reconciliation

I practice green prepping.  The truth is I am trapped in a fossil fuel culture with people that are dependent on a modern way of life.  I call this a carbon trap in path dependencies.  My goal as a green prepper is to live in this other world to leave it.  Since a trap can’t be left this is a matter of how far I can distance myself from a world that is dirty and unsustainable.  To make matters worse it is a world of comforts and affluence.  These seductive benefits make green prepping even more difficult psychologically.

REAL Green is a relative and realistic permaculture and homesteading.  It is rural and local.  Conservation is a fundamental.  There is a spiritual aspect that is quite important.  Without the spirituality of a green mysticism this effort is difficult.  It is difficult because you are going against the current of social and economic realities.  Simplicity and appropriate tech have tradeoffs.  This is a life of less affluence.  This type of life is ascetic and stoic.  A spiritual strength is needed to maintain this juxtaposition.  A green connection allows life and the land to support you through the tradeoffs.

Green living is the key.  You connect to the land and its life.  You see the beauty and beautify.  This is not something to replace your spirituality or religion.  Green is something to add to that.  This is not an urban effort.  The modern city is not the place to practice REAL Green.  You must have a homestead and practice permaculture.  What REAL Green tries to do is bridge these worlds that are in contrast.  By doing this you will enhance your preparations for decline and collapse.  Green means more secure.

Prepping is about the honest recognition of a world in decline on all levels.  This carbon trapped world that is overpopulated and consumes too much can’t be maintained.  Technology is rapidly making this worse especially with automation and artificial intelligence.  The digital revolution is degrading human strengths and virtues.  The problem is the world is dependent on this now such that to end this way of life will destroy it.  There is no going back for civilization but there is some room to adapt the life of the individual.  Prepping attempts to scale back or reverse some of this risk.  Prepping attempts to get back to the basics of food and shelter with less fossil fuels and technology.

This means triage of tech and comforts.  It means the salvage of the old ways in a hybridization of new and old.  Biomass which is the direct connection to sun, soil, and water is embraced.  It is embraced with technology and energy to leverage it.  A fossil fuel life is difficult to leave.  To do it requires a living most can’t adapt to.  Yet, animal and human labor can be introduced relatively and realistically.  This hybridization means a combination of the two in simplicity with appropriate applications.  You will have to grow things and forage.  You will need to gather things like firewood.  You will need to give up modern pleasures to do this.  This is a tradeoff.

I am reflecting on what I have done.  This is my reconciliation.  I have a 23-year conversion effort with the last 10 years dedicated to the creation of a permaculture homestead.  It is permaculture because it is rural and growing things.  Permaculture requires getting more circular meaning wasting less.  It is more local because delocalization lowers resilience.  Yet, we are dependent on the car culture so this dependency must be respected.  The digital world is likewise a delocalization that has to be mitigated.  The idea of triaging out what you can then through salvage combining what is left in a hybridization is the key.  Make the old ways easier through modern knowledge and technology.

My reconciliation is on how far I have come and how little I have achieved as far as sustainability.  In the world of the machine, I have not come very far.  I have machines and gadgets that make up the majority of what I do.  I adapted them towards more simplicity and lower performance but I am still dependent.  I have spent a lot of money with little in return.  What I have had is a fantastic journey of enlightenment but with the experience of just how trapped I am in affluence of the machine.  I see how dirty my life is and how I am trapped in this affluence especially as I age and require more assistance.

If the world falls apart, I will have time to adjust but not much.  My prep portfolio will last a few months or years depending on the type of collapse.  I have mental preparations and experience to know what I need to do but this can’t make up for the lack of sustainability in my community.  The word I live in is not ready to leave electricity and fuel.  Groceries and basics of health care are essential to life for most.  Without electricity my world becomes very difficult.  Without fossil fuels much of what I do grinds to a halt.  It is not practical or possible for me to do all this with animal and human labor.  What I do is some of it.

Psychologically I am prepared but as prepared as one can get.  There is no way to fully prepare for pain, suffering and maybe death.  There is just acceptance and humility.  So, what this comes down to is an honest scientific approach of creating a lifeboat for a world in a collapse process.  This is made more difficult by the time frame of this process.  I may die before these results are needed.  This is why the spiritual side is so important.  You will do this effort because it is good for the land and life.  You are doing less harm and feel meaning in this.

This is what I call the hospice of REAL Green.  You are doing palliative care of acceptance for a world that can’t last and faces pain, suffering, and death.  Even though you are prepped it still is not enough so this is mental care for yourself as well as others.  The humility of just how exposed we are to a world where electricity, fuel, and machinery quits is truly frightening.  The hospice of this is facing this head on thereby normalizing the fear.  What this does is lowers the anxiety of the fear so you can live properly in the here and now.

This hospice mentality is important for your community relationships.  It will be the case you feel a superiority to others because you are awakened and transformed.  Your prepping means it is less likely you will panic when the world shuts down.  You will see through the lies and absurdities of this world of affluence.  This hospice mentality means you will be humble about this and accepting for when people judge you as a green prepper.  You will try to avoid looking down on others who are oblivious and uneducated to reality.  You will see sheep living to be slaughtered but with understanding you are the shepherd.

This life is an effort to reduce affluence within a realistic and relative approach to your family and community.  It is a journey of discovery of a new way of life that modern man left with the advent of industrialization.  It is a spiritual effort to address the fear and anxiety of just how exposed we all are to a world that is unravelling.  This is a more stoic and ascetic life requiring a proper mix of science and spirit.  The result is more spiritual rewards, better preparations, and beauty.  The tradeoff is less affluence.  You will have to give up pleasures because this is a life of tradeoffs. 

You will live in the surreal driving down the road and understanding just how quickly this can end.  There is the hard work involved with hand labor with less return on your investment.  Modern pleasures will seduce you.  Your family will want them making you feel guilty not giving them happiness.  The best you can do is bend this way and that but with strength and courage that you are doing what is right.  What you are doing is an ancient human effort that was lost with industrialization.