Wrenching Change, Community and Honesty
Before I get into this weeks column, a few personal notes. I've been seeing a therapist for the past few weeks, and during this period I've been writing more, been more introspective, and since leaving my job at AVUSA, I'm certainly a lot more stressed than usual. I've also not been exercising which has exacerbated things. For me the most astonishing epiphany is the people around you when you go through such wrenching change. You get support from unexpected quarters, and of course, you lose a lot of support. Someone said to me that now is the time when you really see who your friends and family are. Well, this can come as something of a shock. In terms of family, when you want to discuss issues, they quickly refer you to a shrink, saying, 'Come back when you've sorted yourself out.' Thanks a bunch for your warm and fuzzy support.
It was while jogging yesterday [hey, it's free] that I started to think about it in a totally different way. So this friend calls you once a day to check up on you, so that family member confirms that they still love you and perhaps offers advice or encouragements - that's nice. But who is it up to to climb out of the hole? So whether you are getting that sort of touchy feely support or not, the point is you still have to do something.
And this also, incidentally, ought to be the point of therapy.
Any worthwhile therapy applied to our chaotic world, enables the individual to articulate just what they actually think about what’s going to happen to the world around them. Next, it provides them the chance to evaluate how they are living right this very minute, and whether or not they think this is the best way to live. If they don’t believe that their current lives will be productive in the future, it’s a call to action. They SHOULD feel anxious, worried, or what have you. These feelings are a warning device that should be heeded. In the old world, if a client walked out of my office and lives the same way as they did before they came in, I’m not doing good therapy. But in today’s world, that lack of constructive action may have a calamitous impact. Adapting to one’s situation isn’t the same as accepting it. It means the capacity to see yourself as an active participant, who owns up to what you think, and makes the necessary changes to live a more congruent life.
See, too much of the stuff we get from so-called friends and family is often pretty worthless. If they make us feel better with nice nonsensy comments, where does that leave us? What is needed is critical thinking. I said to a few people around me that since I've lost my medical aid and thus my gym membership I haven't been exercising. I've further rationalised this lapse into lazy depression by saying that I can't afford to focus on training. Well, it's true that financially I can't afford to just go back to gym. But emotionally I can't afford not to be exercising. So why not do some running outside, why not do pushups at home? And so I have. Right now this - exercise - is perhaps the most important thing I can do. Flush out those bad thoughts, keep the balance of healthy eating and sleeping, get a bit of fresh air. Feel better, look better, live a little. It's just the common sense route to staying healthy [in your head and in your heart].
At the same time I've received a document from a law firm. It is not the first time this year that I've seen individuals hijack the law to use for their own personal point scoring. And the police are complicit in this. Maybe because they are pressured to make every arrest that they can [even for bogus cases]. If we can be so dishonest and malicious to defend our own lack of integrity by strongarming the law, and trying to bully people to do our bidding, what do we do other than turn the legal process into something worthless, and thereby making our communities into vindictive gangs parading in civilian clothes, up for grabs to the highest bidder? It's not an exaggeration, but Nazism started this way. Where people used the law and government to turn on one another. In other words, a legal system to perpetrate personal struggles. I'm seeing this in white South Africa. It's a worrying trend.
Now, on to this week's column.
I received an email today from a buddy who is very high up in Standard Bank. The response to this article was that 'yes, we know Peak Oil is here, and it's no big deal.' Really? Because the implications of Peak Oil are pretty dire. Sorry, you can't get away from it. It means even the thought of a 'recovery' is entirely bogus. It means you're facing permanent, and terminal decline in economic activity, not just a temporary slump. Not temporary unemployment, but essentially people who lose their jobs essentially lose them permanently. It means you have to fundamentally overhaul your financial system. Debt financing - gone. Property as an investment - doubtful. Currencies as a measure of value - unknown.
The idea of wrenching change can be a hard pill so swallow. And many refuse to swallow it, which of course makes the problem worse. There isn't a lot you can do about Peak Oil, but that isn't to say that there's nothing nothing you can do. You can start to invest in the railways [as Buffet is doing], you can design walkable communities. You can start planting a vegetable garden. You can encourage those around you to design systems that degrade gracefully rather than catastrophically. For example, cellphone towers don't have back-up powers to keep them running during emergencies. So if, say, a Hurricane hits, you're completely cut off while the power is off. In an emergency scenario such as that, you create successive waves of catastrophic failures. But we can begin to design systems that backup and support anticipated failures, because failures do happen. You can bet on it.
The problem is, most people are betting on 'positive spin'. A lot of these are religious folk, whose bets are probably better labelled prayers. Look where prayers have got them, but caught up in their own personal designs, their own greed. And what has breathed additional fire into greed? Prosperity doctrine. Some people don't need church to feed their sense of entitlement, that they should have a big house or shiny new car even though it's beyond their means. But church certainly helped push us over the edge.
In the end, it will come down to what we do. Try not to feel overwhelmed, and try not to feel defeated to people around you don't agree with you or even support you. Avoid feelings of fear, anger and hatred. That's the path to the dark side. Remain calm. Find autonomy in other things besides money. Go deep inside yourself. Be honest. Run. Feel the rain on your fingers. Plug yourself into the land of the living and get busy living. It starts with one person at a time become a valid, and rational response to a real world that may be frightening at times. What we resist persists, and what we embrace, is resolved.
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