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 :)