Notes on Collapse

Let me begin by elaborating on 2 points.

1. We cannot allow fear of collapse to consume us,

The initial urge to fear is understandable and honestly the only rational way to react.

If you are not angry, if you are not afraid, then you have not comprehended.

But with comprehension, we cannot remain locked in fear.

So many people do.

And it drives people to desperation.

Fear is what drives billionaires to hoard wealth and build bunkers.

Fear is what demonizes migrants, creates elaborate conspiracy theories around trans folk, and continues the escalation of societal collapse.

2. We cannot rely on fear to create a world we're not afraid of.

We can't rely on desperation to change things.

When people are desperate, the last thing they want to do is imagine.

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As I look at the multi-crisis, one of the things that gives me hope is that, we can't continue living this way.

And I mean that literally, we cannot continue living this way. There will be points along the way where collapse makes it impossible, so that we cannot live the same way we have been. Whether we mean politically, economically, socially, or ecologically.

It will drag many people kicking and screaming. There will be many who cannot conceive of the new world that they already live in. They will simply ignore the reality they exist in to live in a dream state.

We see that now, people denying what this country has become for example.

But for those with imagination, who don't want to live in dreams but build them, this is the single greatest call to action the earth has ever given to humanity.

So I ask of you: See different possibilities, imagine ourselves different, or lives different.

Not worse, not some bombed out Cormac McCarthy husk of a world, but a vibrant beautiful one that has different priorities, different beliefs and different ways of being.

This is a chance to imagine a beautiful life.

Beauty must flow from imagination.

We must be able to see the beauty in collapse and what might come after, or we are going to end up in smaller or fractured and broken versions of what we exist in now.

Being able to imagine, requires unclouded eyes, the stepping off point for imagination is reality.

We must strive to be able to see the seeds of beauty even in collapse, and have the wherewithal to grow them even if we never see the fruit.

So I want to ask the reader, what beauty do you want to grow in this?