I am presenting a message to a reader. Next, I am offering a comment in an article in Resilience dot com. I then give the link to the article. I am doing this to relate the nexus of the macro and the micro. I often use articles and those comments to inspire me to write. I hope this helps you on your journeys.
MESSAGE
I hope my message assists you in adapting to the reality of planetary decline. Keep in mind the adaptations I speak of are unique to you in your local of people and place. We all share strategies of adaptation. There are similarities and principals of adaptation common to all but it is the application to your unique way of life and most importantly your dearest people in your life that makes this special to you and you alone. This is why I call my way REAL Green it is realistic and relative applications of green prepping technics to individuals and small groups who are awakened to the trap of civilization.
The most important first priority is behavior more specifically acceptance. If you accept civilization is trapped and you are trapped in a civilization that is trapped then you can begin green prepping adaptation. This is an individual journey to meaning which is a transformation. It calls into question the modern human narrative. It uses the modern way to leave it. The individual is trapped in this modern way but they can orientate better. It is not transcendence. You will fail along with civilization yet you will be prepared mentally and physically for this failure. In most cases this macro failure will be a process and it may be the case it comes to those after you like your children. The key point is behavior becomes lifestyle with respect for the planet and adaptation to decline.
This is not a cult nor a religion it is an addition to your unique higher power of meaning. It is open source meaning you can make REAL Green yours. Ultimately it comes as a message from the planet through those who are awakened. The knowledge is all around us. It is honesty and humility that becomes a wisdom of insecurity this message imparts. This wisdom will primarily be based upon what knowledge and things to include in your life and what to reject so it is about triage and salvage. It is about the old and the new combined in a hybridization of local low carbon capture leveraged and enhanced by modern knowledge.
You can become a modern green Shaman by following this way. A green shaman is a spiritual guide in a local of people in place. You are not going to change the world but you can change the place immediately around you and help shape the lives of those you love. The spiritual element is the important aspect because a green shaman will decline in place which means less comforts and satisfactions. This is made up for by spiritual assets of increased meaning and psychological satisfaction. Meaning is the pursuit of truth and truth is the ultimate goal of the awakened human.
ARTICLE COMMENT
Theoretically there could be a bifurcation of classes with shared meaning. The meaning would revolve around acceptance of the trap human civilization is in of not being able to go forward or backwards without failure. It is more than the proverbial brick wall it is the brick box. Humans are prevented from going forwards by the nonlinear nature of late stage diminishing returns of development and technology. These qualities have a nature that requires growth to maintain their complexity especially when they systematically reach overshoot of sustainability and resilience. So, going backwards means this system requiring growth will fail with less. Keep in mind the box is a trap for civilization but the trap is different for the awakened individual. This is important because just because civilization is trapped this does not mean the same trap for the individual. The individual is trapped by his circumstance but not his orientation. Meaning is found approaching the truth. The truth is sacred and it is a human instinct to get closer to the truth either selfishly for power or in the humility of transformation of otherness.
This theoretical bifurcation would come about with a deep behavioral shift of mutual understanding of the trap. This key element is acceptance of the trap and the inevitability of destructive change. Currently science and popular culture is all over the place but there is an undercurrent of “Angst”. People are worried but science is telling us there are solutions that can cure the dangers. This is delusional because curing is no longer possible. Consequences are now in order. So, our best and brightest minds are deceived not with the understanding of causation so much but their curative mentality of human perseverance through knowledge. Knowledge instead is what deceives and is the ultimate trap.
Nonetheless if the very simple yet so elusive flip of behavior would occur then society could follow a path of less resistance that would yield less pain and suffering. Less resistance means embracing planetary succession. Many more would be saved with less pain and suffering. A new human type might even rise out of the ashes spiritually bless with the experience of techno loss. The key word is might because extinction is also in the cards but not necessarily immediately. Instead the planet will enforce the destructive change of succession and the results will be abandonment, dysfunction, and the irrational fought against like a madman beating his head against a wall. This will for a while be disguised by growth and technological achievements but this will mostly be window dressing hiding the real gradient which is a planetary decline process. The stability that allowed humans to flourish is now abruptly disappearing.
In regards to the bifurcation to get the most out of what is left the vital systems engineers controlling the techno systems all are dependent on must be downsized appropriately to a much smaller but still potent structural component of civilization. This is the key and that is the depopulation and deconstruction of modern civilization power centers to a smaller but still potent force. This would be a flexible retreat in force because it also means a death warrant for the status quo and the reason civilization will never entertain it. The majority of the status quo diaspora would go into a spartan stoic permaculture of seasonality, intermitency, and low mobility of old. Small towns and farms would repopulate the land. Old technology leveraged with the best of the modern can be combine in a hybridization that would allow a less painful decline in freedoms and comforts. First there must be the triage of deadwood and a reeducation of a failed social narrative of increasing affluence for all. Instead it is the pure and simple acceptance of failure for all. This transition would be supported by the distilled down status quo whose dedication would be akin to the dedication of parental support found in our best loving parents. The key advantage would be the meaning found in the spirt of the move through acceptance of the planetary revelations of succession. The spirit of the move is knowing the ship is sinking but much can still be saved including a new group representing a new human type that may be allowed to carry on our species.
Of course, this enlightened bifurcation is just fantasy. It is the competitive nature of humans when out of scale like the modern human is that destroys any hope of this enlightened retreat in force at a civilizational level. Instead of a group manning the systems for the group embracing voluntary simplicity. The system managing group will be corrupted into enslaving those embracing voluntary simplicity. The elite will concentrate power parasitically and maintain their status quo quickly destroying what is left that could allow an enlightened transition to a future of less. This is the human nature of humans out of scale and the key defect of civilization. It has always been so.
Here is the key to why this fantasy is still important and why a bifurcation is still possible. It is the individual and small group who can still achieve their own bifurcation. They can use the status quo to leave it. They can find meaning in the process by embracing voluntary simplicity scaled properly in a local but accepting they are also trapped in the same box civilization is in. The key difference is they can adapt but civilization cannot. They adapt by using the powerful force of meaning to realize spiritual assets that offset the decline that will be forced on all. It is as simple as that. The key is behavior not tech. The key is the individual and small group not civilization. Civilization will be dealt with by the planet. The individual can proactively embrace the way of the planet to position themselves better. They can use civilization to leave it even if this still means ultimately the same demise. This is an approach to terminal illness an individual can embrace but civilization cannot.
ARTICLE
“Turning the clock forward”
By Chris Smaje, originally published by Small Farm Future
“The next stop in my tour through my book A Small Farm Future is Part I, which begins with a long chapter outlining ten crises that one way or another seem set in the coming years to thoroughly upend the world we’ve known. As I see it, these crises are such that for good or ill a small farm future awaits many of us or our descendants.”
REAL Green Adaptation 