[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('greenworm', 'L')ove will cure it, find somebody you love and tell them you love them and give them a big hug and feel each others energy.

[bodigami]

I'm glad that I started with mental preparations... even if that's basically my only preparation... but considering death, I'm happy that I decided this way.

[CrudeAwakening]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kpeavey', '
')

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('greenworm', '
')Love is the cure for stress. Love can make you smile and love can make you cry. Both relieve stress.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CrudeAwakening', 'T')hat's one composed rabbit. We could all learn a lot from it.

[RacerJace]

WOW this thread strikes a chord (Am or Dm mostly).

I once was a disciple of technology. Until a few years ago, as a relatively young ignorant engineer, I thought we would at some point in time reach the utopian existence ah la Star Trek where energy would be a non-issue and self actualization would be the main reason for human existence. Since then I've matured very abruptly, once I'd comprehended what peak oil really meant. I'm now 38 years old.

I always had a suspicion that technologies like fusion power are a fantasy and over the last 6 years learned first hand that fuel cells and other saviour alternative energy prospects are just wishful thinking vield in smoke and mirrors to keep the venture capitalists and shareholders hopeful and happy.

I currently work in the automotive industry and I have an overwhelming sense of despair every day. I know that what I am doing is futile. However I also know that with two small children and a lovely wife I can not just abandon our main source of income.

I work in advanced development and all of my focus in the last few years has been on inventing technologies that will be somewhat future proof (given what I know we are in for). I have invented manufacturing methods for composite structures that can use natural fibres and resins, minimal labor and minimal tooling. I have ideas for distributed rapid manufacturing that reduce logistics to walk-able distances. And many other ideas for technologies that are somewhat fitting the post PO world. Yet I can't help feeling that it is all moot. I realise that this stuf is the fat end of the wedge... hopeful. The thin end is all about stocking your pantry for 3+ months and having true self sustaining skills like growing your own food, water purification, permeculture and self defense.

Since my understanding of PO has deepened I have developed an almost fatalistic mindset. I drink way more than I should. I have prepared less than I probably (know) I should. With the exception of getting debt free and purchasing some precious metals, I'm sitting in a state of ... I don't know ... numb anticipation of TEOTWAWKI. But what really tears me apart is thinking about the suffering my kids and other family members will endure.

I still don't know what to believe in... hope?... human ingenuity?... communion?... or survivalism!

It's all a matter of timing.. Enjoy what you have now for tomorrow (next year or next decade) we die... possibly/probably.

This is my version of "Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder".

[mmasters]

Can't lose all hope, there's a significant amount of things to play out in the near future!

[killJOY]

I learned about peak oil before it was called that, back in a geology class in 1981.

When I rediscovered it in 2003, I had a sneaking hunch of doom that is expressed by this quote from kp:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e exceeded the point of no return decades before we even became aware of the problem.

[BigTex]

One of the funny things about this topic (funny weird, not funny haha) is that the silver lining may be simply that the future IS unknown. In other words, the refuge in which one may be able to find emotional and psychological shelter may ultimately be the durable nature of the unpredictability of the future.

The future may be better than we think, it may be worse, it may just be dramatically different, but investing too much energy in one version of the future is probably not a good idea, simply because the future has, to my knowledge, NEVER unfolded the way even the smartest people predicted.

The things I am confident of when thinking about the future, however, are that it will be fundamentally different from the last few decades, it will involve a degree of social change that will be more rapid than most people are prepared for, and the rate of change itself (as Alvin Toffler explored in "Future Shock") will iteself be problematic, in addition to the perhaps unpleasant direction of change.

Here's a sobering thought: people have become alienated and weirded out by rapid change in the direction of greater material prosperity the last few decades. How much more alienated and weirded out are people going to be by rapid change in the direction of suffering and scarcity?

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')Here's a sobering thought: people have become alienated and weirded out by rapid change in the direction of greater material prosperity the last few decades.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('killJOY', 'I')f you haven't read my interview with professor Hatfield, you should because his understatement is simply astonishing:

A requiem for mitigation.

So, yes, pre-traumatic stress sydrome is a good word for it, and I've been living with it for years. Symptoms include doubling the size of one's garden and hanging on to one's 15 year old 35-mpg VW for dear life.

[threadbear]

Hope is weird. The misapplication of neurotic hope is what is destroying us, but hope based in sanity, a pure heart, and understanding is what will save us. We're taking baby steps toward the path of species evolution and spiritual enlightenment--the ultimate hero's journey. Without hope, what would motivate us?

[pedalling_faster]

one of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder is that a small occurrence can bring back a flood of feelings & memories, & not good memories.

i wonder how much of the US population has PTSD from 9-11.

every time they have a "terror warning", it scratches the itch.

here this unthinkable terrible thing happened, 3000 people died the day of and about 50,000 ended up with some very f*cked up lungs.

people either do talk about it, or they end up in a trance repeating the government "19 Muslims did it" standard party line. it's odd to see an intelligent person submerging their own instincts, for example regarding concrete. (normally when you drop it it doesn't turn into dust before it hits the ground.)

does it matter whether a person subscribes to the 19 Muslims version, or the LIHOP or MIHOP scenarios ?

either way it's a shocking event, by design, regardless of which snenario you think is accurate.

i guess with Peak Oil, it's something you do, not something that happened to other people. for people who can just not think about 9-11, which is probably the least stressful approach, and who just methodically start preparing for a Future Where We Do More Home Canning, then there's a way to avoid the anticipatory stress BigTex monikered as pre-TSD.

[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('greenworm', '
')
Love is the cure for stress

[cestlavie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'W')e happen to be the few that can sense what's happening. We know what the future will hold. I guess that's pre-traumatic stress disorder.

I feel like we're on the Titanic, and the lower classes are being quietly locked beneath the decks. The rich are already taking off in the lifeboats, and us middle class passengers are up on deck, listening to the band play on. When we talk to the other passengers they insist that everything is fine, and that the captain is having a wonderful lunch for everybody. I am going to eat the lunch, but then I am going to continue tying together every deck chair I can find to make a raft. I can feel the deck tipping already...

[dohboi]

Good ideas, all. But I find more and more that I am living inside a nightmare in which I am on a plane going into the twin towers and there is nothing I can do about it and no one around me realizes where we are heading or just how very quickly we will arive.

Writing itself can heal, and can help you see more clearly what is rumbling around in your head. Writing on a forum where others have some clue what is going down can also be strangely comforting, even while it reminds you of the impending disaster unfolding around you. Thanks to all.

Peace, shalom, shanti

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('greenworm', '[')img]http://www.the-romans.co.uk/g5/46.family_meal.jpg[/img]


Actually the key to stress relief is in that picture right there.

It is love. Wome loves the child and stands close guard to the child.
And man loves both and stands guard over both.

Love is the cure for stress. Love can make you smile and love can make you cry. Both relieve stress.

It brings great insight.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')
Writing itself can heal, and can help you see more clearly what is rumbling around in your head. Writing on a forum where others have some clue what is going down can also be strangely comforting, even while it reminds you of the impending disaster unfolding around you. Thanks to all.

Peace, shalom, shanti

[dohboi]

pf wrote: "i guess with Peak Oil, it's something you do, not something that happened to other people."

It's funny you wrote that just now, because I just wrote on a neighboring thread that I feel like I'm looking out the window of the plane as it approaches the twin towers. There is no way to tell the other passengers, and even if I did and they didn't think I was nuts, they would just go bonkers themselves; and idiologically insane criminals are piloting the plane.

Most days, I just try to enjoy what there is to enjoy, but lately it's getting hard to shake the feeling of being inside a nightmare--watching something inexorably unfold that will dramatically affect (harm? kill?) you and everyone you know, but having no real control over its approach and no real confidence that any preps will really be of much use.

Good thread.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')Most days, I just try to enjoy what there is to enjoy, but lately it's getting hard to shake the feeling of being inside a nightmare--watching something inexorably unfold that will dramatically affect (harm? kill?) you and everyone you know, but having no real control over its approach and no real confidence that any preps will really be of much use.