Summer Reflections
June 27, 2024
"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is a hallucinating idiot...for he sees what no one else does: things that, to everyone else, are not there.”
"The scientist rigorously defends his right to be ignorant of almost everything except his specialty."
― Marshall McLuhan
I am taking some time off from writing to spend more time reading along with two and a half weeks spent in the mountains (at the beginning of May) that I thoroughly enjoyed. Despite the constant reminders of collapse that cannot be escaped, I spent a large amount of time hiking and reading. The reminders of collapse all provided courtesy of Civilization™ were literally all around me in the form of shuttered businesses that were open a year ago, power and communication lines downed by extreme weather events in several different areas, road washouts caused by stream erosion, landslides and rockslides causing partial closures, news of tornadoes and severe storms everywhere, and even trail damage due to uprooted trees, washouts, and many trees across trails everywhere (Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio). It was an eventful trip for me with six hikes which were quite strenuous and many lesser jaunts which, although not as long or going straight up the side of a mountain, were still very enjoyable.
One of the things I find important is taking time to enjoy everyday life. Instead of writing blog posts, for instance, I could be outside with Lexie (a Corgi-Jack Russell mix) on walks. For the most part, I don't think I could say much more about the predicaments we face than I already have anyway, although new developments will still be an ongoing issue. I have repeated ad nauseum the biggest take-aways of predicament, not problem; outcome, not solution; and ecological overshoot caused by our behavior of technology use and innovation and wetiko thinking being the biggest predicament of concern, not climate change (although climate change is still a huge concern, as are all the other symptom predicaments of overshoot).
So, even though I still intend on writing here in the future, my efforts will be expanded to include new posts on an older blog originally started by June Hoffman, our office manager, to showcase her artwork (and my woodworking). In 2017, I sort of "took over" the blog with a program of posting pictures from various trips and projects along with whatever other things I found interesting. At the time back then, I thought June would resume posting the following year. Life obviously had other plans. Since the blog already showcases many pictures from various trips, I intend on adding to it with pictures from other trips since then.
June and I shared another blog, the Megasound blog, which showcased our company and the weddings we officiated, ran rehearsals for, and provided the music and entertainment for receptions. The main blog was originally on our website, but she decided to begin migrating the blog over to Blogspot. My interest in blogging is rather recent, as while I did provide a considerable amount of material for June to include on the blog, I never wrote most of the original articles myself. My first true interest in blogging didn't develop until around 2017, and only temporarily at that point. From my point of view prior to that, blogging was more of a fad than anything else. I did like it for explaining all the different wedding traditions, which many people either didn't know what they were or had little understanding of the history of them. Of course, my interest in that aspect of weddings far exceeded that of most of our clients. Part of the Megasound blog branched off into the Fort Wayne Wedding Connection blog which featured what the group was about, what the group was busy doing, and the community outreach and volunteer efforts that June and I were working on either through the group, through Megasound, or through our own personal efforts. This is most likely all TMI.
So, for the time being, I invite you to check out what I have been up to here. It highlights my efforts to Live Now. Part of that process is writing this blog, as it gives me meaning and purpose and joy. Despite the subject matter being a bit on the depressing side, what I am trying to do is to point out where so many people are buying into propaganda and industrial narratives rather than use their own critical thinking ability and research capabilities to discover precisely what is going on, why it is happening, how we arrived at this point in time, and, most importantly, what to do about it and what NOT to do about it. Some people have asked me why I care about what other people are doing or not doing and why it is important to me. They asked me, "All these other people aren't paying your bills, so why are you concerned about what they're doing?" Not that I have any power one way or another to actually have any agency over what others do, but I can at least try to influence their decision-making process. Then the choice is theirs to make. If I help even one person, then the effort was well worth it.
The way I look at the situation, I see how ignorant I was; if I was that ignorant about all of this, then the likelihood that other people are in the same boat is pretty high which means I have a pretty good chance of helping those folks understand our situation and comprehend the implications of what it all means. This process has already introduced me to so many people interested in this set of topics and I have made countless new friends for my efforts. To those of you who have read my articles and passed them on to others, I thank you profusely and am grateful for your support. Helping others is what all of this ultimately is about.
Part of my acceptance of all of this has made me less willing to be as active on social media as I once was. I am much less likely to answer questions or put my "two cents" in, as I know that in many cases, my answers will be met with denial and bargaining rather than acceptance. In this space however, I can write without worrying too much about whether my answers or stories will be met with acceptance or not. The information I present is in many multitudes of other spaces already and one recent entry by The Honest Sorcerer was quite impressive. So many people around the world find it difficult to accept our lack of agency, and indeed, even I took quite some time to finally accept the truth. A few of these other spaces are listed in the "Resources and Blogs" section in the header of this blog, but there are so many more that I can't keep up with all the newer ones.
As time moves forward, conditions are constantly changing and people are slowly beginning to see their lack of agency, even if they don't admit it to themselves. This video highlights the effects of climate change but misses the actual cause being ecological overshoot and our collective addiction to technology use driving said overshoot. While I would agree that greed plays a part, most people are simply trying to live their lives and don't understand that the system we are all embedded within was unsustainable to begin with. Anyone paying attention to Tropical Storm Alberto, the massive heatwaves around the world, or the wildfires in the western United States will be keenly aware that Sea Level Rise is beginning to take big bites as the water levels rise (look for "sunny day flooding" articles).
As usual, Tom Murphy came out with another great article a couple months ago, which explains how those of us like me who try to explain to others what is going on and where we are headed feel about what we know and our views on most of the rest of society who are clearly lost.
Another person who clearly sees the disconnect in journalism and who most of them (journalists) are writing for is Ken Klippenstein, who recently quit his job at the Intercept as is explained in that article written by him.
This is all old news now, but it's nice to see that some folks are deciding not to be subservient to old ways of doing things and are willing to change their behaviors to match the new realities within society today. I applaud such efforts vigorously.
I came across another article recently which might also be helpful in coming to terms with the predicaments we face, along with quite a few other links in the article to other helpful pieces. On coping with the knowledge we have and what to do about it, this article is quite comprehensive. This article is somewhat hilarious in the fact that it still discusses problems where predicaments are actually what they are discussing, so the article is in denial itself (see Denial of Reality)! As for the ideas at the end of the article, some of them are just plain naïve. For instance, we can demand our leaders tell us the full truth, but that doesn't mean they will do it. One more excellent post from Dave Pollard before I close; the title (This Is What Collapse Looks Like) says it all. I could go on and on highlighting different articles I've recently read, but I'm going to force myself to stop to prevent this one from getting too long.
Until next time, Live Now!
I wish I knew. It actually appeared in an article I was reading about either spirituality or perhaps Stoicism.
Thank you Erik🙏