Mired in Apathy and Nihilism (or not)

 

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“There’s so much I should say, so many things I should tell him, but in the end, I tell him nothing.
I cut a line and my losses, and I light a cigarette.”
― Clint Catalyst, Cottonmouth Kisses

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Doomers are frequently accused of “giving up” being apathetic or becoming nihilistic. 

It’s rather curious because the people making those accusations very rarely have any insight into what doomers are or what doomers do.

It is primarily a function of what they are doing or feeling or believing and using those activities to define what not being apathetic or nihilistic is.

Let’s use what I do as an example.

I am learning to play the Maple Leaf Rag on the piano.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I help out on an organic farm one day each week.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I help out at a food bank each week.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I take walks in a park near my house and appreciate the beauty of the wildflowers and the wildlife.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I have a daughter that I love and I go to see her as much as I can.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I enjoy the company of the friends that I have here in town.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I write every day.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I always walk rather than drive if I can.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I exercise every day.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I spend a fair amount of time reading and researching things that I find interesting.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I’m getting my yard ready for a garden this year.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I don’t go to protests, sign petitions, or push my beliefs on anyone.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I don’t drive an electric car, believe in the flawed concept of “renewable energy” or embrace any particular diet.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I don’t pretend to have answers or solutions.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

I don’t believe we have all that much time left.
Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

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It seems that the primary motivation behind attacking doomers is that you desperately want them to be wrong and your desperation manifests itself by attacking them. You have a vested interest in them being wrong.

I have never, even once, been asked by any of the people who are attacking how I feel about being a doomer. It has never occurred to these people that maybe doomers want to be wrong. Maybe doomers are like anyone else faced with an existential crisis. Maybe, and you’ll never hear this from them, the doomers are not that excited about the end of this set of living arrangements. 

The difference is, and always has been, that doomers do pay more attention to what is happening. Doomers read and study and research and then open their eyes to the reality of our predicament and come to the only logical conclusion. 

We disagree with people who have either a monetary or personal interest in maintaining the current status quo. Because those interests often interfere with seeing things as they are.

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Lashing out at people who don’t believe as you do is becoming a national pastime. So necessary is the need to have someone to attack or blame that it has poisoned the well for everyone.

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This doomer believes that you should do what you do for the benefit of the people and places you love.

This doomer believes that there is a lot of work to be done on acceptance.

This doomer believes that appreciating what you have right now in this moment is much more important than convincing yourself that some fantastical future may or may not happen.

This doomer believes that pie on the plate is valid and pie in the sky is not.

This doomer will play the hand he has been dealt and not waste valuable time hoping for a royal flush.

This doomer loves his daughter, dogs, tasty pastries, wildflowers, the sound of the water rushing over the rocks in a river after a rainstorm, an awe-inspiring display of nature’s magnificence, fresh-picked tomatoes, Scott Joplin, Chopin, Bach, Albert Ammons, the Cramps, James Lee Burke, poetry, X Files, Person of Interest, Fringe, and a comfortable well-lit place to read.

Is that apathetic or nihilistic?

What if Collapse Already Happened

 

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“He died and no one had the heart to tell him”
-unknown

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What if all the things we are afraid of are things we’re living through right now?

What if “the future is now?”

If you look around you can see it everywhere. There is no difference between the idea of a dystopian future and the reality of the present.

There’s going to be no resurrection. Dead is dead. 

“Imagine if you were living a life where you were just waiting for the next year to be worse than the current one, and the next one even worse. Imagine if there was a Collapse. But wait a minute…”

…isn’t there?

We’re living on borrowed time and the bill is coming due.

All of our hopes, all of our dreams, and all of our bargaining have come to naught.

If you look at just one page of Climate and Economy News you can see things for what they are. You can see that the horror of what we thought was coming has come.

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I find myself wondering whether it is worth it to try and impress upon people the gravity of our situation. I’m not talking about just random people on the street but about people who continue to harp on “saving” the world. A world that is long past being saved.

My intent in writing this is to counteract, what will be, the disastrous psychological damage of continuing to try to convince others that we can be saved.

I’m not sure exactly how delusional you would have to be to think that one thousand or ten thousand or one hundred thousand people are going to change anything when it’s a documented fact that we have irrevocably passed tipping points.

The futuristic fabrications that will come to be known as “Utopian Fantasy” are being written today in the efforts of everyone who maintains that we will make it through this.

I used to think that if you honestly believed there was some hope it was okay. Wrong but okay.

But it’s not.

Because if you honestly believe that there is going to be a reprieve then you are quite simply insane.

Something like going to a restaurant and being told there is no ice cream but refusing to believe that and insisting that there is always ice cream and that the restaurant must be lying to you.

The restaurant isn’t lying to you. You’re lying to yourself and your children, and to everyone who listens to you, and sooner or later they will all look at you the same way people look at the madman in the restaurant screaming, “There’s always ice cream!” 

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I understand that admitting to faulty reasoning is not something that comes easily to people. It’s incredibly difficult to look critically at your beliefs. You have to examine and explore the deepest recesses of your mind. You have to have the strength to root out what you hold so dearly.

It's a lifelong process but something that I believe is so much more important now than it has ever been in the past.

The only thing that will save you is seeing clearly unless you're already dead and no one has had the heart to tell you.