Living in the midlands, in my early 30s, I've been encouraged to go into engineering and work on automation and machine learning. I've realised that the promises of all this technology are empty promises.
I see people all around me acting like nothing is wrong.
I am working to build a community in our town around this but am struggling to find people my own age. Most people who are collapse aware are the sorts of people Isabelle talks about being in their 50s and trying to change their lives.
We are growing food at home, slowing down, learning to make things more with our hands. We'd love more space but can't see a path to getting that without moving away from everyone we know.
Hey Gareth--I know exactly what you mean about those around your acting like nothing is wrong. What sooths me with this thought is people around me may not necessarily realise how deep I am in this space, and perhaps I am thinking the same of them? Perhaps we all need to be having more conversations about these scary things and bringing new ways of thinking to this space?
I feel the struggle of the space/close to family/community dilemma. I think you are doing more than you realise and every small step is in the right direction. Thank you for listening.
I think it maps to the 5 stages of grief really well. Most people are still in denial, but I feel like I've reached acceptance. I've grieved for the bright techno utopian future I thought was coming. There's a calm serenity when you've let go of trying to achieve that and can start the work of figuring out what's yours to be done on a human scale.
For me, I've had the realisation that the reason I cared about what humans were doing to the planet was not that I particularly care about civilization ending, that's a certainty for all civilisations. It's more that the creatures around us would be taken down with it. So I've joined the local wildlife trust volunteers to help conserve what little we have left! This has had a massive impact in that it helps me feel like I'm doing a concrete step to help. Bit by bit...
Hey Isabelle, my last comment appears to have missed a section I wrote, it must have been discarded by accident!
On the questions you raised, it's always valuable to keep perspective on how long it took yourself to reach the place you're at. For me, it was many years of my expectations of and hopes for the industrial system to change being chipped away. Even now, I still find myself watching F1 sometimes and enjoying it, purely because that's a pattern in my mind that was hardwired over many years, I can't imagine how hard it would be to discard a lifes worth of habits after 65 (like my parents got example).
I'd love to have deep conversations about this with more people yet I find people very unwilling to even engage. When they do they say things like "I'm hopeful for nuclear power to save us" or something like that. I'm lucky that my wife is actually the person who shared Nate Hagen's Great Simplification podcast with me, which as an engineer was the way to get me to listen.
What's your experience of this? How many people have you managed to have deep conversations with about this? If so, in what setting did you manage to do so? I find it so hard to get space to talk with someone for longer than 20 minutes, which just isn't enough.
Ohhh i'm 100% with you on 5 stages of grief, i've written about it and grief in general before. I think its a rite of passage within this space to grieve over what the various types of futures we have lost. I love your approach w/ the local wildlife trust! I feel so much grief ( that word again!) for other creatures who have not contributed to our world-ending ways but still have to suffer.
I could map my 'realisations' over the years, espically over the last 3 and how much has changed. I don't think its possible for these realisations to happen fast, because you have so much unpicking to do. Similarly to you, I find i get similar responses, i understand people are scared to admit it, they want to protect themselves too! I think i've only managed to have deep IRL conversations with 4 or 5 people, two of which are my mother and my partner!! It's not an easy conversation to have at the pub lol! Online though, as Dougald mentioned, its a lot easier to have these conversations as people are already in the same place as you. I also think you have to chip away at it, you're not gonna dive deep into the conversation on your first try!!
I still enjoy various parts of this world. I go to concerts, and classes and craft markets and events. I don't think its possible to live 100% in this realisation. I still turn Netflix or Disney+ on at the end of a long week! But its ok to hold both. :)
I only just found this today and listened right away as Dougald and Isabelle are two of my favourite thinkers/writers. I liked Isabelle’s acknowledgement of dependency with her ‘please help’ to older generations. I was just reading ‘The Corrosion of Character’ by Richard Sennett. He breaks down the modern (albeit published 1999) world of work where people are expected to forge their own career and work in short-term project teams. He believes that rejection of the idea of dependency means there is no space for trust to be built. This leaves a longing for community. This then sometimes finds a toxic outlet in far right nationalism etc (my interpretation more than what he directly says).
Super interesting point! I think we see this over and over, often the only place we CAN find this love and connection is in these toxic spaces. And people are often turning to them because of this current 'society' not leaving space for them (e.g. trad wives, Mens right activists, etc.)
Thanks, Nadine – that seems like a relevant interpretation and extension of the arguments that Sennett was making in that era. These are questions I keep circling around – where we find our belonging, how we rebuild that capacity for mutual interdependence.
I feel very similar to Isabelle!
Living in the midlands, in my early 30s, I've been encouraged to go into engineering and work on automation and machine learning. I've realised that the promises of all this technology are empty promises.
I see people all around me acting like nothing is wrong.
I am working to build a community in our town around this but am struggling to find people my own age. Most people who are collapse aware are the sorts of people Isabelle talks about being in their 50s and trying to change their lives.
We are growing food at home, slowing down, learning to make things more with our hands. We'd love more space but can't see a path to getting that without moving away from everyone we know.
None of this is easy.
Hey Gareth--I know exactly what you mean about those around your acting like nothing is wrong. What sooths me with this thought is people around me may not necessarily realise how deep I am in this space, and perhaps I am thinking the same of them? Perhaps we all need to be having more conversations about these scary things and bringing new ways of thinking to this space?
I feel the struggle of the space/close to family/community dilemma. I think you are doing more than you realise and every small step is in the right direction. Thank you for listening.
I think it maps to the 5 stages of grief really well. Most people are still in denial, but I feel like I've reached acceptance. I've grieved for the bright techno utopian future I thought was coming. There's a calm serenity when you've let go of trying to achieve that and can start the work of figuring out what's yours to be done on a human scale.
For me, I've had the realisation that the reason I cared about what humans were doing to the planet was not that I particularly care about civilization ending, that's a certainty for all civilisations. It's more that the creatures around us would be taken down with it. So I've joined the local wildlife trust volunteers to help conserve what little we have left! This has had a massive impact in that it helps me feel like I'm doing a concrete step to help. Bit by bit...
Hey Isabelle, my last comment appears to have missed a section I wrote, it must have been discarded by accident!
On the questions you raised, it's always valuable to keep perspective on how long it took yourself to reach the place you're at. For me, it was many years of my expectations of and hopes for the industrial system to change being chipped away. Even now, I still find myself watching F1 sometimes and enjoying it, purely because that's a pattern in my mind that was hardwired over many years, I can't imagine how hard it would be to discard a lifes worth of habits after 65 (like my parents got example).
I'd love to have deep conversations about this with more people yet I find people very unwilling to even engage. When they do they say things like "I'm hopeful for nuclear power to save us" or something like that. I'm lucky that my wife is actually the person who shared Nate Hagen's Great Simplification podcast with me, which as an engineer was the way to get me to listen.
What's your experience of this? How many people have you managed to have deep conversations with about this? If so, in what setting did you manage to do so? I find it so hard to get space to talk with someone for longer than 20 minutes, which just isn't enough.
Ohhh i'm 100% with you on 5 stages of grief, i've written about it and grief in general before. I think its a rite of passage within this space to grieve over what the various types of futures we have lost. I love your approach w/ the local wildlife trust! I feel so much grief ( that word again!) for other creatures who have not contributed to our world-ending ways but still have to suffer.
I could map my 'realisations' over the years, espically over the last 3 and how much has changed. I don't think its possible for these realisations to happen fast, because you have so much unpicking to do. Similarly to you, I find i get similar responses, i understand people are scared to admit it, they want to protect themselves too! I think i've only managed to have deep IRL conversations with 4 or 5 people, two of which are my mother and my partner!! It's not an easy conversation to have at the pub lol! Online though, as Dougald mentioned, its a lot easier to have these conversations as people are already in the same place as you. I also think you have to chip away at it, you're not gonna dive deep into the conversation on your first try!!
I still enjoy various parts of this world. I go to concerts, and classes and craft markets and events. I don't think its possible to live 100% in this realisation. I still turn Netflix or Disney+ on at the end of a long week! But its ok to hold both. :)
I wrote about these tough conversations here!! https://isabelledrury.substack.com/p/do-we-owe-people-the-truth-about
I only just found this today and listened right away as Dougald and Isabelle are two of my favourite thinkers/writers. I liked Isabelle’s acknowledgement of dependency with her ‘please help’ to older generations. I was just reading ‘The Corrosion of Character’ by Richard Sennett. He breaks down the modern (albeit published 1999) world of work where people are expected to forge their own career and work in short-term project teams. He believes that rejection of the idea of dependency means there is no space for trust to be built. This leaves a longing for community. This then sometimes finds a toxic outlet in far right nationalism etc (my interpretation more than what he directly says).
Super interesting point! I think we see this over and over, often the only place we CAN find this love and connection is in these toxic spaces. And people are often turning to them because of this current 'society' not leaving space for them (e.g. trad wives, Mens right activists, etc.)
Sorry that may seem like a non sequitur but it reminded me of the huge influence community can have - both helpful and harmful.
Thanks, Nadine – that seems like a relevant interpretation and extension of the arguments that Sennett was making in that era. These are questions I keep circling around – where we find our belonging, how we rebuild that capacity for mutual interdependence.