[Ibon]

Modern civilization has failed to self regulate and to mitigate the many systemic problems that have resulted in human overshoot. We have explored this deeply here at po.com.

There is pretty broad consensus that we have already entered the chapter where the consequences will impose constraints that will force civilization to make choices. There is a lot of debate whether these choices will be enlightened or primitive. There are a lot of humans out there and a lot of boundaries; cultural, national, ethnic, religious, continental, bio-regional, wealth disparity. This means that our reaction to consequences is most likely going to be a mixed bag of forces that will select for collective altruism in pulling together as well as primitive resource wars splitting groups.

This is the broad picture. We are all individual pawns caught up in these complex forces. As individuals we have no choice but to accept and adapt to these consequences. Our fate as individuals is the existential reality that our death will occur long before there is any final cultural resolution to the forces of human overshoot. We are links in a long chain..... puny little tiny links in an immensely long chain.

The cultural inertia that has brought us to these systemic imbalances has a very resilient momentum. Let's face it, we are collectively committed to take this to the end game, there is no unwinding of 7.5 billion humans almost now totally homogenized into a single economic global system of consumption, growth and capitalism.

Knowledge of our predicament initially causes great anxiety because you recognize these forces and the intractable cultural inertia of modern civilization continuing to aggravate and draw down resource sinks. However, if you explore this deeply there is no other conclusion that one can draw except that the suite of feedbacks that will emerge in this century and beyond will represent the forces that will select and move culture forward.

If this be clearly understood why should we be anxious?

As puny tiny links in a long chain, what purpose does anxiety serve?

Finally, if your personal wealth, assets or quality of life experience a contraction, if your material dreams are abandoned, if society fails to deliver what you initially felt your entitled to, there is little reason to generate much anxiety when most of your fellow human beings are sharing the same experiences.

I can already see the emerging millennial generation re calibrating their expectations.

Why sweat it? Anxiety in times of overshoot is stupid and a waste of time.

[dinopello]

Anxiety is the passive form of a worthless and stupid thing.

Panic is the active form of a worthless and stupid thing.

Both will kill you prematurely.

[Sixstrings]

Finally, if your personal wealth, assets or quality of life experience a contraction, if your material dreams are abandoned, if society fails to deliver what you initially felt your entitled to, there is little reason to generate much anxiety when most of your fellow human beings are sharing the same experiences.

I can already see the emerging millennial generation re calibrating their expectations.

Why sweat it? Anxiety in times of overshoot is stupid and a waste of time.

Consumerism is ultimately empty, and enough is never enough; yet consumerist capitalism is the greatest engine that's ever been devised, for how a society should run.

It worked for the Roman Empire, it worked for the merchant republics, it worked for the British Empire, and it has worked for us and it's what dominates the world now. Enough is never enough, but we all keep chasing it.

About the millennials -- one thing I notice is that it seems normal for them to still be living at home. Also a lot of people don't have cars anymore, or even a driver's license. (more the norm in other parts of the world, never the norm in most of the USA except some cities like NY)

They seem okay about it, they've adjusted -- but where will their children live? The boomers and post boomers can't live forever and house everybody, in the same house.

Will the broad mass of millennials ever get good, living wage full time jobs that can support a family?

OTOH -- for the US at least, maybe the economy is looking up and maybe we've got a 1980s boom coming our way. If so, will it trickle down from the 1%? So far the dollar is way up -- if the dollar is up 10% and stays that way, then that's a de facto pay raise.

And then there's climate change and all that.. arcitic ice melting.. and Russia and Canada will just be scrambling to exploit it, for the world to grow more, to burn more fossil fuels.

On and on it will go, until we as a species branch out off the planet. Hopefully before too much of this place is wrecked, and too many species lost permanently.

Why be anxious? Things will work out. They always have, in the aggregate. Homo sapiens is a tough species and nothing's wiped it out yet, even itself.

[Pops]

Unfortunately anxiety doesn't have an easy to find on/off switch.

Of all the possible psy-maladies one might have, I'd say anxiety would be the category I fit into best. Obviously I can obsess over future events, for a hint look at my post count, LOL. When I was younger and in the "corporate" world I had a terrible time, obsessing over meetings, presentations, etc. I'm fairly certain it made me "better" and more "successful" as a worker than if I were a kicked back, type B. It forced me out into the clearing to take on the big monkeys but man, it was tough. Probably the worst effect was I drank way too much for way too long, that was my off switch.

In small doses, worry, concern, and yes, planning, can be a good thing.

But too much worry without action, or endless scenario building without resolution are surefire ways to make oneself completely miserable. Anxiety about a specific event or just life in general can lead to many wasted mind-hours and result in building up a big front to protect oneself from what one perceives is a danger - real or imagined. This is what sucks about anxiety in my experience, when one builds up big defenses they may be protected (if there happens to actually be a danger) but blocking the danger blocks the pleasure and eliminates spontaneity as well. When I tell folks that I'm rather insecure and shy, they always laugh because all they see is the front.

I am less anxious now. I'm not sure if it is simply age, less family responsibility, the life situation I have built. No alcohol is big I'm sure, nothing produces "free-floating anxiety" like a hangover, LOL. Maybe it has to do with developing type 1 diabetes and getting pretty sick, perspective.


"Don't worry, be happy" has a nice beat and you can dance to it but like a lot of things around here, I find that it is more hard wired than not.

[dinopello]

I am less anxious now. I'm not sure if it is simply age, less family responsibility, the life situation I have built. No alcohol is big I'm sure, nothing produces "free-floating anxiety" like a hangover, LOL. Maybe it has to do with developing type 1 diabetes and getting pretty sick, perspective.

You are on the upswing side of the "U-Curve". More detail.

I was going to start a thread on this because I'm in the trough right now (48).

[Pops]

" and now I am seven,”

LOL

[Outcast_Searcher]

Or, if used properly, anxiety could be a positive thing.

Obviously, as others have said, if one let's it run rampant and it becomes panic, or if one lets it paralyze them or depress them, then anxiety is a very bad thing.

On the other hand, if one channels anxiety as the awareness that things can go wrong into positive attributes like, say, prudence or planning, and uses it to live their life in a far more organized state than the typical person -- then it can become a good thing.

Prudence and planning can be great mitigators (in all but the worst case scenarios) against the kinds of things many people on this site worry about. Running out of resources is the most obvious example. Things like active saving and investment for retirement planning, like getting a good education to gain access to a good career, or simply taking care of oneself by eating well and exercising and following medical advice from their doctor(s), can have a profound long term effect on one's well being. And what is given up, like short term access to fancier cars, McMansions, or giant loads of consumer cr*p are almost completely meaningless, IMO, compared to long term security and a good shot at reasonable well being as we age.

In my mind, this state of mind is a defining difference between a large segment of the middle class of, say, the Greatest Generation, and the generations from the Baby Boomers, on.

[Loki]

" and now I am seven,”

LOL

"Now I can tell him: It gets better." Yep, just has to wait another 45 years or so to get back on that up curve

The Atlantic story they link to is worth reading. It came to my attention in an NPR show, On Point I think. Interesting stuff. Looks like I'm approaching the trough of unhappiness. Only got another decade to go. Yay.

[Loki]

However, if you explore this deeply there is no other conclusion that one can draw except that the suite of feedbacks that will emerge in this century and beyond will represent the forces that will select and move culture forward.

That's arguable. There is no predestination. The Long Emergency could just plunge us into a Forever Dark Age, red in tooth and nail.

If this be clearly understood why should we be anxious?

Because anxiety is primarily focused on our little individual lives. Whether our "culture" will be "moved forward" in 200 years is utterly irrelevant when one is unemployed and worried about being able to pay the bills next month.

As puny tiny links in a long chain, what purpose does anxiety serve?

If anxiety is held to a low enough level, it can be a kick in the pants to make some necessary changes in one's own life. If you let it overwhelm you, it can prevent you from making said changes.

Finally, if your personal wealth, assets or quality of life experience a contraction, if your material dreams are abandoned, if society fails to deliver what you initially felt your entitled to, there is little reason to generate much anxiety when most of your fellow human beings are sharing the same experiences.

But that's the thing, it's not really a shared experience. That old saying comes to mind, it's a recession when your neighbor loses his job, a depression when you lose your job.

Our recent economic troubles show that. Losing your job, losing your house, losing your way in life is a deeply personal thing. Highways are still clogged with people going to work, you see new $50,000 trucks driving down the road hauling $100,000 worth of toys, constantly hear about how some folks are making bank on the stock market despite the economic downturn, etc.

Even when things were much worse in the 1930s, some folks did just fine. Those who held onto their jobs actually experienced wage increases.
Many considered taking CCC/WPA/etc. jobs as a sign of failure, and often wouldn't hire someone who had worked for one of the alphabet relief agencies.

At least back then when you got food relief you stood in the soup line and could see that you weren't the only one down on his luck. Now you get a fake debit card and pretend to be like everyone else when you go grocery shopping. Being un/underemployed can be deeply isolating.

[Newfie]

My hero...

[Newfie]

Funny, over on cruisers forum, they just now have a thread labeled "Greatest Fear".

I'm a nervous nelly, up to a point, then .... Off I go!

Can't help it, just the way I'm wired.

Figure I gotta love me just the way I am.

[PrestonSturges]

Anxiety often means there is a decision you are putting off. If you must get more information, set a deadling for getting the information and mark the calendar. You don't worry obsessive about your taxes at midyear.

[Sixstrings]

"Anxiety" is an evolved necessity, for survival.

"Fear" keeps you safe, and out of "Darwin Award" idiotic situations.




"Anxiety" is actually "worry" -- worrying about a future problem. The capability to do THAT is helpful, to survival.

Worry enough to be prepared, then move on.

[Ibon]

However, if you explore this deeply there is no other conclusion that one can draw except that the suite of feedbacks that will emerge in this century and beyond will represent the forces that will select and move culture forward.

That's arguable. There is no predestination. The Long Emergency could just plunge us into a Forever Dark Age, red in tooth and nail.

I wasn't suggesting anything predestined. Just that the external forces caused by overshoot will increase in dominance and culture will adapt to this, probably with a combination of primitive and enlightened responses. A "forever" dark age as you suggest is totally inconsistent with history. A dark age however is not. When you use the term "forever" you are revealing something about your own perceptions and internal narrative.

anxiety is primarily focused on our little individual lives. Whether our "culture" will be "moved forward" in 200 years is utterly irrelevant when one is unemployed and worried about being able to pay the bills next month.

When you are not feeling held by your culture and you feel isolated and alone with your worry about security then this is a real source of being anxious. This feeling of helplessness as an individual and cutoff from the larger culture is really an artifact of our affluent, individualistic culture experiencing the first pangs of anxiety about losing autonomy. If you spend any time in poor communities anywhere in the world you will notice that poverty does not isolate individuals, it is just the opposite. The less you have the less you individuate and the more you draw yourself into your community and culture.

If anxiety is held to a low enough level, it can be a kick in the pants to make some necessary changes in one's own life. If you let it overwhelm you, it can prevent you from making said changes.

This is spot on and what some other posters have mentioned here. Anxiety is initially like a small shot of adrenaline to activate you toward solutions. If however you don't move toward any concrete solutions then you have what Pop mentioned:

In small doses, worry, concern, and yes, planning, can be a good thing.

But too much worry without action, or endless scenario building without resolution are surefire ways to make oneself completely miserable.

But what action is possible when you are scrambling to hold on to the crumbs of a contracting status quo that still has quite resilient momentum? This is the big big challenge. Putting anxiety into action is much easier said than done in these times. All the goals of getting out of debt and consuming less etc. and building gardening skills as action points are great but kind of meaningless if you aren't able to move out of isolation and building relationships with others.

But that's the thing, it's not really a shared experience. That old saying comes to mind, it's a recession when your neighbor loses his job, a depression when you lose your job. Losing your job, losing your house, losing your way in life is a deeply personal thing. Highways are still clogged with people going to work, you see new $50,000 trucks driving down the road hauling $100,000 worth of toys, constantly hear about how some folks are making bank on the stock market despite the economic downturn, etc. Even when things were much worse in the 1930s, some folks did just fine. Those who held onto their jobs actually experienced wage increases. Many considered taking CCC/WPA/etc. jobs as a sign of failure, and often wouldn't hire someone who had worked for one of the alphabet relief agencies. At least back then when you got food relief you stood in the soup line and could see that you weren't the only one down on his luck. Now you get a fake debit card and pretend to be like everyone else when you go grocery shopping. Being un/underemployed can be deeply isolating.

This is true. Back in the 30's we did not have a high degree of individual autonomy and there were more shared experiences during the depression. Right now our culture is focused on keeping this high level of isolated autonomy which is really just keeping us miserable when the jobs and earnings required to maintain this is not there. And that is where your action out of anxiety is really about building your network of friends and family and community.

I mentioned the emerging millennials. Many don't have cars, do not inspire to live in the suburbs, are into the shared economy, are sharing rooms in urban areas, sharing rides when travelling, couch surfing and all that. There is some cultural adaptation happening. It's not stagnant and a "forever" dark age we are moving to.

Loki, relieving anxiety at this point is about rejecting individualism and working on your relationships. This is just as important as learning gardening and getting out of debt.

[Ibon]

I suggest reading this article

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/likely-ca ... -you-think

It is about addiction and might not initially seem relevant to this thread but please read through it and notice the link between addiction and feeling isolated and cutoff from your community.

I think this feeling of isolation is the single most important source of a feeling of anxiety. What Loki was getting at.

[Pops]

On the addiction part:
Chemicals are a great way to postpone anxiety, unfortunately when someone says, for example, "I'm stressed, I need a smoke" while they may in fact be in a stressful situation it is the nicotine withdrawal that is causing the majority of the discomfort. I know this from 30 years of experimentation on the subject.

On the Big Group Hug part:
I used to be very anxious around people, I was introverted by nature but as I said above I put up a good front. As I also said, I'm not nearly as shy and anxious as when I was younger. Point is I am no more needful of a community than I ever was, community was part of what made me nervous.
The little gold rush town we're in now has a laid back vibe, but not hipster-crunchy like Portland or Marin, call it retired, grey pony-tailed, recovering folky with a tinge of cowboy. The region is mostly rural, maybe a little red politically but pretty balanced, at least the library doesn't feature a dedicated Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck shelf like my old AO, LOL - IOW, it is the perfect fit for my personality, better even that the Ozarks, which are very red. Our neighbors are mellow and super friendly, they seem genuinely happy that we bought the old place, partly because it had been empty for years but more so just because they are truly friendly and it is really a neighbor hood.

Still, though I find just about as pleasant as anywhere I've lived, it is less so than a cabin in the woods with no one within earshot.

Really, a message board is the perfect community for a chat-room-rat like me; I can talk all I want, I can listen as little as I want and flat out ignore who I want, I can up and walk away in the middle of a conversation when I'm bored and once in a great while I get a stroke. But that's just me.

When you are not feeling held by your culture and you feel isolated and alone with your worry about security then this is a real source of being anxious. This feeling of helplessness as an individual and cutoff from the larger culture is really an artifact of our affluent, individualistic culture experiencing the first pangs of anxiety about losing autonomy.

I understand your point and I'm sure you feel that (actually it sounds sorta like a little cabin jungle feaver ) but I do not feel that t all - in fact I feel quite the opposite. I don't feel myself so much a rugged individualist breaking trail on the frontier and so outside the community, more that when I'm in town I'm the guy who gets in the wrong line at the DMV, or sitting in the wrong hall when the lecture starts, or part way through a book that obviously is not as I interpreted the blurb on the jacket.

I don't feel like Travis the Taxi Driver, I just don't relate to much of what society as a whole does with their time, many of their goals, most of their pastimes. To be blunt, where I used to be anxious about them as individuals I'm now anxious about them as a community.

But what action is possible when you are scrambling to hold on to the crumbs of a contracting status quo that still has quite resilient momentum? This is the big big challenge. Putting anxiety into action is much easier said than done in these times. All the goals of getting out of debt and consuming less etc. and building gardening skills as action points are great but kind of meaningless if you aren't able to move out of isolation and building relationships with others.

You were going along good there right up to the last, LOL
The "herd" has a few advantages for the individual:
1, it has more eyes and ears than an individual - unless it is a herd of ostriches
2, it provides camouflage "lost in the herd"
3, it provides a diversion: "I don't have to outrun the bear ..."

But it also does not give a rip about the individual except as he contributes to #1-3 above. Humans may be social but they are not designed to be herd animals.

Look in the mirror, your eyes both face forward, only primates and predators have forward facing eyes and binocular vision. Herd animals - prey - all have eyes to the sides of their heads to catch the movements of a predator on the prowl. While we may not have eyes front solely for that reason (or for that reason at all) we definitely do not have panoramic vision like every other herd animal.

Al that to say, becoming a part of the modern herd is not necessarily comforting or even wise.
.

[Ibon]

The "herd" has a few advantages for the individual:
1, it has more eyes and ears than an individual - unless it is a herd of ostriches
2, it provides camouflage "lost in the herd"
3, it provides a diversion: "I don't have to outrun the bear ..."

A 4th and perhaps more primal than the 3 you mentioned above is a "sense of belonging"

Back in the Ozarks when you neighbors would listen to Rush Limbaugh, it had less to do about the specifics of what he says and more to do about feeling like they were being represented.

Pops, you mentioned the demographics and political orientation of your new location and how you feel welcomed and ideologically closer to them.... Well, this does give you a sense of belonging as well.

You have to go back say 50 years before small towns were fragmented and destroyed when the small cottage industries, the local retail, the local pharmacy, local leather repair shop, blacksmith, the local lumber yard, all these small cottage enterprises formed an actual physical community. There were many strong introverted individuals like you Pops who were shy and not particularly social but they certainly had a sense of belonging to a local organic community, tied together by the family run small business that thrived back then.

Now let's stay for a moment in this small town 50 years ago. And let's bring Rush Limbaugh's radio show and play it to the 1950 audience of back then. The spewing angry tirades that Rush is famous for. How do you think that audience of 1950 would react to the tone, anger, hatred of that voice?
They would be totally turned off, in fact they would turn the radio off! It would sound like sheer madness to those 1950 ears and psyches. Why is that? There was not that anger back then of feeling cut off, of losing your local identity, of being fragmented. Most of these red state white guys who love Rush Limbaugh feel like he is tapping into their own personal anger of existing in an alienating world. That is the part of isolation I am referring to that exasperates anxiety.

Funny thing is the left side of the political spectrum feels equally alienated from the system they feel does not represent them.

This lack of representation means there is no sense of belonging. That is why anxiety can persist and become chronic. That is why a recently unemployed person can feel totally unhinged and lost. In 1950, you lost your job, you moved in with your family be it parents or brother or some neighbor would help out. Today your brother is 2000 miles away, stressed out trying to keep his teetering plates spinning, and today you would never think of asking him if you could move in with him.

Just some thoughts. More interesting is to anticipate in what ways this process will reverse with the introduction of constrains due to human overshoot.

Loki's unemployed isolated lost individual seeing the trappings of consumption roll by on trucks is a metaphor for the isolated individual of the early 21st century. Let's keep an eye on him as the century progresses to see in what ways he assimilates in emerging alternatives.

[Ibon]

I am drifting a little here but the main theme of anxiety is still in the back ground. Here is an excerpt from a poster who commented over on JMG latest essay. Here we have a millennial in his late 20's, the age when you want to start putting your experiential education toward some concrete goal. And he has no money to realize this dream.

I'm 29 years old, and have been doing intensive organic vegetable farming and permaculture work for several years now. My dream has been to start a permaculture operation growing perennial medicinal and edible plants.

Unfortunately, I was bamboozled like many people of my generation into taking out a significant chunk of student loan debt many years ago to pay for an education that hasn't served my longterm interests.

I have learned a lot from my work on various farms and permaculture operations, but have obviously made very little money doing so. My skillset has grown significantly, but my debt has grown right along with it.

At this point it feels an impossibility that I should ever obtain land, even a modest parcel, let alone finance the beginning of an operation like the one I've envisioned all these years.

I've moved from rental home to rental home, trying to make ends meet while pursuing this self-directed education, but now feel completely stuck. And if what you are saying is true, then it is highly unlikely I will ever be unstuck.

Meanwhile, many of my peers in the young organic farming movement are in a similar situation: lots of skill and knowledge, lots of passion and commitment, but lots of debt and zero access to land or other resources as well. Our elders in the farming community tell us to work off our debts and build our credit with the intention of taking out loans for land someday. But we all know that with things the way they are that this is a futile road leading nowhere. That may have been an option for their generation, but it isn't an option for ours. Sometimes we joke among ourselves that we are likely to end up an entire generation of serfs. Now that the tremors of our time are growing in severity, the laughter is wearing thin.

Here is what I am reflecting on. We have all this wealth tied up in the baby boomer generation who are getting old and obsolete. And we have all these young millennials who are rising in an economic environment that does not provide the physical means for them to pursue an alternative to the status quo.

And yet there is capital out there.

Our we going to soon enter another experimental chapter of communal living, a bit different then the commune craze of the 60's and 70's. That one was born out of a hippy ideology that was competing with affluent yuppism. The one thing I remember well about the last years of that commune movement was that the commune member were mostly societal misfits who were largely incompetent at hard work and getting along with each other.

I can envision a new chapter of communal living whose members are made up of a different caliber and quality. Highly motivated, more hard working, more willing to share, less ideological. And most importantly, surrounded by a status quo far less glamorous and affluent.

Let's think of Loki's unemployed individual no longer having a place in a declining status quo.

And let's also think of all this old money inherited by obsolete baby boomers who feel alienated in their obsolescence... Imagine if they start buying land and giving these millennials the material means to live out their dreams. It's a win win, the old baby boomers feel relevant and the young millennials get to pursue their generations destiny of creating an alternative to a dying status quo.

Is Ibon off his rocker???

[Pops]

I guess in a way this gets back to ease of travel.
Seems that if we can do something we will, must be instinctual. So since we can migrate (and probably it is instinct as well, meant to stir the gene pool eh?) we do migrate. So kids move away, couples split, work becomes remote, etc. Technology (FFs) has accelerated the process and it could be that the anxiety you are talking about is a reflection of the neighbors looking different than we do.

Why I care what the neighbors look like or their politics is is a mystery to me because I try to avoid talking about politics or religion in the real world, LOL But The Big Sort that argues against our becoming more and more isolated from community and in fact, trending toward more and more ideologically cloistered regions:

America may be more diverse than ever coast to coast, but the places where we live are becoming increasingly crowded with people who live, think, and vote like we do. This social transformation didn't happen by accident. We've built a country where we can all choose the neighborhood and church and news show — most compatible with our lifestyle and beliefs. And we are living with the consequences of this way-of-life segregation. Our country has become so polarized, so ideologically inbred, that people don't know and can't understand those who live just a few miles away. The reason for this situation, and the dire implications for our country, is the subject of this ground-breaking work.

The Economist:

SOME folks in Texas recently decided to start a new community “containing 100% Ron Paul supporters”. Mr Paul is a staunch libertarian and, until recently, a Republican presidential candidate. His most ardent fans are invited to build homesteads in “Paulville”, an empty patch of west Texas. Here, they will be free. Free not to pay “for other people's lifestyles [they] may not agree with”. And free from the irksome society of those who do not share their love of liberty.

Cynics chuckle, and even Mr Paul sounds unenthusiastic about the Paulville project, in which he had no hand. But his followers' desire to segregate themselves is not unusual. Americans are increasingly forming like-minded clusters. Conservatives are choosing to live near other conservatives, and liberals near liberals.

http://www.economist.com/node/11581447

[Ibon]

We take on volunteers here at Mount Totumas who come and go and we have paying guests who come and go. This is not a commune arrangement of course but we really enjoy the social interaction. of course guests and volunteers leave after awhile and we retreat back into solitude. The solitude recharges your social battery so you are ready and enthusiastic to share your space once again with others. That is still the main concern with any kind of community. The 24/7 year round presence of the same people without a break. It would be important to maintain autonomy.

By the way, we have the very first volunteer here who came from PO.COM. Timo is visiting us and learning about processing coffee. Nice to finally physically meet someone from here. Great guy, I just had to promise my wife we would hold resource depletion conversations down to less than 30 minutes per day