Collapse Now, or Enjoy the Rush?

The post on my daily routine will have to wait. For a variety of reasons, it isn't worth talking about yet, as my day to day life is rather unstable currently. I have a friend crashing at my place for a little, since his rent expired before his new lease starts, the oven broke, and I'm still finding a routine for class. This post will take a slightly different topic, while once things settle down I'll describe my daily routine.

This post, as the name may imply, intends to discuss a slightly odd topic. Simply put, there is a tension between two ideas, two ways of reacting to knowing we live in a declining civilization. Those two can be called "Collapse Now", and "Enjoy the Rush". Collapse Now means simplify life, prepare for the decline, and figure out what can be done to make life more like it will be later. It is a very wise approach, since it saves a lot of effort later.

Enjoy the Rush means the opposite. It means to take advantage of those aspects of industrial society that exist but won't later, to enjoy today and not worry about tomorrow. It is, logically, a terrible idea. However, it has a strong emotional appeal. There are many things that are not possible in a non-industrial society. These include easy long-distance travel, tourism, a wide range of goods and services, and more.

I understand the appeal of enjoying the rush. To provide just one example, I rather like coffee. Coffee doesn't grow here, and can't. It's a tropical crop, and so there is no way to grow it here. It's a challenge to me, because it suggests I should give it up. Yet, I resist the idea. It's hard to do. I'm not an addict, and actually I rather like the mind altering effects of it, so whenever I do use it too much, I stop. I intentionally avoid it, precisely so that when I do use it, it has a larger effect. This has always been how I handle it: I have coffee, get a rush, and then don't have more for a while.

If I have to much, the crash is awful. It's possible, however, to get the high without the crash. It's possible with alcohol to drink, enough it alters your mind, but not enough for a hangover as well.

I recently had the idea to extend this to industrial civilization: it's like a drug. Like any drug, there's a range of how much people take, the effects are strongest when done in moderation, it can be addictive, and withdrawal can be difficult.

The metaphor isn't perfect, but it's enough for my purposes now. It's enough to describe what is now in my plan. I will take the perks of industrial society, consider them, and if worth while, use it. But only if worth while. This means that while I try to simplify and reduce dependency in my life in general, in certain contexts I won't. These contexts will fit the following two rules, however:

1: I must want to do this, and plan it out, at least three months in advance. This will eliminate temptation to declare something spur of the moment and thus defeat the purpose of collapsing now, which is more important to me.

2: I must do it in a collapsed way, if possible. This means, for example, visiting East Asia, something I really want to do, is only valid if it's done in a way that doesn't add too much pollution, is sustainable (or could be), and fits with the requirements of collapsing now.

I want to be successful at collapsing now, however, I realize it will be hard. Therefore, I will also, from time to time, allow myself to "enjoy the rush" industrial civilization gives. I intend to take it for granted that it will become harder to do later, as society falls further towards collapse, so for now, this is nothing more than an idea. I would love to hear input on it, if anyone has anything to add.

PS: I want to thank the four other people who showed up for the Ottawa/Gatineau Green Wizards Group. It was a good start up meeting, and as it turns out I already knew one of them: a former professor of mine showed up. Quite the coincidence, but not a bad one.

Day to Day Life, I: mornings

I'm going to say right now that in a lot of ways collapsing now is a lot easier than I was expecting. While giving up home internet has required, and will continue to require, a lot of changes to my life, not all positive, overall, the inconveniences are minor compared to the benefits I find I'm getting. For example, needing to plan when to ask people if they're free instead of just being able to do it at anytime, but much better sleep.

This will be the first of three posts, describing how I'm currently living. Given that I'm busy with school, and figuring out what I can cook, I'm going to let myself adjust to this level of living, then move forward. In related news, my parents have given me an old 1950s/1960s cookbook with a lot of our family favorite recipes in it. I'm playing with quite a few of them, and have discovered quite a few wonders. Homemade noodles and bread, mayonnaise, a wide range of salad dressings, and even a fudge recipe are all in here. This is probably the best housewarming gift they could have given me.

I have a fairly small apartment, but since it's just me it's great. The only thing I'd change is I'd love to have a larger kitchen. Otherwise, it's more than enough space. I have my bed, an old thing from the '90s, a table, chairs to entertain guests, a good number of kitchen tools including pots, pans, a spatula, forks knives and spoons. Since I'm in walking distance of almost everything I need, I'm happy. The three exceptions are family, a good grocery store, and my volunteering. I've already sorted out all three: I can bus to the grocery store easily enough, pick up what I need, head home. This will only happen once every few weeks, since I don't need much. I've also set up my schedule such I will head home to family, spend some time there, and then head off to volunteer. Since I chose to join this scouts group because it was in walking distance of my home before I moved, this works well.

The rest of the post will focus on the morning routine I seem to have settled into. It's fairly different from what I had before, but I'm happy with it, more so than I was expecting. I like routine, and whenever anything disrupts that I tend to become unhappy. However, I'm enjoying my apartment and my new routine, which works out something like as follows.

I get up around 6 or 7 am. This is not because I have to, but rather because my body clock is set that this is my wake up time. I used to get up much later, at closer to 9 or 10 if left to my own devices, but this wake up time is now when I get up. I feel refreshed, happy, good to go for the day. I have become a morning bird, as opposed to the night owl I used to be. I think it has to do with no longer having screens before I god to bed, I used to be online fairly late, but now I can't be on the internet past 10 pm since the library I go to closes.

When I get up, I stretch, meditate, and make breakfast. My breakfast so far has been pancakes or eggs. Whichever it is, I spend a few minutes making it, since I keep my fridge stocked with pancake batter for the mornings. The recipe I use tastes a little bland, so I've been adding a little sugar (less than teaspoon per pancake) and butter, but now I've started using fruits in it instead. Now that I got it, I also sometimes make a cup of tea as well.

After a leisurely breakfast I grab some clothes for the day, take my towel I hung up to dry, and take a shower. I get dressed in not new, but still clean, clothes, do the dishes, and then I'm ready to go well before I need to be. The earliest I ever need to be anywhere is for 8:30, and the farthest place I need to be for a set time is still only a half hour walk away, so I'm always ready to go before I need to be. I'm using this time to read, and sometimes write a little, which I never used to be able to do in the mornings. Once my classes really start again I hope to use it as productive time to study and finish those assignments I can do without internet.

At about 8, or later when I don't have things I need to do, I head out to meet the day. If I don't have anything I need to do in the mornings, I've taken to exploring the area around me: there's a nice trail near where I live that I've stumbled upon. I don't know where it goes, but it's nice to walk on it and listen and watch the wildlife.

About me

As promised in the comments last week, this week I'll speak a little bit about myself and where these ideas are coming from. This isn't something I like to do, I don't like talking about myself, especially not in this format: people are far too complicated to sum up easily. However, I'll try to say who I am and what sort of life I'm living.

I'm a young Canadian university student. I'm entering into my last year of studies, and have recently turned twenty-one. My family is definitely upper class. My dad is an engineer, my mom is finishing off a PhD, so there is no shortage of education within my family.

I've always had a keen eye for contradictions and hypocrisy. Growing up, I was a pain for the adults around me, since I'd always notice when their words and their actions failed to line up, or more worryingly when they said things that couldn't be true if you believed their earlier statements. It took me a while to suppress the urge to tell people when I saw this, but by the time I started high school I became aware of how pervasive this was.

I was in middle school when the global economy crashed. This barely effected me, since Canada weathered these events better than our neighbor to the south, and I'm from an upper class background anyway. We were protected from the crisis, of course. However, watching it, and observing the quite rapid decline of the US got me interested in why things like this happened.

Of course, the changes that I'm talking about aren't supposed to be possible. They fly in the face of the religion of progress so many people believe in. And yet, the USA today is in worse shape by nearly every metric than it was even ten years ago. I can see this merely be visiting relatives in the country: by returning to the same place for a little every year, I have seen the decline first hand.

Now, making sense of it wasn't easy. There was no way I could think of for how to explain this. I took a step back, and began to try to think of alternative sources of wisdom. History seemed likely to offer an answer. I found information on the fall of past civilizations, and tried to sort through it, to no avail. There didn't seem to be an answer.

I graduated high school, started to study linguistics (with the goal of becoming a speech and language pathologist), and continued my attempt to make sense of the decline of the US, and now, Canada. This was all pushed to the back of my mind with some drama relating to university. In any case, it wasn't until this year that I discovered a core source of what has shaped my ideas, the The Archdruid Report, particularly The Heresy of Technological Choice and Collapse Now and Avoid the Rush.

By this point, I had a cellphone. I'd bought into the hype that you needed one, and got one in grade twelve. I was one of the last people at my high school to get one, most of my friends having one by grade nine. I never really liked it, but I had thought it necessary. After reading that, and the rest of the blog, I began to try to figure out a plan. This made perfect sense to me, in a way nothing had.

So, after a few months of reading, thinking, and planning, I decided to implement the ideas and life that these seemed to imply were possible. I've been working out what will do the best for my personal happiness, and preparing for the future, ever since.

In terms of goals for this week (short as it was), I, or someone in my family, has made all food I've eaten since returning home. The time spent visiting family was fun, but they are incredibly wasteful... 

I think this means I'm in better shape than I thought, as I assume they're closer to the norm than I am. My family is fairly frugal, all things considered, as I've always known, but it was remarkable to look at the lifestyle with new eyes.

This week, all I plan for is to continue with making my own food. I'm quite busy, but I think I can continue this without too much undue effort.

Step by Step

First of all, I wish to apologize for this post being delayed by a day. I had it mostly done, but was planning to read over it quickly before posting it. However, I played host to a social gathering that then lasted several hours longer than expected... I won't complain, I enjoy spending time with this group, but it did mean by the time we were done I was ready to go to bed. Now, onto the post!

I want everyone to imagine that we are on a mountain together. Some people are trying to climb all the way to the top, and you're being dragged along. Up ahead, you see something dangerous. A mountain lion, a bear, avalanche, or something else. I'll let you fill it in, but it is the most dangerous thing you can think of. It is coming down the mountain towards your group. If you keep going with them, sooner or later you'll have to run away as fast as possible. If you turn back now, then you can take it slow, watch your step, maybe even stop for a picnic. You may even find some nice trails set by fellow people heading down to explore.

If you're running down the mountain, there are no sites to enjoy, no time to stop and smell the flowers, or listen for the birds calling. With this many people, you're bound to trip and fall over each other, even without the dangerous mountain terrain. People will get hurt. If you're lucky, it won't be you.

This metaphor explains exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing, but also the how of it as well. In the comments I saw a suggestion to check out a blog for advice on how to cook cheap food from scratch. For anyone interested, here's the link: https://cookingonabootstrap.com/

While many of the recipes in there look amazing, I have quite a few recipes I really enjoy, and while I intend to try out many of those recipes, right now, I have quite a bit of disposable income, and I'm not poor yet. For now, I'm looking to gently walk back.I'm taking this step by step, taking my time, enjoying the experience in a way I couldn't if I tried to dive straight into worrying about costs as I try to get my self to cook everything.

Last week went well. I've found I don't accumulate things too much, with the exception of books. I'm going to look through to see which ones I've read and didn't like, which ones I don't find add value to my life, and part with them. What I intend to do is sell them to a used bookstore, so other people can read them. I never realized how many I had, but it feels fairly ridiculous, being several hundred at least. Meanwhile, in terms of everything else, looking through everything that's mine (as opposed to my family's), I don't have a lot of possessions.

Food wise, close to success yet again. Given where I started, I'm very happy with the progress so far, but it's still something to work on. I think it'll probably get easier as time passes and the habits establish themselves, and even this change is good.

Third change, I converted my smart phone into a dumb phone. Total impact on my life: none at all. I realized after a couple days that I wasn't changing anything because I rarely used the "smart" functions on my phone. In fact, these days I rarely use it at all. This is good though, because it means life can continue on.

My only goal for this week: continue to reduce processed food in my life. I'm about to visit family for the weekend, and will follow the druid way of not letting my lifestyle changes infringe on other's lives, so I won't let my personal quest impact them. When I get back, I will be busy preparing everything for moving out for September 1, so I'm going to avoid setting too many goals for now.

Planning for the Future

From here on in, these posts will start with my observations from last week, and how well I accomplished what I set out to do. Then a note on what, if anything, they suggest to me about both my personal and the world's future, and then a note on what I intend to do this week. The odd seeming decision to post on Thursday actually has a goal: rather than start my "Collapse-now" week at the start of a week, it starts at an odd time, to ensure that I'm forced to think about it during the week, as well as the start by other standards, since I don't want to have a "bad week" to start the week off.

An observation I have made is that I am already well ahead of most people. My preferred transportation method is by foot, and for longer distances I use public transit. This lack of dependence on a car already helps me stay in better shape than most people, and more importantly also means I have the skills to live in a post-car world. I also have a low cost, low energy system of entertainment: RPGs.

RPGs are quite easy to set up: all you need is people, dice, and paper. The last two points are iffy, it is possible to get a game going without either of those, however it would, in my opinion anyway, be an impoverished game. The only real expense is the books. However, if you pick a system and stick to it, that cost is negligible. The upfront costs of buying a sourcebook easily pay for themselves over time in enjoyment had with the groups.

Now, for my goals for this past week: reduce processed food, and start making sake. I will begin with the second one for now, because it is easier to say: I did not start the process. I lack the materials. While I went looking for it, I could not find the necessary yeast balls. I will spend a little more time looking soon. However, I am going to be fairly busy, and the large Asian grocery store around here is a little ways away, so I don't know when I will get the chance to get them.

On the second point: almost complete success. I failed on this point, but simple success would be less enlightening than this failure was. What I have determined is that I need to plan each day's meal in advance, and where possible cook the meal in advance. All preparation needs to be done not the day of, but at least the day before. Otherwise, holding out until I can make something is impractical at best. Skipping lunch most days strikes me as a bad idea, as does not eating breakfast because I forgot to make something the night before and I overslept.

So, both goals for last week failed for lack of proper planning. This is a very good lesson to learn, and so it leads to a broader point: large inputs of energy or resources can make up for a lack of planning. Since planning is a skill, it follows then that it is something that improves with use. Since energy and resources can make up for a lack of planning, I think it's quite likely I, and indeed most people living in industrial lifestyles, will be awful at planning.

It's not something we've had to do. It's something we will have to learn quickly once things start coming unraveled, and our standards of living, in material terms, plummet. Considering it is a skill that is essential for nearly all aspects of life without the inputs of industrial society available for our use, it is a very important skill. As such, it makes sense to learn well in advance.

Thus this self-imposed challenge to learn to live the lifestyle I will need to adopt later anyway now. Had I made the mistake of not preparing my food in advance when it mattered, I wouldn't have had the option to grab something to eat. I would have had to wait.

If my garden (once I get enough space to get one) fails, and there are still fruits and vegetables to be had in stores, it's no big deal. If it fails once this stops being true, or they are priced so high I can't afford them, then I risk nutritional deficiency. It's better to fail now, while the costs are low, and learn, than when it becomes a matter of greater importance.

Finally,  goals for next week: succeed at eating only food people I know have made, and organize my things, at least a little bit, finding things I don't use and never will, and get rid of them. I've also made a change I will see what effects it has: I've put a restriction code on my phone, and turned my smart phone into a dumb phone. Since I don't know the code, I can't "fix" it, short of restoring my phone.

Collapsing Now

Hi all, welcome to my blog! I am going to begin the process of collapsing now, and this blog is going to be devoted to talking about my experiences. My goal is not to achieve anything like the lifestyles some others have where they are mostly or wholly self-sufficient. Rather, my goal is to simplify my lifestyle such that I am better prepared for the coming future. I have no desire to fully abandon my present lifestyle as a Canadian university student in a decent sized city all at once, rather it will be a slow process.

And that, in a nutshell, is the benefit to collapsing now. By collapsing now, simplifying my life and eliminating wasteful habits today rather than when I'm forced to tomorrow, I can have the alternative in place and ready to go. If I'm right about the shape of the future, these habits have to go either way. One is on my terms, the other isn't. I'm picking the one where it's on my terms.

The future I expect is not one of further progress, nor of overnight collapse. I expect to live in a civilization for my entire life. If I have children, I'll be very surprised if that's not true of them as well. The shape of the future I expect to see is one where we gradually become poorer, less well off, have ever more disasters and crises to deal with. It's not going to be a linear trend either, it will be a process with temporary reversals, happening at different rates in different places. My goal is not to avoid this future, but to prepare for it.

And the easiest way to do that is to have a more resilient lifestyle. Which means fewer wasteful habits. I need to embrace what has been termed LESS: Less Energy, Stuff, and Stimulation. Since LESS is more, I will need to plan more, put more effort into my life, and do more myself. This seems like a fair trade off for having an easier time in the future. If I'm wrong, of course, it will not make me better prepared for the future. However, this experience will still teach me a lot about what I want in life, what is and is not worth having, and so even if I'm wrong, it's still a victory.

I will be updating this blog once a week on Thursdays with what I have done the past week to collapse now, what the results of what I have done are, any observations I have about it, and in general an update on the week. I'm doing this to keep myself honest, as a source of motivation. If anyone has suggestions for things to try out, please let me know, but for now I will be beginning off with only the basics. My plan is to start off doing less than I can do, so that it doesn't overwhelm me. It seems at the moment I have time, and it will be far better to start small and do a little bit than to start large and fail.

Here's an outline of what I have planned to do in order to collapse now, with the dates I intend to start off with:

This week, my intention is to start off a large change: I am abandoning eating processed food. By that I mean I will only eat food I, or someone I personally know, has cooked. Given this is how I like to eat anyway, this will not be deprivation, but rather merely a start. I will also begin the process of making sake, since it's used a lot in Japanese cooking and I happen to like the style. It's also a good tasting beverage, in my opinion.

The next two weeks will be continuing on that, organizing my things, and preparing for a major lifestyle change. On September 1 I will cease to have home internet. I will still have plenty of options for internet use (most notably, my university), but I will no longer have it at home. The idea being to see what changes such a state suggests to me.

I intend to start soap making (as a hobby, maybe later a side business) around the middle of September, and I will figure out what plants I can grow in the small space I have available and start gardening by October (or, spring, if the limited amount of sunlight turns out to be an issue).

Any questions, comments or concerns are welcome :)