The End of the World as We Know It

I try not to go too far down the path of gloom and doom, although it comes quite naturally to me, being the child of Zero Population Growth, activist parents. I grew up knowing that people were in trouble, that the earth was in trouble. I came of age in the 80's when the cold war was heating up--I remember I shocked some older people once when I was visiting a friend's Thanksgiving get-together (at Denny's, as I recall), by telling them that I hadn't thought that I would grow up. I didn't know if the world could survive so much hatred and fear.

I went through a period a couple of years ago where I got myself really freaked out. A friend lent me Into the Forest (available now on the Amazon marketplace for 89 cents!), a novel about the end of civilization in America. I started reading the From the Wilderness web site and also came to read Thom Hartmann's The Prophet's Way, which is a wonderful book, but also a book that leaves you feeling how close to crisis things are--how very, very close we are to having the whole house of cards just fall right apart.

At some point I had to stop; I had to focus on things that were hopeful. I am a mother, for one. And I knew that things might fall apart but that they might also hold together, and that I was better off spending my time thinking about what I would like the world to be like, rather than what kind of tragic upheavals could happen.

Yet, sometimes I get pulled back into worries about what the end of this world as we know it might be like. We are so vulnerable--vulnerable to economic collapse, vulnerable to climate change. There are so many people in this world who've already seen the collapse of civilization--how much would it take to tip us in the West over the edge? I think about the things I would miss, like food. Showers. And flush toilets.

I read a blog entry yesterday that I think is worth reading, and contemplating. It's about a movie coming out soon called What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire. The blog post is by a guy I've never heard of, Matt Cardin, over at a blog called The Teeming Brain. I'd recommend reading it, though it's long.

I haven't given up hope of a peaceful transition into a new, better, more compassionate age. A Great Turning, as you will. But I think it's going to take a lot of work, a lot of determination, a lot of passion, and a lot of faith for us to get there without a lot of pain and suffering. I just hope that we can pull that off.

Links:
The Teeming Brain: The sadness of America and the need for a new consciousness
What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire