Wetware Reprogramming Problems

Reprogramming ourselves and how we deal with bad news. As the cowboy philosopher once said, "it ain't the bad times coming, its the good times going."
No matter how you introduce people to the wall towards which we rush (oil depletion), you are almost in the role of a loved one telling you a family member has died. Speaking with a local farmer who is active in preparing for this, he mentioned that this sort of information must come from a friend, knee to knee, and you must be prepared for the denial, anger, and grief. You are bringing information to those you care about, but it is not happy time, not happy talk and at the bottom of it, when they fully understand, you have introduced them to idea that all they have believed and all they have worked for was the wrong thing, the wrong goals, the dream is dying. Imagine how you felt the first time it began leaking into your conciousness. For me, a friend sent an email and simply said, "google peak oil." By the end of the day, I looked over at my friend Rick and said, "we are so fucked."

I've been beating on this drum for most of a year now. I have seen friends come in a circle from pushing back, - "bullshit, you're just a paranoid geek," through complete acceptance and fact discovering - where they send me all the corrobrating evidence that they are finding, and some to the point where they see that it indeed makes no difference and that they should work instead on keeping themselves emotionally healthy.

There are three responses to the Peak Oil scenario that you will generally experience as you wade through it with your friends, knee to knee.
1. Not true - many variations of this from, "there is plenty of oil" to "we always figure things out, count on our problem solving technology."
2. So it doesn't matter what we do, so we're screwed, so there is nothing to do, so party on and enjoy the ride.
3. This one recognizes that all the information from so many directions, such as oil depletion, Hubbard's curve, global warming (whatever the cause), fished out oceans, poisoned water, and make believe money created by creating debt - all these make the "PERFECT STORM" of our coming collapse. Understanding that not every field and every "big brain" can all be wrong, and considering that anyone of the converging streams of our "Perfect Storm" are enough to cause a massive collapse of industrial society, they do not go to - screwed or not true.
This group grasps the only possible straw left - they hope and soon believe that it will happen slowly. This is very attractive and easy to believe. We are programmed to incremental changes in a very slow changing environment. So I was good to go yesterday, I expect the same tomorrow.

It is this third state that I would like to address as it came up yet again for me yesterday with a close friend. If you remenber back to a post here a few weeks ago, we perceive threat only when it is close. A lion just in sight arouses caution but no real response, but a lion close and hunting we react to. Our reactions to threats are not linear.
We react to things we see that are close. We have no big indication peak oil except the fact that we are pumping oil and then there will be know more. We know that intellectually but not in our old brain where the drive to "DO IT NOW!" comes from. So we talk, and try to motivate ourselves to some action.
Will totally understandable, it is also true that what we think about our societies need for growth and a constantly increasing oil supply in ordered to feed a constantly growing earth population has little to do with what I believe or you. It is physical, inexorable, and it comes.

I had the thought when I hear, "oh I understand the whole peak oil thing, but it will probably take years." Why would anyone think that. We are used to government and corporations lying to keep their power, line their pockets and control us, but we get our information on peak oil and global warming from people who are outside of the distrusted realms. Why do we need to push this away? Even people with young children who I would think would be frantic are sanguine.

It is that evolutionary tick, the danger is not close enough, therefore not important enough. The part that breaks my heart is that I have read and read and talked and listened and listened and thought, and it is not distant. It is as close as tomorrow. I can't say for sure tomorrow, but we are running around in a house of glass that is fragile beyond belief.

All that information is available for you to come to the same conclusion, and many are, but not everyone that I care about.

So what do you do if your friend pushes into denial and you watch them wondering what is love's responsiblity? Isolate and wave goodbye? Given them a subset of all the information coming in so that they are not overloaded? Avoid trigger words? Have the concepts introduced by people they love and trust and believe?

All these options have proponents. Many of my friends have cut ties with the idea of introducing the collapse to anyone and are simply taking care of those close to them by edict. Some have plans to disappear into the wilderness of North America for a year or two and then see what is left. Others are acting locally to convince people to relocalize their purchases. No more Walmart, no more throwing things away, all purchases local. That groups hope to save all around them, at least in their local communities.

It is a big topic, a big problem and a big responsibility to love the people around you. You will be discomforted. You will be the bearer of bad news and their anger will often be directed at you. So what I do personally is different for each friend and close person. For some, nothing. Even my own stepdaughter who is an adult. I broach the subjects lightly and they are replussed. OK.
Other friends I sit through the grieving and on to their preparations. With the friend I was talking to last night I played the friendship card. I said do these three things because I say so, just because I say so.
In this instance it was to buy two Unisolar 64 watt solar panels, buy enough canning jar lids for all the canning jars they have, and to put in enough stored food for six months. I think that she and her husband and daughter will do that, only because I'm being weird about it.
So each of your friends is different. But on all of them, you must sit knee to knee and deal with this, or cut them loose.

So for you, my anonymous reader, I suggest the generic following for you. This summer, grow a garden and can if you can. Buy grains and learn to store them. Make sure you have a source of heat that does not come from the electrical grid or from a petrochemical product. Draw a circle around where you live the distance you can walk pulling a cart. Find what resources for you exist within that circle. Get some candles, then get some more. Get a CB radio for the car - there are little ones that fit where your ashtray was. Get a good battery powered radio. Have a source of water besides the city water, or store water enough for a week at least.

If you did even that little bit, you will be able to keep your head a bit in a crisis. You would have water, food, heat and communication. You would not have an expectation of driving "out" of the problem. Perhaps this is time to reconnect and move closer to family if you would do that in an emergency anyway, for surely it will be much more difficult to move once this begins.

Finally - why so many spelling errors and things when I first post? Because writing this is a flow out of me and exhausting. As I type this last sentence, I don't want to re read it, because all this information is hard for me too. Like you I wish it to not be so, to go away, I want the world my mother promised me and I goddamn mad at all of us for having gone down this particular social evolutionary path (capitalism). So later I will come back and edit, and it will be clearer, and it will be spelled right, but right now, I am complete.
mcnalan