go away. Soon enough, most of the living won't know it ever existed. The inevitable collapse of industrialized civilization due to scarce resources, toxic build up, catastrophic climate change and extinctions -- will probably take TV Land down too.

Maybe then we will feel solastalgia.

Listening Madly

I was listening to the noise of the big city, the rumble of traffic on the road, the sky encompassing roar of jet airliners above -- and realized I was listening to the sounds of burning oil. Burning oil that is causing catastrophic climate alterations and extinctions. The noisy process was impinging on my eardrums. Directly into my body and into my mind, making my soul squirm.

In a big city -- even in rural areas far from big cities -- the noise of industrial civilization is a constant background din. Something 'normal' people are simply supposed to ignore. Normal people are supposed to have more important things to think about and focus on and do. Like making money or spending it. Noticing these noises at all makes a person arguably weird. Obsessing over these sounds, and their meanings, is probably considered a form of madness by modern psychiatry.

We are supposed to ignore the destruction of our home. We are supposed to ignore the commonplace disrespect shown towards living things. We are supposed to deafen ourselves to the rumble... to the never ceasing buzz of our own demise. Or go mad.

What we can Do?

My response to a good article titled: "What You Can Do in Anticipation of Peak Oil" by Charles Hugh Smith:

A refreshingly realistic portrayal of our situation. I fear that most people who live in industrial civilization are going to be caught unprepared - mentally, emotionally, and physically. The vast majority go on believing that the future will be much like the past, with ever advancing technology enabling and even enhancing human life. Very few of us clearly see the portents of the Great Surprise. It seems frivolous to even hope that people will be better able to deal with truth and reality, while suffering from severe shock, than they can now. A major consideration in any Post Peak scenario should include the added obstacles caused by the bulk paralysis of the general population. And the fact that the general population of humans on this planet is deep into overshoot and unsustainable. Given all that, the suggestions in this article would be very useful if we were a rational species living within our ecological limits. Maybe a few will muddle through somehow. That's the best outcome I can hope for. I certainly don't foresee Mother Nature allowing us to continue with 6.8 billion plus. Once there was an ad with the line: "It isn't nice to fool Mother Nature" -- actually it's impossible.