[Ayoob]

now to deal with that situation?

I look around with my eyes and see what is immediately in front of me. What are the resources at my disposal? Who has ownership rights to those resources? What can I do with them if I am particularly motivated to work as hard as I possibly can?

The bottom line is it doesn't look good. It looks like starvation to me.

I had a side business I could work for cash but it looks like calories are going to be expensive.

I dunno. Maybe I had it figured out in another lifetime but now my plans are history.

Have any of you had a plan and later figured out that it wasn't going to pan out? What did you do, what was your timeframe?

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'n')ow to deal with that situation?

I look around with my eyes and see what is immediately in front of me.

[americandream]

Not many options are there?

I'ld watch China before panicking. If Western investment in China starts turning to custard with a flight out of that country, I'ld worry (keep an eye on gold and other valuables, the Swissie, and the US dollar and treasuries). They would have to go ballistic along with the Chinese suddenly rediscovering Maoism as well). As of now, the markets are still in JIT delivery mode so I'm pretty sanguine.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'n')ow to deal with that situation?

I look around with my eyes and see what is immediately in front of me. What are the resources at my disposal? Who has ownership rights to those resources? What can I do with them if I am particularly motivated to work as hard as I possibly can?

The bottom line is it doesn't look good. It looks like starvation to me.

I had a side business I could work for cash but it looks like calories are going to be expensive.

I dunno. Maybe I had it figured out in another lifetime but now my plans are history.

Have any of you had a plan and later figured out that it wasn't going to pan out? What did you do, what was your timeframe?

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'I') see a table. A digital screen, a window with sunshine, a lamp, a cup, an oak tree, red raspberries. Have a nice day

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', ' ') For those with a job, life is fine -- they see an HDTV, red raspberries, and sunshine. But for those out of work they might be seeing an eviction notice, a car they can't afford to repair, teeth they can't afford to get fixed, a whole panoply of things that require money and credit they no longer have.

[efarmer]

What I believe I am doing right is not believing the Eschaton is imminent. I do believe that the times of materialism will give way to a behavior that follows this familiar one that has run it's course. It will be difficult and unknown, and it may be easier to cling to the notion of an end than the unknown of a beginning. I find these words to be good from someone who faced great challenge:

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"

What else happened after that little sermon on the mount is lost to us. But I imagine the crowd had some questions and input:

"Here is a list of nuisance birds, in the event the father guy runs low on feed..."

"Can you give me a bird's chances of getting the chow on a 1 to 10 scale over the next 3 years?"

"Exactly how many birds am I worth, just so I know where I stand."

"Let's say a bird had a little bird bunker, and a little bird sword or two, and the bird knew the father was covering the other birds on the meal issue, would this hypothetical bird be under any obligation to ..."

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')lessed are the cheese makers

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'T')he bottom line is it doesn't look good. It looks like starvation to me.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', ' ')They would have to go ballistic along with the Chinese suddenly rediscovering Maoism as well).

[americandream]

And recycling their human waste as they revive the largely agrarian collectives and abandon ambitious programmes premised on using resources that will no longer exist. Rather elementary stuff if you could only get past your emotions which act as a block to reason.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', ' ')They would have to go ballistic along with the Chinese suddenly rediscovering Maoism as well).

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'A')nd recycling their human waste as they revive the largely agrarian collectives and abandon ambitious programmes premised on using resources that will no longer exist. Rather elementary stuff if you could only get past your emotions which act as a block to reason.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '
')You mean , they would restart making steel in villages and hunting sparrows again?

[Ayoob]

You know, I've probably had the feeling I described in my OP a dozen times since discovering the topic of resource depletion. I wonder if it's a mild panic attack.

Due to a specific and over the top horrific one-time event I was a part of, I have a little PTSD. I've had a full on panic attack, this was nothing like that. It might be a mild panic attack plus a little depression.

It's hard to stare into the abyss for years on end and not have it affect you.

To carry on in the spirit of the thread, I've tried to do more interaction with the physical world to get in touch with things instead of ideas. I can get lost in the world of What Could Be very easily. It takes some concentration for me to focus on the here and now, and what's within my arm's reach.

It might sound kind of nerdy, but I've been looking into battery operated motion detector LED lights to set up a little functional light around my house. I'm way out in the sticks and it gets pretty dark here. Sylvania has little lights with a magnet, screws, and a foam double stick pad for about seven dollars on Amazon, so I've been playing around with them. I have enough cash to indulge in a few impulse buys, and enough to pick up some of the Costco eneloops improved packs that it makes sense to deploy them in mission critical... deployments.

For some reason I've become more interested in knives, too. I picked up a cheap Cold Steel tomahawk, a couple of Bushman knives that are meant to be mounted on a stick for cutting the high fruit, throwing knives, and a Khukri for chopping. Apparently, Khukris are better at chopping than hatchets or the large knife/baton thing. 99% of the time I can use a small folder for just about everything I need. Some advanced campers I know say that large knives, hatchets, tomahawks, and all the implements in that category are really not necessary. Deep down I know they're right, but I feel some kind of need to justify the idea that big heavy sharp steel things are important.

The bottom line is I would be better served by paying more attention to my health and physical fitness than in buying and trading these trinkets. The right man can do what is necessary with what is at hand. All the tools in the world won't help the wrong man do very much.

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', '
')The bottom line is I would be better served by paying more attention to my health and physical fitness than in buying and trading these trinkets. The right man can do what is necessary with what is at hand. All the tools in the world won't help the wrong man do very much.

[PrestonSturges]

The 14" Tromantino machete cut down to 12" makes an awesome throwing knife.

[eastbay]

Preston, I had a throwing knife as a very young man and became fairly proficient at tossing it practicing against ( ) trees. Eventually I wrecked it bending it from over practice.

My hit rate was improving all the time, but it was never high enough to risk missing and thereby tossing my potential opponent a weapon. So no more throwing costly knives for me. The knife will ... if needed ... hopefully remain in my hand.

[PrestonSturges]

True, the blade would be better used lashed to a heavy stick

[efarmer]

Jesus came into a nation subjugated to an imperialist empire, ran by a patsy junta of Sanhedrin and Roman goons, and in a land that was sparse in resources as compared to other places on earth.
He said to let the dead take care of the dead, not to spend one's days analyzing how they would suffer on their way to joining the dead. He pretty much stayed positive right up until when he rode his donkey into the midst of the corruption and despair to prove his point.

He was a working class stiff from a poor family in the carpenter trade.

So loving each other and ourselves and working at being as decent as possible under trying circumstances seems to be doing as right as it gets.

He might have had a multifunction Leathermensch, some dried dates, and a jug of good red vino
in a goatskin bagout bag stashed in Magdalen's shed, but he did not seem to walk around poisoned with fear or poisoning others with fear.

The breaking down of our living arrangement is the result of running it to the limits of the resources that we exploited to create it in the first place. Our living arrangement is not the world and existence, it is simply familiar and relatively comfortable, the world does not schedule it's end based on our living arrangement, even if we think it should, or it would be mentally easier than hanging around to see what happens next.

Lighten up, go up to a kid and ask him if the Eschaton is an American or a foreign vehicle.
I myself never rode in one, but I imagine it gets great acceleration and killer mileage.
I will stick my neck out and postulate the Eschaton will be so very well made it will never experience a recall.

[Revi]

To continue the religious theme. We can't count on having our daily bread every day. It is: give us this day our daily bread. Not tomorrow. The manna from heaven was given only for that day. We really can't count on tomorrow. I really don't think we can plan our way out of the consequences of peak oil. We just have to roll with it. Hopefully each day our daily bread will happen. It isn't going to be like it was anymore. We'll all have to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. That's why people prayed so much. There was so much that could go wrong.

We're just going to have to go back to another way of being. I hope it works, but most of it is not in my control. We've got to have faith.

[Kristen]

Do you ever feel like a sponge of misery? The suffering of the world around you demands attention, it simply will not deflate.

It's obvious that the world is changing by the attitudes here, in Minneapolis. (Not necessary a personal trait) The once humble smiles we gave each other have evaporated like the morning fog in springtime. Instead we greet each other with eyes to the floor as we shift nervously from time to time. That may be an exaggeration, but nonverbal communication indicates many things, some troubling.

The whole peak oil time-line will take decades to pan out. Right now it seems we are entering the "second dip" of the double dip recession. The word "double dip" may give the impression of two identical dips, but it would be unwise to assume the second wave (What happens after the second dip is anyones guess) will be similar.

It appears that "Abiotic oil" theory is incorrect. Surely, those wells would've filled up by know, right? Oil prices are still historically high and I imagine if there was an infinite supply, prices would have retreated. Prices will be over three dollars a gallon

[Pops]

I also think the end of the world as any one of us knows it is imminent. Actually the end of the world is happening all the time - it's just that we don't notice the change till it catches us from behind - see The Langoliers.

Or, we decide to make a move before we get eaten.

I used to get to feeling pretty doomerish: when my small town in CA was being overrun, when I needed to produce $3.5k NET every month just to get by and had no back up plan financially or practically.

I'm not so anxious now. We can easily live at a poverty level income, did it the last 2 years. I'm not surrounded by quite the density of eaters I was in CA. I can grow some amount of my own groceries. Because I don't need as much income I can earn a little, several ways.


Like a rock on a hillside we all have potential, we just need to get kicked out of our rut.