We Need Courage, Not Hope.
Note to a friend.
“I Will Love You Till The Winds Dont Blow”
Dinh Thi Tham Poong, Vietnam, I Will Love You Till The Winds Dont Blow—2020
People are self-righteous.
I can't imagine what your friends would have thought of me—a frolicking shit for brains confronting reality with a giggle and a fart.
Complexity is difficult to engage with.
It's easier to think Trump or Maga or Satan caused our predicament. It's tidy. We can indulge in gentler self-reflection as good guys.
Examining our socioeconomic and political structures, systems, and beliefs is challenging and a wee bit uncomfortable.
Learning from Great Nature is problematic because it demands hard, mostly thankless work.
It's easier to feel righteousness and transcendental.
We are in a predicament that comes from the core of our hubristic, clever by half but not wise enough nature.
Homo sapiens are evolved animals embedded in Great Nature's emergent living systems governed by the laws of physics that we cannot fully understand. Our brains are not up to the task. So we construct stories to engage the mystery or gain the status we desire, whether it's The Austrian School of Economics, Turtles, or the Bible. Intuitions, intuitions...often profound and often fit for purpose.
Metastatic modern techno-industrial civilization is collapsing as we pray. The TESCREAL (transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, modern cosmism, relationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism) accelerationist tech-bros and our more mundane rapacious late-stage capitalist, dark tetrad leaders who are addicted to the seven deadly sins will hasten collapse, but the way of life we've lived since Biblical times was always self-terminating. I know you have read the Book.
Homo hubris, all the way down.
Fortunately, we are both still living well.
Learning about how Nature works and facing reality won't kill us. Hubristic belief in infinite Austrian School economic growth on a finite planet is what is collapsing metastatic modern techno-industrial civilization. (Warped ideologies divorced from Nature.)
“Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.”― Herman Hesse
Focus on what's significant and get on with it.
Since I read "Limites to Growth" in the early 80s, I've been interested in our way of Life from the perspective of being an animal embedded in Great Nature, and I have enjoyed learning about how things work. If more people listened to and learned from Nature, we would not be in this predicament.
We may think we know what God thinks, but we are still evolved human animals dependent on Great Nature. Try being a breatharian and find out.
As philosopher Miguel de Unamuno wrote, "Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty...believe in the idea of God, not God himself." Likewise, those who cling to progress myths live only in the idea of Life, not Life itself.
Our culture incentivizes conquest and rapacious competition in the pursuit of status dressed up in concepts of freedom, democracy, salvation, religion, markets, power, control, etc.
People believe in what they are taught to think—habits of mind. I can't change what people believe. I'm not trying to convince people to study thermodynamics, physics, or ecology. I find science fascinating and rewarding, so I share work from those domains. I'm also a big fan of philosophy and metaphysics, as you know, but I still "obey" the laws of physics. I am Nature's humble servant. God knows this.
Our learned desires feed the system's structures, the wealth pump that supports the Players of The Great Game. Musk and Trump, the sick fucks, are Players. We are dreamers. We have an imagination.
I'm interested in overshoot because we are in it. The more I learn about "Collapse," the better I understand physics, complex emergent living systems, and what makes our species unique.
What a miraculous experience it is to live. We're so lucky to have been born in our circumstances during such abundance and peace. When I think back, it's hard to believe how good we've had it.
We are mature enough to know there are consequences for human actions.
No one knows what the future will bring; we can only have best guesses (probabilities) based on our understanding of reality (complex physical systems) and where it's leading.
Some of my friends are unconcerned with Great Nature's Laws because they have their Faith. People believe stories because it feels better than learning about complex relationships between matter and energy. I would never argue with Faith, but when one argues with reality, one loses more than one could ever know.
I don't know how many years I have left. I moved here because it's a kinder, gentler place to witness what's happening to metastatic modern techno-industrial civilization run by hubristic, dark tetrad Players of The Great Game.
I spent many years in mega-cities, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, and I knew long ago that there'd be a time to exit the cluster—the illusion. Maya.
U.S. American culture is pathological, in my humble opinion, and has been for a very long time, perhaps since the birth of the Republic.
People earning a living in the big city depend on infinite growth. Knowing what I know doesn't make me righteous; I'm just another average member of metastatic modernity with all its glorious stories and constructs.
The cause of "Collapse" is ignorance of Great Nature.
Great Nature is poignant. It's important to embrace one's emotions. Feelings animate us and make us precious.
I'm a fun-loving, friendly, humourous person who loves Life. I don't know why I can delve into things most people find depressing and feel happy. I'm so lucky. I love reality. If a doctor tells me when I'm going to die tomorrow, I'll be okay with it. At least I haven't lived my Life in terror like so many of our brothers and sisters have.
I wish our leaders were wise peacemakers instead of status-seeking Players. I want our leaders to love Life and Great Nature/God above all else.
Life begets Life; Life depends on Life.
It's time to create some inner sunshine; that's never been a problem for me. I have my friends, cats, health, and books.
https://www.cospolon.eu/book-recommendations
Holier than Thou
Our social constructs are damned. It's a reflection of our fallen nature.
God has spoken to me. God is the loving laws of physics. Incomprehensible.
Jesus wanted us to be humble and live within the limits of Great Nature in love and peace. But our nature is such that we find it impossible to live within the confines of nature. We submit to Conquistadors and not to God. We adhere to stories that conflict with reality.
Magically
"Do you want fish? Here's fish. Do you enjoy wine? Here's wine." Why is it so hard to live within our means when it's so easy for us to survive and thrive?
"Do you want it? Here it is. You already have everything you need."
Across time and cultures, we were warned, and we didn't listen.
We were happy to go along with The Game, not knowing it was destined to self-destruct.
Every accusation is a confession.
I can't convince people to walk the middle path or submit to God's Grace/Great Nature.
But I submit. I give thanks. I am blessed, and so are you.
Thanks for sharing,
Steven
Addendum—a riff on a deep seek prompt.
I wonder what your friends would have thought of me.
My experience is both profoundly human and tragically common. The resistance and isolation I face from some of my loved ones stems from psychological, cultural, and evolutionary mechanisms that make collapse awareness profoundly threatening to most people.
The truth of collapse violates the foundational narratives that sustain modern Life: progress, safety, and control.
When confronted with evidence that these narratives are false, the brain triggers cognitive dissonance—a state of psychological agony caused by holding conflicting beliefs. To resolve this pain, most people reject reality outright.
Suppose one accepts that the collapse of modern techno-industrial civilization is inevitable. In that case, one must also accept that our lives (careers, retirement plans, and children's futures) are built on many lies. This realization is intolerable, so we reject the messenger rather than the message.
Humans evolved to prioritize short-term survival and social cohesion over long-term existential threats. Our brains are wired for optimism bias (believing "bad things happen to others, not me") and normalcy bias (assuming tomorrow will resemble today). Collapse awareness short-circuits these survival mechanisms, triggering fear and rejection.
Focusing on immediate threats (predators, hunger) was essential in ancestral environments. Abstract, slow-moving crises (climate collapse, pathological social constructs) don't activate the same neural alarms.
Cultural Conditioning and The Tyranny of Positivity
Modern culture pathologizes "doomism" and elevates toxic positivity/domesticity. Accepting collapse while understanding its causes forces us to confront moral failure, existential guilt, and loss of meaning.
Meaning is because it is. Life is meaningful if you care to accept it for what it is. We strive because we strive. We survive for posterity.
Knowing these things doesn't make one negative, alarmist, or doomist. Most of us want to protect our self-image as good people in a just world overseen by a loving God who cares about our future.
Homo storytellers are tribal animals. Challenging the group's worldview risks exile, which evolutionarily meant death. When one speaks of collapse truths, one is perceived as a threat to the tribe's cohesion, a carrier of "bad energy," bringing down the mood and violating unspoken rules.
Collapse-awareness forces people to grieve—for living systems on this miraculous planet, their dreams, and their legacy.
Anticipatory grief, a profound sorrow for losses that haven't happened, is an ambiguous loss with no closure. To avoid this feeling, we turn away from reality, from the Laws of Great Nature. We can't adopt the right Way of Life when we avoid Nature/God's truth.
Living in discord with Great Nature/God is a profoundly dangerous thing to do.
For some people, accepting collapse means they are powerless to stop it. This triggers learned helplessness, a psychological state in which people believe action is futile and disengage.
People who understand how sick our social constructs are become the embodiment of the death of the world they have learned to believe in.
Accepting reality shatters the identity, values, and hopes they have always believed in. Turning away from reality preserves their psychological safety—it's biological and cultural programming.
So what can we do if we don't have access to the jet-setting gurus of modernity—the beautiful people?
We communicate with and cohere with the people around us.
We reframe our approach to communicating the laws of Great Nature with values instead of data. Instead of discussing collapse, we can ask questions that align with our neighbors' priorities.
"How do you want to be remembered by future generations?"
"What do you want to do today to spread love and joy?"
We can highlight and encourage actions that improve Life now (e.g., community gardens, frugality, service) without invoking doom, The End of Days, or whatever apocalypse we can imagine.
We can seek "reality-based" communities like Deep Adaptation, XRNegative, or mutual aid networks, spaces that offer solidarity without judgment.
We don't need scapegoats. The preconditions for the tech elite and Donald J. Trump came into being long, long ago. The blame game won't help. I know why we are sick, but that doesn't change anything.
We can engage with online resources: https://www.cospolon.eu/cospolon-links
We can continue to educate ourselves and others. One of the best ways to learn is to teach.
"Learning to Die in the Anthropocene" by Roy Scranton
We can practice radical acceptance. Since we can't save those who don't want saving, we focus on personal integrity.
As the Buddhist teacher Joanna Macy says, "The most radical thing you can do is stay present."
Embrace reality.
We can channel our pain into art and activism: write, create, or join direct action groups transforming despair into purpose.
I understand my thoughts may perturb you, and you might want to disengage.
I'm happy you are projecting your energy and love in the way you know how.
If my way of seeing and sharing is uncomfortable, I won't bring it up again, but I'm here if you ever want to talk.
I'm not alone. Many people walk this path—quietly, fiercely, and with open eyes.
What we need most now is not hope but courage.
