Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Apr 27, 2005 Posts: 245 Location: new york city wacko
Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 5:13 pm Post subject: Re: 5 Stages of Grief
I'd like to suggest that nobody 'really' knows exactly what's going to happen with peak oil so you may be feeling depressed based on your own assumptions of what you think is going to happen. It's going to be a rocky road but we may not see the doomer vision of total societal collapse for 10, 20, 30 years if ever. Chances are it won't play out the way anybody expects it to- it almost never does.
Pay attention to the thoughts that are causing you to be depressed and see if it's based on any assumptions or guesses about the future you're making.
Sorry to edit- this is *if* you do get to the depression stage.
Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 5:37 pm Post subject: Re: 5 Stages of Grief
I know it's not nice to fly in the face of generally accepted truth, but I think the Anger item is not as it appears. IMO, Anger is Fear quickly quashed by the more acceptable emotion of Anger. I'd really put the list at six items, and put Fear before Anger.
It's funny, though. I've read something lately about the concept of Stress, such as work-related stress. I can't remember where I got this and I don't have time to source these comments today so load up on your salt. Stress is indistinguishable from fear on a physiological level. The same brain centers light up, the same chemicals are released, the same physiological effects are displayed in the human body.
I bet that's true. It's not acceptable to call it what it is, though, so we fudge and call it stress.
A wise man once told me that if I watch myself very carefully, when I think I'm angry, there's a little tiny gap after the trigger and before the anger, and the emotion in that moment is fear. If I really wanted to, I could cut the anger off and simply experience the fear and be done with it at that level. I don't think it's realistic to say that anger is something that can simply be wished away or denied... it's part of us in an evolutionary biological perspective. Maybe it's not good to just be paralyzed with fear, but galvanized into immediate action by anger.
Dealing with PO by using anger, though, just doesn't seem like the right tool. It's using a crescent wrench to pound in a nail. Better to use a hammer.
PO has struck fear into my heart. The anger didn't follow... who to be angry at? For what? Whose fault is it? Nobody and everybody at the same time? Little decisions made by millions of people over the course of centuries? I think they were just doing what was either going to make them money or provide a nice quality of life for a lot of people. Maybe a little short-sighted, but probably not evil in its intent.
Anyway. Here we are. I am not paralyzed by fear or overcome with anger at this situation we find ourselves in. I've definitely grieved over the loss of the life I once thought I would have, but I'm taking action on a daily basis to reengineer my life around what I think will be the single most important shortage in the history of mankind. This event will drive governmental policy, personal motivations, wars, plagues, starvation and suffering, all of the above. Worldwide, at home, and for every person I've ever worked with and grew up with.
It's very sad.
I definitely spent some time depressed. I guess I dug myself out of that now, and I'm into acceptance mode most of the time, but I still bounce around in the stages. I bargain, I get down a little bit and then rally myself to the Cause again, I accept. Denial isn't really in the picture for me much, I'd rather know the worst of what will come and prepare a bit for it as well as the more mundane things that will be a PITA.
Every once in a while I'm overcome with a vision of a huge mass of people with nothing to do because their training and experience is useless without a computer in front of them. Then, I see them in need, and moving as a mass they encounter and consume, encounter and consume, encounter and consume, until they have taken and used and eaten and crap upon whatever they could find until they finally see that there are no more worlds to conquer, and then they begin to fight. Each other. Because they must, or they will die. Of course this will not happen everywhere at once, but inevitably it will be concentrated in the areas in which the resources lie. Take Africa as an example. Where there is oil, there is violence. Where there are diamonds, there is violence. Where there is that chemical that is needed to make cellphones, there is violence.
Here, we have forests and lakes and coal and tar sands and farmland. Maybe those will be the sites of future violence in our times.
After we annex or NAFTA Canada to death and there's no more room to plant... whatever it is that we're going to plant, then the prices of farmland begin to skyrocket, and the taxes on that land go up, and the poor can't afford the food at the new, higher prices... they're going to get some food somehow, or die trying one way or the other.
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6621 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 8:12 pm Post subject: Re: 5 Stages of Grief
I must still be in the anger stage, because I WANT collapse and dieoff. I think that the human species has proved itself unworthy of this planet. Mother Nature can do better, and probably will, although recovery from us will take millions of years. _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
I can't say I've been through every step. I think I went through shock, depression, and I think I'm kind of at the acceptance stage now.
I was shocked and depressed that it became apparent to me that the dreams I had weren't going to happen. Now that I've gotten used to that idea, I'm sort of okay with it and recognize that there are other worthy dreams. But I'm less doomerish than many and don't think society will become extinct, I think we're in for a tough transition.
Joined: Jul 04, 2005 Posts: 136 Location: Madison, WI
Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 11:43 pm Post subject: Re: 5 Stages of Grief
I alternate between acceptance and depression, myself, as I'm firmly in the doomer camp.
Heineken wrote:
I must still be in the anger stage, because I WANT collapse and dieoff. I think that the human species has proved itself unworthy of this planet. Mother Nature can do better, and probably will, although recovery from us will take millions of years.
This I don't agree with. Not the part about mankind being unworthy, that I agree with. However, I think that we have an over-important opinion of ourselves, and that Mother Nature is more resilient than we give her credit for. Look at what she did to the Gulf Coast. It was like a person casually and effortlessly stepping on an anthill.
Yes, we may have had a very bad effect on existing ecosystems and climate, but the planet has been through a lot worse than us and has adapted. New environments and ecosystems form, based on interactions of the old ones. Even a global thermonuclear holocaust would eventually be weathered out by the planet. There's one thing nature will always have on us: time.
Do people experience these when they discover peak oil? Do they grieve the loss of the life they thought they once would have?
No of course not. I think I am very happy to know oil will be depleted to the point where present economic system will come to grinding halt.
Think about it. No more television, no more crappie music, no more “resource wars”. No more demented politician, supporting interested of an alien minority (Businessman, foreign power, etc.).
Passing the peak oil is a GOOD NEWS for working people!
Power to the power, peak oil will do it! _________________ We are babies, we must cry.
Oil is Peaking, we must lie.
la la la la la la la...
Yes, if the world is without humans, it won't be the end of the world, it will just be "different".
Oh G-D human will not be dying because of “passing peak oil”. Well, some will die. Don’t be so dramatic. _________________ We are babies, we must cry.
Oil is Peaking, we must lie.
la la la la la la la...
Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 9:08 pm Post subject: Re: Transcending Grief
NO! I never typed the word tracend. see, I can't even spell it. I had titled it "5 stages".. I guess someone thought tracended (dammit, did it again) sounded better. They're right, it does. I just wanted to know who did it.
Joined: Aug 18, 2005 Posts: 532 Location: Belgium, Europe
Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 9:51 pm Post subject: Re: Transcending Grief
I think I went from apathy to acceptance
I'm not depressed over this. I'm not very optimistic either. But I'm just too curious to see how this will change the world, the biggest chalenge of modern society. I find it kinda exciting.
Ok there will be crap. But face it, we don't now exactly how bad it will be, what exactly the consequences will be.
Maybe will say in twenty years, fiew, close call, but we made it...
Or we'll all be dead
Either way. Party hardy, get prepared, get annoyed by people in denial, follow the oil related news, if you're single it's funny to see how the peakoil awareness becomes a factor in a possible partner choice, practice your 'told you so grin', enjoy the ride, have fun!
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I was confuse too when I first starting playing with editing.
