Act: Inspiration

Burning our bridges to the XXI century

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As modernity runs out of resources (those photons sequestered eons ago in fossil form, now released as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere) patterns of life naturally retreat to their pre-modern forms. If there are no more sneakers from China, we sew moccasins or whittle clogs. If we are resource-poor but resourceful, we can still weave basket-like shoes out of birch bark, stuffed with straw for insulation, called lapti. If we are truly destitute and feckless to boot, then we go barefoot.

Collapse psychosis: navigating the madness

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The psyches of empire’s citizens are ill-equipped to deal with variation from the system’s proscribed roles or functions. Empire, like a “good” parent, gives one everything one “needs” in return for production-until it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t, the citizen has no recourse emotionally because he/she has lived in psychological symbiosis with empire since birth.

Facing Decline, Facing Ourselves

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Beyond the technical issues that occupy so much peak oil discussion lies the murkier realm of collective emotions and cultural narratives that so often blocks constructive action. A new book by Carolyn Baker, Sacred Demise, makes a valiant attempt to start a conversation about this dimension of our predicament — a conversation we desperately need to have.