by Sixstrings » Mon 05 Jan 2015, 19:24:03
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'A')s the consequences of overshoot bear down on us we will find the response quite interesting. Some folks who were depressed during the current inaction phase might perk up and become quite pro active and pull together as the dysfunctional status quo gets challenged and communities and families pull together.
Nice post and you are right Ibon, I'd say it's like "stages of grief." New people that come on this forum may be in a different stage that others were once in, years ago, and they have a right to go through the stages and who knows where that leads -- Tiki may be a wise grizzled old doomer in years to come, not shaken by anything that happens in the world anymore, but maybe doing positive things to effect change.
So yeah, we shouldn't be too hard on someone new on the forum, who is in a different stage.
OTOH, I do have my own theories about doomerism -- that it is psychologically DISPLACED angst over more immediate things in a person's life. Look to the smaller things in one's life, and the big things won't be so distressing. Evolution-wise, we are WIRED to worry about things so we can anticipate threats and be ready to handle them.
But if one is so worried about 20 years from now that one is not doing what one needs to survive TODAY, then that is when there is a mental health short circuit of neurons.
If one's depression over "climate change" -- valid and understandable -- lasts TOO LONG and hobbles life in the present -- the right here and now, today, like eating and getting a job and doing all the crap we all have to do every day, that real clinical depression shuts down -- then that is when one has to get help, that's all.
(in other words, I'd say that if one is deeply affected by any tragedy, then either get over it OR -- make doing something positive about it as a reason to live and thrive, rather than staying in depression over it. Turn grief into a positive force, rather than a debilitating force.)