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Musings Report #26 6-28-15 Solutions: Private and Public
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Solutions: Private and Public
Having spent all last week probing the many complexities of systemic collapse, I now turn to the obvious follow-up: what are possible solutions?
Potential solutions break into two basic camps: private/household and public/systemic. The two are of course intertwined, as our household choices will be informed by systemic developments: if things seem to be falling apart more quickly than anticipated, we may move to Plan B or Plan C in our private lives.
If the macro-picture stabilizes, we may continue with our current arrangements and set more drastic options aside.
Let's leave systemic/public solutions for another Musings, and look more closely at private/household solutions.
Private solutions subdivide into practicalities (securing income, choosing where to live, arranging access to healthcare, food and energy, proximity to friends and family, etc.) and what we might term self-fulfillment: aligning our internal goals, priorities, personality traits, values and skills with the practical externalities of daily life.
Longtime correspondent Bart D. recently responded to an email in which I expressed the all-too common sense of being overwhelmed--by work, duties, responsibilities. His response gives us a starting place for choosing our priorities and goals:
"At the suggestion of a 93-year old relative, I spent a bit of time thinking of myself as being on my death-bed and considering what I’d wished I’d spent more time doing in my life. Then I went out and did it (and still am). That way, hopefully, when I eventually get there, I won’t have any need to ask myself that question because I’ve already resolved it. (It’s a minor form of ‘time travel’ in my way of thinking.)
After that, I stopped worrying about lots of mundane life things and focused on the next really excellent thing I wanted to do. For me, that meant doing a great holiday with the kids, taking them (and myself) to an interesting and inspiring place, getting out into the wild. As a result of that first inspiration we travelled 3200km across the continent and spent days swimming and soaking in a thermal river in the top end of the Northern Territory. I ended up talking to heaps of people from all over the world as they drifted past ‘our spot’. Each had a little piece of wisdom to pass on.
During that time I completely forgot to think about any of my mundane life troubles and I remained changed after returning home.
Holidays are now my stepping stones through mundane existence. It’s the great luxury I wanted but never had as a child.
Where once I was an ardent ‘saver’ I’m now a moderate spender on things that provide a good life experience. I’ve also cut back on my sense of ‘duty’ to achieve certain things for others. My outlook now is that I’m a part of a greater social machine and there are others in that machine that can (or should) take a turn in bearing the load. I will now let others fail if they don’t want to share the load. We can’t keep everyone happy all of the time. Just some people happy some of the time. And that includes our own selves."
This reassessment of duty and what is possible is especially critical in times of decline/decay, as the process of decline is essentially one of burgeoning demands and diminishing resources: there simply won't be enough to meet everyone's demands.
This means we have to pick our priorities wisely, so we 1) don't get dragged into the abyss by over-committing our limited time and resources in a vain effort to meet the demands of everyone around us, and 2) by keeping our expectations realistic, i.e. within the boundaries of what is possible without extraordinary effort, wealth and luck.
This process of reassessment implicitly holds the promise of a fulfilling life even in times of turmoil, instability and diminishing resources. As author Michael Grant noted in his history (referenced in Part 2 of my Collapse series last week) The Fall of the Roman Empire, many people opted-out of the decaying Imperial system by joining monasteries that were by design self-reliant and self-supporting. It was not an easy life, as the religious organizations operating the monasteries demanded piety and plenty of hard work. But the order provided security and purpose--precisely the qualities lost as the Empire frayed at the edges.
Some families of great wealth exited Rome and set up self-sustaining private fiefdoms in the countryside--manor houses supported by farms. Tradespeople and merchants impoverished by rising taxes found refuge as laborers on these sprawling estates. Once again, it was not the ideal setting, but it offered security, protection and purpose.
In our era, the questions that present themselves are: where shall we devote our limited resources of time, capital and effort? What is the payoff of our choices, and what are the opportunity costs, that is, what other choices must be abandoned to pursue this path? What trade-offs are we making, explicitly and implicitly? What must we forego to pursue our primary objectives? What is the balance between practicality, duty, risk, security and fulfillment?
Modern life in advanced economies implicitly promises order and security stretching on into the future. That order and security might fray is troubling, for it upsets the foundation of our decision-making and prioritizing.
This calls to mind the wry advice, "Don't let the dessert cart on the Titanic pass you by."
I place Bart's family vacations in this category. We cannot assume limitless growth, security, wealth, resources, etc. Rather, we should align life today with what we have concluded (after much consideration) to be our life's work, purpose, priorities, goals, limits and yes, pleasures, for the essential characteristic of fulfillment is a sense of doing what is most meaningful to our inner selves, what Ralph Waldo Emerson referenced in his famous phrase, “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string."
Yes, we must make a living, or have the means of a living. Yes, we must care for others as well as for ourselves. But as systemic solutions fall short, we must grasp the nettle of making our own arrangements in a time characterized by burgeoning demands and diminishing resources, capital and security. Fulfillment is not precluded by decline; rather, it gains in importance with each passing day.
Summary of the Blog This Past Week
Collapse, Part 5: Things Fall Apart 6/26/15
Collapse, Part 4: Loss of Faith in Public Institutions 6/25/15
Collapse, Part 3: No Institutional Path to Contraction 6/24/15
Collapse, Part 2: The Nine Dynamics of Decay 6/23/15
Collapse, Part 1: Greece 6/22/15
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Finally finished coding a new CSS template for my archives. It's not programming, it's just mark-up, but familiarizing myself with the CSS attributes was non-trivial. Learning some new skill (however modest in scope) is almost always rewarding.
Market Musings: China's bubble du jour pops
While an oversold bounce is possible, perhaps even predictable, it looks as if China's stock market bubble has broken key technical levels and is well on its way to a symmetrical ride down the same slope it traced on its recent rise.
That suggests a roundtrip to the 2,400 level in about six months, i.e. by year-end 2015.
From Left Field
Venezuela Hits 510% Inflation (via U. Doran)
The Magical Content Tree (via Chad D.) -- an excellent overview of the paradoxes of "free content" being produced by people who then struggle to find a way to get paid for their labor...
Not Just a Tourist -- the blog of Mahsa - "a solo Iranian woman riding a motorcycle around Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia." (via John F.)
The U.S. computer industry is dying and I’ll tell you exactly who is killing it and why (via Lew G.)
Madagascar's lemurs cling to survival -- stripmining the last of the forests to profit a few at the top of the heap....
'Star Wars hoverbikes' may be coming to the US military
Our Most Peculiar President -- some are comparing Hilary Clinton to Richard Nixon; I think this comparison is a disservice to both...
The World's Exposure To China In 6 Easy Charts
Giant tortoise walks Tokyo's streets - slowly
How PTSD Became a Problem Far Beyond the Battlefield -- long-form piece, with many tangents...
the Rich Kids of Tehran -- "80 percent of the kids feeding the account are the offsprings of the ruling elite." -- reminds me of the princelings in China who study at Harvard and get houses in Vancouver for cash...
Almost-Silent Airbus Electric Plane Powers Up --scalable?
"Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game." Voltaire
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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