An Avoidable Collapse

Many of us saw the collapse coming over a decade ago and began preparing ourselves and our communities. We saw the convergence of crisis’, also referred to as a “metacrisis”, and took action.

We built entire impact ecosystems of developers, builders, creatives, philosophers and systems designers all creating solutions using tools of decentralization and emergent technologies.

Some of us began paying attention to the fragility of the system during the Bush/Cheney years, taking wisdom from our elders who learned similar lessons during the Nixon/Reagan eras. We began learning how these corrupt systems of corporations-meets-politicians, both of whom control every aspect of our lives and keep us complacent and compliant through consumption-driven mentalities normalized by advertising and the media.

And even with all of that experience preparing for this very point in history, where an ignorant, racist, sociopathic madman is openly accelerating collapse for no justifiable reason, we’re still stunned. I know I am. And I’ve literally been studying, preparing and building since the 2004 mid term elections. I had two clear paths when Bush/Cheney got re-elected. Become an expat and exit this corrupt system or participate in the solutions. I chose to stay and build. Had I known that 22 years later, Bush and Cheny would look like Washington and Jefferson, I would have left. No question.

I have to wonder- what does this collapse experience actually feel like for the people in this country who chose bypass all of it. What is NOW like for those who actively chose to simply pretend everything's normal and we'll all be fine. And who still make that choice in the face of open and systemic collapse.

Most of my friends just thought I was an alarmist for following foreign and domestic policy so closely for decades and pointing out that none of these systems are sustainable and we’re one dictator away from the whole house of cards collapsing. I was too serious, told to lighten up or "just be happy".

Bearing witness is too depressing.

The type of “awakening” to reality that many are undergoing now is not something I’d wish on my worst enemies. Realizing that so much of what we thought was the safe path, the logical playbook for a life well lived, was really just a plan to keep us complacent and compliant for this moment in history is a wildly harsh and destablizing reality.

For most of my working life, I’ve been part of front line labor. I chose at a young age to stay outside of the system entirely. I bartended at night and freelanced with a camera by day. I chose that path deliberately and have zero regrets. That path gave me a deep understanding of the impacts of social safety nets because I lived it. I always took pride in not using those safety nets, of always being able to make cash on demand with my physical efforts. Until...I couldn’t.

GenXers like me, mid40s/early50s, have lived through 4 massive economic upheavals. We know collapse. We know starting over. We know how to be scrappy AF and how to survive. We also know what it felt like to have a balance in our cost of living. Up until the pandemic, we were able to find balance. Go to work, make your cash, go home and live.

We know what life was like before technology and... we enjoyed it.

And our work was just that, work. That’s the beauty of front line labor. It’s direct. Yes, it can be brutal and harsh. Especially when you’re in the service industry and dealing with the general public. But I never took my work home with me. We didn’t play politics behind the bar. Sure, we cursed and yelled at each other under pressure, flirted in ways that would warrant a PIP from an HR lackey (if that was actually a thing– it wasn’t), but when the shit hit the fan in a busy shift or when a customer was harassing or threatening me, I knew every person behind that bar and in that kitchen would lay that mother fucker out in 10 seconds.

We were a family. A dysfunctional family with all sorts of pathologies brewing under the hood. But still a family. We showed up, did the work, made our money and went home. Cash only. Sovereign. Outside of the system. Most of my bar customers were corporate workers on summer vacation and they were almost always beyond miserable. Trying to find solace in a bourbon and recover from 50 weeks of chaos, politics and cortisol. My other customers were also labor, construction workers and contractors by day and mafia foot soldiers for hire at night. They were never miserable and always hilarious.

Seeing the system’s dysfunction from within, seeing that the man wearing the Rolex at my bar, ordering lobsters and drinking Jameson had less freedom and sovereignty than Sticky Whistletooth, our brilliant, yet horribly untalented day cook who did everything under the table and exited society completely after serving in the Army for a few years was a massive lesson on the system itself and the masks people wear to cosplay freedom.

Today’s collapse possess so many layers we can unpack, to do so might take years. But the thing on my mind lately is the mass psychosis that’s brewing just under the veneer of a society in full collapse. We never recovered from the pandemic, never collectively acknowledged or processed our grief together, never rebuilt the structural inequalities the pandemic laid bare for us all.

No, we simply ignored it, moved on as if it never happened and tried to restore the life we had before. A life driven by consumption and bypassing. A life none of us will ever fully return to.

So here we are again. Living through a much bigger collapse and pretending that it’s not happening. But this time we know it is. Underneath it all, we know this is the end of the old ways. And we know our current leaders have no desire or capability to build a regenerative future we are all so desperately seeking. Instead, we are just going to have to take whatever these oligarchs force upon us. Until we, as a collective, say NO.

And yes, some of us are building real solutions for collapse right now. We’re hiding in the shadows, gathering over communal dinner tables, meeting at dog parks and dive bars, finding ways to support the people we are connected to. And yes, some of us are also doing the spiritual work needed to bring wisdom from the past into the present, providing a soft landing spot for those who are awakening now and have nothing solid to grasp.

And many are still bypassing. Hoping that if they simply keep doing what they’ve always done, ignoring the news, ignoring politics, ignoring the Hungry Ghost lurking in the doorway, “normal” will return.

It won’t. Because what we had was never normal. When we get to the chapter in this story about rebuilding, we must embrace systems of regeneration so we never again find ourselves at the mercy of oligarchs and techbros incapable of empathy or introspection. We must not recreate the systems of extraction, hatred and destruction that the Patriarchy has forced upon us all these years– and we willingly accepted.

We deserve better.