TRIAGE

I am now engaged in triage.  In my little world here on the farm I am faced with downsizing.  In the past I was building up with the understanding a drawdown was ahead.  I did not know when but I did know it was inevitable.  In my little world my farm budget has been eliminated.  This occurred at the same time prices for everything have exploded.  I am so glad I invested wisely while I could.  I used this budget to renovate and restore this old worn-out cattle farm.  It is environmentally vibrant now.  I also used it to assist me in the building up of my grazing system.  It allowed me to beef up my prepping portfolio.  These things and actions are all related in my green prepping efforts.

I have succeeded in building up something robust and more secure.  I now will have to apply triage to properly maintain what I have done.  There are parts of the farm I will have to let go to over grow.  There are areas I will focus my resources on.  My goat effort will have to be more minimalistic.  I am also growing the herd because I will have to get more return on them now that my financial support has been reduced.  I am not going to have the money to buy tools, supplies, and hardware like I did.  Now purchases will be focused on maintenance.  The positive is I had mostly built-up good reserves.  I am outfitted now.  I have the right equipment mix to target my farm work.  The grazing system is finished.  There are things I would liked to have done but these were just enhancements and tweaking. 

I am prepped up.  I have a solid prep portfolio.  You will find that you never have enough prep stuff but you can get enough if you stay modest.  Now I will be maintaining readiness albeit in the slow attrition that life imposes on a building up of a fortified homestead and permaculture farm.  Attrician will deplete and wear out things so I will be forced to adapt but this adaptation can be slower.  A slower decline makes adaptation easier. 

I am mentally prepared because I have been living this process in my head.  I feel this is the most important element to this process.  It is mental with attitudes.  It is acceptance of the pessimism of it all and the resulting impulse to action that becomes the optimism.  If you expect the process then when it comes you naturally react.  It is never easy and you will not transcend the pain of downsizing.  There is no sugar coating degrowth and there should not be.  This is the greater problem of modern life.  People across the spectrum have been lied too about what is ahead.  I agree some can’t handle the truth but if leadership can’t handle the truth, then the dangers are great.

My budget got cut so now I am without money to do constructive growth.  The good thing is the work I did was in anticipation of this.  This process did not happen as I anticipated which is something for you to reflect on if you are attempting something similar to my green prepping.  I lost my support from my family to build this farm up.  I had always thought event of the world would force this first.  Instead, my support was ended from within.  The events of the world are deteriorating rapidly too.  This is the reason I am talking triage in this post. 

The world is falling apart and my family support was withdrawn so my prep system is turned on.  Now I will be put to the test.  Globalism is breaking down before our eyes.  Economics is deteriorating with supply chains and stagflation.  Hyperinflation may happen.  Energy is becoming dearer.  Food is going to be an issue soon.  I am going to struggle to put fertilizer on my hay fields this year as my small example of food issues ahead.  My operation has to have hay for the winter months.  Social cohesion is deteriorating.  Just look around how pissed off people are and multiple that with the coming food and energy shortages.

What I will be discussing today is somewhat mental and theoretical but this aspect of what you are going to need to do is necessary because the narrative of globalism is so skewed with denial and deception.  You must be able to lift yourself out of your situation and look in on it intellectually.  You will then be required to get out of your mind and descend back into action.  You will then need to face hardship with educated decisions.  This is the basis of wisdom.  There will be consequences that are for the most part difficult.  I am finding it difficult to downsize my middle-class life I built up at the same time I am getting older.  I am getting older and feeling the strain of all I do.  I am increasingly unable to maintain my physical effort like I used to.  I am closing in on 60 doing the work of a 40-year-old. 

It is wise to understand events in Ukraine are a turning point.  This is the self-destruction of the global system by the globalist.  Their hubris, recklessness, and incompetence has led to their own demise.  They will limp along with power here and their but increasingly their lies and misinformation will turn the general public against them.  Across the board their policies are failing except for the policy of self-destruction.  They want to destroy what was and build back something technocratic and authoritarian.  In the process the globalist destroyed globalism.  The most powerful growth engine ever devised by man will break down into smaller economic systems.  This growth engine has destroyed culture with homogenization and the planet with cheap plastic waste streams.  The globalist wanted their cake and eat it but instead pooped in their nest.

Growth is over and all political systems deny this.  You need to realize this phase in modern history has turned over and will stair step down to a new reality of less.  How much less for you is contingent on how you react now.  It is contingent upon you to see through the various narratives they are trying to feed you.   Adapt accordingly because there is little wiggle room now. 

Keep in mind there are limits to growth but also limits to change.  You are path dependent with a life adapted to globalism.   Your local is delocalized and vulnerable to disruptions of food and fuel.  You are carbon trapped in a world that renewables will not save.   Green new deals are lies.   Green new deals will not survive the demise of globalism.  Fossil fuels are in net energy decline so don’t believe the drill baby drill browns either.  What you need to be outfitted for is the courage to accept the truth of what is happening and take action.  This action is more with attitudes than with things.  Things will now be limited.  Proper attitude is not.  Action is the optimism you can have with this pessimistic reality.

I am speaking to you about triage because what is important now is the clearing out of deadwood.  In a world of less, excess baggage is a detriment.  In a sense you will need to be a refugee from this globalized world.  A refugee can’t carry much with him.  There are no moving trucks into this new age.  It is incumbent on you to first triage out of your life things that will only inhibit proper living in the face of decline.  This includes your beliefs, values, and goals. 

This world of decline is a pole shift so you can’t expect to use growth thinking the same.  Niche growth within a world of destructive growth is instead needed.  This means targeted and focused growth.  The world is still going to think growth and progress.  You can’t just ignore this.  This does not mean a dumpster fire.  Many core values are valid and relevant in a growth world and a degrowth world.  What this means is a degrowth focused evaluation of what your goals are.  Reality testing with degrowth acceptance.   First it means accepting the world has tipped over.  Most hang on to optimism it will all work out.  The deception is imprinted in all of us that some wonderful tech will solve our problems.

Globalism is breaking down into a world of shorter supply chains.  There will be less travel.  Food choices greatly reduced.  Education altered by the reality many academic destinations will not support this new poorer world.  Health care will be limited and the safety net of welfare reduced.  This is back to earlier times we mistakenly though prosperity delivered us from.  What prosperity did instead was dropped us off in a world without a return ticket.  It is very important you realize this and make appropriate changes to how you operate.  Downsize with dignity and do this in places with more of a future.  This is if you can.  Many people are trapped now and will have to shelter in place.  In this tip over into a world of decline options for constructive change are reduced significantly.

A degrowth world calls for triage because a world of less is a world of priorities.  If you can’t prioritize you will find yourself a house of cards vulnerable to the further shocks ahead.  Triage is your first priority by eliminating the destructive ways and things of prosperity.  Prosperity is destructive when it loads you up with the excess baggage of a lifestyle with no future.  This narrative of prosperity is one sold to you by the marketing propaganda of the big corporations of the globalist’s world.  This is also about the narrative of techno optimism.  Science, academia, and their technocratic administrative statist want you to believe they have a plan to save humanity from itself.  They are the problem not the solution.

The technocrats want you to believe there is a great reset and a 4^th industrial revolution.  There is but it is in the other direction.  They are the ones who will be reset and turned back.  Their complexity and complicated things are going to be abandoned.  Networks dysfunction will be rapid with abandonment.  The irrationality exposed with hyper centralization and the insanity of doing more of the same when these actions result in repeated failures.

The planet is in abrupt change because of human forcing.  Systems like the hydrologic, nutrient, carbon, and life system are now in flux with instability.  The climate system is clearly unstable.  Notice it is not warming but instead unstable warming and cooling.  Floods and droughts have become more extreme and unpredictable.  The long period of stability that built civilization is now in flux.  Humans have no choice but to acquiesce to this.  Technology will not save us. In fact, technology and its sister knowledge accumulation are the problem now. 

Triage applies with instability too with a wisdom of decline.  This wisdom is of simpler questions and answers.  It is the knowledge of what ordinary knowledge to gain and how to use it.  Triage out complexity and complicated things as your trap allows.  This must be done relative and realistically because traps are traps.  This is about not digging the hole deeper with transhumanism of machine-based living and the delocalization of your individual supply chains.  I am not telling you to not think globally but instead think more locally.  Remember you are trapped.  Globalism delocalized a global civilization now all nation states will suffer.  There is nowhere to hide.  Some are worse than others.  The more complex and complicated the worse the adjustment although proper wisdom can stabilize the process of decay and decline.

Once triage is complete think about salvage.  Salvage means using what is at hand to piece together value.  Salvage means taking good products and knowledge and adapting it to decline with repurposed applications.  Keep in mind this is both physical and abstract.  Systems and networks require this too.  What this means to you the individual is seeing the vulnerabilities and limiting them.  The health care system and education system are prime examples of vital necessities that must be repurposed.  Finance and business are another because civilization has to provide logistics.  You can’t just walk away from these modern constructs but instead see them for what they are and will be.  These vital constructs will not survive as-is delocalization and dematerialization.  This may not be overnight but it will be the trend.  Since growth tends to happen slowly over time and collapse relative swift there is no time to waste.

A key element to salvage in this modern age is hybridization.  This hybridization is combining the best of the old ways with new ones to form a new version of both.  This will be the next stage.  This is a life boat mentality.  This is the real great reset and fourth turning.  It is a turning back but with some important knowledge and things that can leverage and fortify the return to an older way of living.  You will need to resurrect the old ways.  Many have been forgotten but much of this is common sense.  If proper triage is applied common sense is allowed to flourish.  The old ways were honed by common sense over time.

The old ways of home economics, food, and shelter can be combined with great modern tech and know-how.  First the baggage of the modern that is unneeded must be eliminated.  This must be done with decline and dematerialization in mind.  It must also be done with the understanding of the limits of change from the carbon trap and path dependencies of a way of life imprinted on us from a lifetime of living in progressive growth.  Somewhere there will be an intersection where those who apply proper wisdom will obtain a stability of decline.  Those who fail will see rapid decline.

Hybridization takes this new wisdom and applies triage and salvage as a life boat mentality.  This must be done stoically with ascetic values.  For example, carpooling will be back.  Localism will reform with people remaining local for community functions.  This is a world of decline so less is the operative word.  Community will not be in short supply and this will offset the losses where there is still community.  Less is about abandonment, dysfunction, and irrational.  This is macro and micro because this must be in your little world too.  This process is about lifeboats and hospice attitudes.  The life boat part is prepping and the hospice part is acceptance and humility for a world being degrowthed.

The most important part of this adaptation to decline is the wisdom of insecurity.  This wisdom comes from acceptance and humility to a greater power above man’s tech and knowledge.  This wisdom embraces the planets change.  The planet is in abrupt change so this means human civilization will be forced into change.  This forced change will leave you insecure.  Embrace this instead of denying it.  By embracing it you reduce fear.  Fear does not go away but irrational fear will be reduced.  The last thing you want to do is panic which is irrational fear.

Monocultures and global supply chains will be reduced so learn permaculture and home economics.  The dysfunctions of globalism’s decline you will want to avoid despite your trap in globalism.  Distance yourself from delocalization.  Commuting too far is a bad idea.  The irrational of a cultural narrative of techno optimism especially from the globalist with their green new deals is the other important scam to avoid.  Renewables have a vital part to play in a decline but not as advertised by radical greens.  Do the math, renewables are a global commodity and globalism is in decline.  Renewables won’t overcome this decline.  Avoid areas preaching NetZero.  NetZero is on the way but this is less energy and more human and animal power.

This way I am telling you about will not save you from decline but it will give you courage to embrace decline.  Fear is debilitating if it is not healthy fear.  Embrace fear as it is naturally required of all life and limit the fear man is trapped in with his self-consciousness.  All we have constructed will turn to dust but in the here and now life goes on.  Embrace the planet’s way because there is no reality more real than the changing seasons and the process of life below our feet.  This means more localization and less machine transhumanism.

The planet’s life system is governed by change periods of succession.  Without succession life could not be life.  This cycle allows life to adapt to a planet with tectonics and climate.  Embrace succession because if you embrace this it will support you.  It supports you because you are not fighting the current of change but instead flowing with it.  It is this adapting to change both destructive and constructive that will allow you to find a niche of stability.  There are no guarantees to stability but there is only one way to stability and that is the way of the planet.  If the planet is changing embrace this or suffer the consequences.  This is how life has always operated on this changing planet.