In the dark ages as a lad, I attended many of the “horror” or “monster” movies of the time. There were such notables as “The Thing”, “Them”, “The Creature from the Black Lagoon”, “Godzilla”, “The Blob”, “The Tingler”, “Kronos”, “The Creature from Beneath the Sea”, and many others. Today’s audiences would consider those movies more comical than horrific because of the crude special effects of that day and time. Today’s audiences require several gallons of fake blood and body parts before the movie can be even remotely considered as a “horror” movie.
But one common ingredient between those movies of yesteryear and today is the same. That is the background music. It alerts our minds that something really sinister is about to happen. The background music is not itself notable, in fact it is notable in that it isn’t really noticed during the movie. Still it is there. As the tension builds in the plot, the music becomes louder and louder, causing us to sit on the edge of the seat, afraid to look, but afraid to turn away. The music tells us subconsciously to stay alert something horrible may happen. Our inner voice wants to yell “Don’t open that door!”, “Don’t get out of the car!”, “Don’t go see what made that noise”. Common sense tells us this is time for flight, not mere curiosity. In the movie world, an expendable actor or actress ventures forth to investigate the noise or phenomena that is just off screen( usually at night). The background music rises almost overwhelming the senses. Then the expendable character sees nothing and the background music goes silent, allowing us to let down our guard. As players begin to return to a place of safety, the monster strikes. Then the music begins to rise again as the previously unknown monster now goes after the stars, who miraculously escape to spread the alarm.
So what does that have to do with “Peak Oil Blues”? Last fall we were being treated to a lot of daily background music that kept rising in volume. The music accompanied some of the visuals we saw in the media. Some was anecdotal about a layoff here, a business closure or failure there, a neighbor whose house was foreclosed, or who lost a job. The music in our minds kept us on the edge of our seats. It seemed like we couldn’t open the newspaper or turn on the TV without some ominous image or story seeming to suggest that a horrible economic or energy monster was about to strike us in our prime. Suggestions of countries collapsing, whole economic systems evaporating right in front of our eyes, leaving us victims of this unfolding horror movie, were daily occurrences. These visions drove the background music to an even louder intensity. You could almost feel the tension in the air tapping you on the shoulder. Anxiety levels were rising along with the background music. The Occupy movement gave evidence that something was wrong.
Then in mid December it happened. What? Nothing! We looked around and the background music had gone silent. No longer was the music rising to the stories of diesel shortages in the northern plains and Canada. No longer did the music accompany the stories of Eurozone collapse, or Chinese economic problems. We breathed a sigh of relief and coasted through the holidays feeling free of worry over what might be out there in the night.
But did the economic and energy monsters really decide that our politicians, technology, and media were a force too formidable and slink off into the night? I don’t think so. Just within the last week noises have begun emanating from the bushes out in the darkness of the future. And the noises were not made by rabbits looking for food. First we heard the noise of the World Bank forecasting that 2012 would make 2008/2009 look like child’s play. Then another bush rustled and we heard the noise of the Nigerian oil industry on strike. And the bushes around the Middle East still continue to rustle. All we can hope for is the monster rustling in the bushes isn’t as large as the sounds it is making in the dark. Perhaps it is a really clumsy monster!
I don’t think the economic and energy monsters have gone back to hiding to plan a new strategy. I think they still remain in the bushes nearby, waiting to pounce at any moment. The old saying over the centuries has been “the calm before the storm”. I think we are now in that calm right before either or both monsters re-emerge to confront us. If you are preparing for this oncoming storm, that is great, you need to redouble your efforts. If you aren’t preparing, you need to start. You can’t effectively battle “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” (was the “Black Lagoon” an early reference to a lake of oil??) with a set of car keys and a bunch of nifty cell phone apps.
The silence of the background music during this brief calm should provide incentive sufficient for us to begin or continue to prepare ourselves for less energy, less money, less security, less food, less mobility, less comfort, less convenience, to name a few.
Those who fail to prepare themselves will be the expendable actors in this drama.
Chuck
“The big system can be pretty overwhelming. We know that we can’t beat them by competing with them. What we can do is build small systems where we live and work that serve our needs as we define us and not as they‘re defined for us. The big boys in their shining armor are up there on castle walls hurling their thunderbolts. We’re the ants patiently carrying sand a grain at a time from under the castle wall. We work from the bottom up. The knights up there don’t see the ants and don’t know what we’re doing. They’ll figure it out only when the wall begins to fall. It takes time and quiet persistence. Always remember this: They fight with money and we resist with time, and they’re going to run out of money before we run out of time”
― Utah Phillips
Graphic Source
Six Walton family members on the Forbes 400 had a net worth equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans. Source
After I posted “Sustaining Our Better Angels,” Bill Rees and I got into an email conversation, drawing into the dialogue, other wonderful thinkers, including Rex Weyler, co-founder of Greenpeace International, who decided to pull from this conversation and write an article for the Watershed Sentinel.
I would like to make a few brief comments before you read this article.
The first is what I believe are the dangers of discussing a human’s “animal nature” that require “supra-instinctual survival strategies” to overcome. My question is: Who is capable of “supra-instinctual survival strategies”? Our leaders? A few elites who can overcome their ‘baser’ instincts and see beyond their immediate needs? To quote my early post: “As people living in the wealthiest of nations, we may have, as Dr. Rees suggests, sunk to our lowest selves, become lost and destructive, plundering the planet while drowning in our sea of “stuff.” But this is simply a perverse and pervasive cultural meme promulgated by a powerful and influential oligarchy.”
It is a common strategy to dilute blame. This strategy says “We are all to blame, not just the rich and powerful.” This is horse manure. As Utah Phillips has said:
“The Earth is not dying - it is being killed. And the people who are killing it have names and addresses.”
We don’t need new institutions, trans-national powers, or powerful elites- hundreds of people making decisions for the rest of us. We don’t need to step out of our “animal nature” or be washed of the original sin of our biopsychological heritage.
Our “better angels” are not above us. They are within us, ready to be called forth.
From: Watershed Sentinel 25 November-December 2011 Environmental News from British Columbia and the World
In 2010, UBC professor and “Ecological Footprint” originator, Dr. William Rees, wrote “The Human Nature of Unsustainability” for the Post Carbon Reader, explaining evolutionary/genetic reasons that our “reasonably intelligent species” appears unable to recognize its ecological crisis or respond accordingly. Rees explains that most species share two traits that aid survival but risk overconsumption of resources:
- To expand to occupy all accessible habitats, and
- To use all available resources.
Humans are what biologists call “K-strategists.” The “K” stands for a habitat’s carrying capacity, which large mammals tend to fill, resulting in evolutionary pressure to gratify individual desires for food, sex, etc. These tendencies – to expand, consume, and satisfy short-term desires – have survival value until the species overshoots its habitat capacity. Thereafter, without a predator or other force to check growth, such species can obliterate a habitat as reindeer did on St. Matthews Island and as humans are doing on Earth as a whole.
“Certain behavioural adaptations helped our distant ancestors survive,” writes Rees, “but those same (now ingrained) behaviours today … have become maladaptive.”
Better Angels
Fair enough, thought clinical psychologist Dr. Kathy McMahon, but what about our “better angels?” Do we not, “have within us, the very innate altruistic qualities needed to work our way back to that simpler, communally-focused way of life …that will bring us back to our senses? It is happening already.”
McMahon, who posts stories of environmental trauma on her PeakOilBlues.org website, knows full well, “We’re bombarded with alarming headlines on a daily basis. How do we find the sane space between Doom and Denial?”
In a response, McMahon asks,
“Does our understanding of the economic and socio-political dominance of ‘Homo Economicus’ inform all we need to know about human nature to motivate behaviour change?” She writes, “We must pause again to ask ourselves: ‘Which humans are we talking about?’ We may need to look outside The First World for insights and broader understandings.”
This post led to an enlivened email dialogue between Rees and McMahon, a model discussion that our world needs, between two engaged thinkers. Here are some excerpts:
Rees: Kathy, thanks for your detailed and sensitive dissection …Humanity is a conflicted species … [torn] between what reason and moral judgment say we should do, and … what pure emotion and baser instincts command us to do. In “What’s Blocking Sustainability,” I suggest a way out, not far removed from your own analysis:
We have reached a crucial juncture in human evolutionary history … genes and ideology that urge ‘every man for himself!’ might well mean destruction for all. Long term selective advantage may well have shifted to genes and memes that reinforce cooperative behaviour. Emotions such as compassion, empathy, love and altruism are key components of the human behavioral repertoire. The central question is whether we can muster the… political will … [to] reinforce these natural ‘other regarding’ feelings.
To reduce the human eco-footprint, the emphasis in free-market capitalist societies on individualism, greed, and accumulation must be replaced by a renewed sense of community, cooperative relationships, generosity, and a sense of sufficiency.… We must self-consciously create the cultural framing required for the brighter colours to shine.
McMahon: Bill, thank you. We aren’t far off in spirit. I was most disturbed by no mention of corporate advertisers when you discuss the power of memes to shape thought. I substituted the word “corporation” in your article for “human” and I found the result a running, raging polemic. Here’s a sample:
Given the availability of cheap energy, regulatory relaxation, technological innovation and social manipulation, corporations became a dominant force in the human endeavor worldwide…. The size and scale of corporate growth and influence is unprecedented…. The expansionist myth is a central tenet of corporations.
The violent mindset … impacts the collective community consciousness in areas of creativity, ruthlessness, economic prosperity, inner peace, outer peace, power struggles, greed, envy, materialism and narcissism. This violent meme has so dominated discourse in the USA, that our unconscious assumptions about what is “human nature” are debased.
We have another equally powerful and “evolutionarily based” nature: altruism.
Rees: The corporate sector …spends billions of dollars to create advertising ‘memes’ that play to peoples unconscious fears, desires and insecurities… turning people into consuming cogs in the capitalist machine. In other writings, I have condemned the role of corporate advertising:
“Consumption … has become the meaning of life … the criterion of existence, the mystery before which one bows (Ellul 1975) … the consumer society was actually a deliberate social construct … a multi-billion dollar advertising industry is still dedicated to making people unhappy with whatever they have … Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life …” (From “Toward Sustainability with Justice” in Colin Soskolne’s Sustaining Life on Earth).
The same general pattern applies to the … anti-science narrative sweeping the US and elsewhere today. We have entered a “new age of unreason.” Powerful corporations and individuals (e.g., the Koch family) fund think-tanks designed specifically to mis-inform the public … [A] perverted individualism abhors laws and regulations, diminishes community and generally undermines … the public good.
In “What’s Blocking Sustainability,” I mention that repeated exposure to ideological assertions “actually help[s] to imprint the individual’s synaptic circuitry in neural images of those experiences … People tend to seek out experiences that reinforce their pre-set neural circuitry and to select information from their environment that matches these structures.”Conversely, “when faced with information that does not agree with their internal structures, they deny, discredit, reinterpret or forget that information,” (Wexler 2006, p. 180).
This is why it is so difficult to induce social change. The neoconservative right-wing has so skillfully exploited this dimension of human biology, that vast numbers of Americans and Canadians are persuaded to vote against their own interests. The entire manipulation is oriented toward protecting the interests of the owners of capital, the corporate sector and their acolytes.
There is no hope for change if we mis-define the problem and fail to understand the deep bio-psychological roots of cultural inertia. By contrast, the opposition are doing everything imaginable to entrench that inertia. If enough people come to understand… that they are being manipulated, there may be a groundswell of resistance before it is too late to turn things around.
McMahon: You’re correct that the values of Homo Economicus are deadly to the planet. But it is dangerous to confuse the dysfunction of humans impacted by global free market capitalism, with the norms of human psychology. Unipolar depressive disorders are the leading causes of disability worldwide. Is this a normal human state?
The solutions are local, not global… communities deteriorate in predictable ways, but they can also be healed systematically. “Comfort,” “belonging” and “protection” are features that all humans crave, and therefore there is no need for “supra-instinctual survival strategies.” We live in an insane culture.
Rather than marginalize the cries for reform, we need to normalize the pain. Protest and concern are healthy reactions to loss and grief … We should study those who aren’t suffering these symptoms. Those who can’t or don’t feel the loss or who don’t know why they are drinking and drugging themselves, that is the true tragedy.”
**********************
The key difference between Dr. Rees and I remains the emphasis we place on our better angels. Evil exists. However, I don’t see greed, selfishness or aggression as any more dominant than altruistic instincts. Phrases such as ‘supra-instinctual survival strategies‘ make me nervous because they suggest an elitist top-down approach to the dilemmas of depleting energy reserves, degraded environment conditions and economic hard times. Personally, I remain deeply suspicious of solutions that require thunderbolts from on high. And, you’ll see a lot of proposals out there that argue that centralized solutions are our only hope, suggesting we turn over the control to those who know better. The danger we face is not our nature, but the ease of which we see only the “knights” and miss the “ants.” The ‘shiny armor’ is the media, which shapes the discourse. The ants are all around us now, seemingly insignificant, camping out in parks, singing a new Handel hymnal about corporate greed, and paying off the K-mart holiday lay-a-way bills of complete strangers all across the USA.
I’d rather cast my lot with the ants.
Hi Peak Shrink,
I just commented on your latest blog entry and as I clicked the submit button I felt a great loss.
I can talk about my fears with my husband, but only to a certain extent. He is totally into all our simplifying and gardening and tinkering with sustainability, but out of principle (not to take what you don’t need, not to waste, to be responsible for future generations, etc.). He does not “believe” in Peak Oil, and Climate Change will be very slow, and the economic recession will soon lift.
He is an optimist: whatever problems will arise, technology and science will save us.
I wish I could be like him, rather carefree yet still doing everything to live more lightly on the earth. Sometimes I think his motivations for living so carefully are purer than mine, because my motivation is largely fear. I’m a pessimist, a Doomer, I guess, of the Do More kind, and of the kind who always smiles, you know? Forge on and tally-ho and all that!
The one time I wailed to my husband, at that terrible beginning of the ”awakening”, he understood (not the awakening, but my distress) and he immediately followed on our new path. But on most days I am combative and resourceful and there’s no time or inclination for wailing. And I find that on those days I can’t talk to him about what underlies my actions, my preparations, and it’s like he has forgotten, or can no longer believe it. Stocking up on water? Peak Oil? I don’t believe in that nonsense.
Do I *have* to cry out in order to be heard?
My other dialogue is a monologue, really, to the largely anonymous and somewhat mysterious (i.e., unresponsive) audience on my blog. But there it is the same: I talk about the actions, and only once in a while about the motivations, and only very rarely about the despair.
So my last resort was a family friend whom I trusted and looked up to. A good listener and concerned friend. I’ll never forget my first talk with him about this, when I was suddenly inspired (or rather, so hard pressed) to just lay it on the table, the raw fear in just a few words and not too many tears, and how he got it, how concerned he was, that I should live with this, and how did I, really, live with this, and please take care, take heart…
Several weeks ago he was at our house with his family and we had just installed our rain barrels. Besides the obvious opportunities for the garden I also touted our plan to do some sort of rain water purification. Why? he asked. In case the water supply fails, I said.
He rolled his eyes.
Not only do we live with the crippling fear of nothing less than the destruction of our children; we live also with the daily belittling of it by our loved ones. As long as there’s no wailing, no physical, unmistakable, forceful expression of our utterly wrecked hope… how serious could it be? How easily can it be ignored, denied?
On my resourceful days I often find myself amazed at the contradiction between my behavior and calmness on the one hand and the knowledge (or belief) I carry inside. There are many reasons for it – I can do more here with my daughter than in a psychiatric ward or drugged on prozac - but isn’t it something? What, I don’t know. I like to think of it as a feat of strength, though sometimes I suspect it is a belittling itself, even a drugging, like that strange “becalming” you speak of…
Well, this turned out longer than I had planned, but one thing is clear to me at the end of it: that you should know how important *you* are as the only active and respectful and concerned listener available to some or even most of us.
Sail on.
Tally-ho.
Hi Tally ho,
Thank you for your kind words. I really appreciate you for acknowledging the hard work I do, and it helps me feel connected to you.
You need that same acknowledgement, but not just from me.
Being emotionally ‘strong’ is great in most situations, but not defensively so in our most intimate relationships.
Your letter expresses the feelings of many of my readers. I hear your words echoed in the consultations I do, as clients express pain about the way they are treated by close friends or intimates.
Some of my readers will consider you a lucky woman to have a spouse who at least cooperates with your preps. But none of us want to be married to a willing “hired hand.” We want and need our intimate relationships to be much, much more. We need to be known to those we love. We need to feel heard by them. We need to feel understood, trusting, and safe to be ourselves when we are with them.
It is painful when, in our most important relationships, we feel discounted, mocked, or trivialized. It is a daily wound that does not heal, and it leaves us insecure and uncertain. We withdraw, become depressed or feel chronically angry and embittered. We stop being responsive in sex with our intimates, and stop having fun with our ridiculing friends. We live like strangers in our own homes, or with our buddies, needing to hide our deepest fears, and keep our opinions to ourselves, instead of turning to our loved ones for relief, comfort, and reassurance (or even lively debates!)
We are creatures of attachment, and we attach profoundly to only a couple of important people in our lives. The way (or style) of attachment we form have deep roots in the attachments we learned early on, but these aren’t childish needs. Strong attachments make us able adults. Psychologists have learned that with strong attachments, adults do better in the outside world. When our home base is secure, we feel more powerful, and are more resilient and effective in our interactions with others and in our working lives.
Basic Emotions
All over the world people experience and display at least seven basic emotions (anger, sadness, disgust, contempt, fear, interest, and happiness). They are deeply ‘hard wired’ into us, and extend back to our primate ancestors. You’ll notice love isn’t among these emotions, because it is too powerful and complex a set of feelings. Intimates do a “dance” in the way they interact and use emotions to securely attach to another. They want to answer for themselves the following types of questions:
- Do you love me?
- Are you a safe person to love?
- Is your love conditional?
- Can I depend on you when I need you?
- Will you place me above others in your life? Do I matter?
- Will you be there for me if I show you this weak and fragile person that I hide from other people?
Maintaining a long-term relationship depends on your partners’ feeling and expressing respect, admiration, and gratitude to you (and the reverse is also true). Commitment and intimacy flourish in a climate of trust, appreciation, friendship and forgiveness. These are not just “nice ideas.” They are backed by solid longitudinal research which have studied both successful and divorcing couples over several decades.
Lovemaps
In this safe environment, couples build a vision of their partner’s inner world, hopes and dreams. They don’t only know WHAT they hope for by WHY they want it- the underlying meaning. I can’t stress enough how important this is. Gottman calls them “love maps.” They are a roadmap you create in your mind of your partner’s inner psychological world.
It is the most basic level of friendship… It’s about feeling like your partner is interested in knowing you, and your partner feeling that you are interested in knowing her or him. What are your partner’s worries and stresses at the moment? Do you know? What are some of your partner’s hopes and aspirations? What are some of his or her dreams, values, and goals? What is your partner’s mission statement in life? The fundamental process in making a love map is asking questions and remembering the answers—keeping them in working memory. These should be open-ended questions that you want to know the answer to, not closed questions like “Did the plumber come?” People rarely ask questions. But when they do, it’s an invitation, as opposed to a statement, which is like “take that.” Again, there are three parts to love maps: (1) ask questions you’re interested in, (2) remember the answers, and (3) keep asking new questions.
Trust evolves as a relationship matures. Attributions are made about the partner, who is seen as reliable, dependable, and concerned with providing expected rewards to the partner; and trust implies “a willingness to put oneself at risk, be it through intimate disclosure, reliance on another’s promises, sacrificing present rewards for future gains, and so on.
Peak Oil Relationships
An awakening to the realities of the 3 E’s during an ongoing marriage have a profound impact on intimate relationships and close friendships, because they tear away that shared future vision, and replace it with something dramatically altered and often frighteningly grim or anxiously uncertain. For the spouse, I ask the Peak Oil aware person to imagine their plans to move with their family to a lovely house in delightful surroundings. Then I ask them to imagine that without discussion, your partner has sunk your money and your future into a falling-down shack in a dangerous ghetto. The experience is disorienting and confusing. How could I know so little about them? How could they change our plans so dramatically?
Gridlocked Problems
When gridlock happens in a relationship, the presenting ‘issue’ is seldom the whole story (even if it is TEOTWAWKI). Lurking beneath the “presenting issue” is something deeply meaningful, something core to that person’s belief system, needs, history, or personality. It could be a strongly held value or a dream not yet lived. No one compromises on such a strongly held issue. Compromise is impossible and feels like a ‘sell-out.’ Only when partners feel safe with one another can they talk about these issues, and express interest in knowing about them.
Grieving Lost Dreams
Sometimes we, in the Peak Oil community are so insistent on arguing for what we know to be true, that we, as you describe, aren’t grieving for all our own lost dreams that we believe are impossible. We have to be able to open up and talk about both our fears and the lost dreams we felt forced to set aside in face of a “new normal.” We have to communicate that we really care to know about the underlying meaning of the other partner’s position. This isn’t the time for persuasive arguments or problem solving. The goal is for each partner to understand the other’s dreams behind their position on the issue.
Your emotions drove you to dare to reach out to your husband and share some of your fears. You dared to ask him for comfort, acceptance, and love, to move into that future with you. In response, he was reassuring and cooperative, but you suspect that he hardly understands why you changed your fundamental beliefs so drastically. I suspect you are right. And there is part of you that wants him to understand you totally, but might be fearful about exploring it yourself. Living constantly with fear is exhausting and wears us down. You already live with your fear of the future. However, you also live with the fear of showing your most vulnerable self, the part of you that is motivated by fear, reactivity, and probably, at times, a puzzle even to yourself .
Do I Have to Cry Out?
Now you ask “Do I *have* to cry out in order to be heard?” I hear that “crying out” is hardly something you want to have to do. It sounds like you frame your fear, your sadness, your despair as vulnerabilities that are better hidden away from him. Maybe it seems easier to show him the “strong, certain” side. But is it?
You imagine that your partner is somehow better than you, for his cheerful optimism and willingness to do things “just because.” Your fear keeps you weak in comparison. Do you imagine that he sees it as his responsibility to help you become a better person? Is he ‘humoring you’ by doing these preps, so you don’t show to him the same vulnerability you did during your awakening?
The “Flawed Spouse’ Syndrome
For many of the couples I work with, one partner acts as if they believe that the problem in the relationship is because they ended up with a flawed spouse. It goes both ways, with those of us in the Peak Oil community feeling like we ended up with someone foolish enough to believe TPTB, and our ‘resolute mate’ who believe that their intimate partner ‘went off the deep end.’ In either case, the view is that we’re with someone who isn’t as perfect as we are. We try to point out the idiocy of their beliefs, opinions, or actions, but they just don’t listen. We’re showing them how they can be better, but they insist on being the way they are. Therefore, it is our job to point out their mistakes, and we expect them to be grateful for all of our efforts to improve them. When they aren’t, or they actually get hostile towards us for being critical, we are righteously annoyed. It’s our right to be, we claim. After all, if our partner would just ‘come to their senses,’ they’d see that we are right. Even worse, they’d see how miserable they are making us for being so ____ (stubborn, ignorant, arrogant, gullible, etc).
These are legitimate fears, Tally ho, because you feel them deeply. But you are afraid of having these attachments and needing him the way that you do. You are frightened that if you really open up, he will mock you, dismiss you, trivialize your concerns as “crazy”or “groundless.”
Emotions as key Organizers
Emotions are a key organizer of our inner experience and in love relationships. Emotion, we’ve come to learn, aren’t erratic intrusions into our otherwise calm relationships. Emotions shape our attachments. They have the power to move our partners and evoke new responses, just as your expression of distress did during your “awakening.” And, as my readers will no doubt notice, your husband responded to that distress. While he may not have agreed with why you were upset, for him, the pain you voiced was enough to change his behavior. You two have a strong foundation.
And over the years of living together, couples develop a “dance,” that repeats around emotional communication. In the face of emotional expression, partner’s begin to respond in predictable ways. The response is a form of communication, and a cycle develops where emotions, and the dance itself become the organizing force.
Try this during your next conversation:
(1) Notice negative emotion before it escalates.
(2) See the emotional expression as an opportunity for intimacy.
(3) Validate or empathize with the emotions your husband expresses.
(4) Help your husband give verbal labels to all emotions that he is feeling.
It is interesting to note that Gottman’s research showed that dads who follow the above strategies, called ‘emotional coaching’ were better dads and better husbands. Their children felt closer to them, and moms appreciated them more. During conflict with their wives, emotion-coaching dads were respectful, not contemptuous. They knew their wives well and communicated a lot of affection and admiration to them in the oral history interview. Apparently, good marriages and good parenting are made of the same stuff. And both are vital in hard times…
Good luck and thanks for writing.
This is such a perfect letter for this time of year, as many of you are struggling with what to give to those you love, to demonstrate your affection. While this letter refers to wedding gifts, what thoughts DO you have to address this writer’s concerns about balancing relationships needs with conscience?
Hi there Peak Shrink,
Just need to get this off my chest.
I’m a US ex-pat living in New Zealand. All members of my family of origin are in the US. So far I have missed the weddings of all of my 4 siblings, in part because I simply can’t feel good about using up that jet fuel to travel for what I see as their unnecessarily ostentatious wedding ceremonies. As tempted as I am to rave on about the details of the wedding (pictures of which I have just viewed online)– all the resources used without, I’m quite sure, a thought.– I won’t rave on about that. Everyone no doubt is familiar with all that stuff, and I know it’s “normal” and everything– just NOT NORMAL to me.
So, I feel a little guilty about not travelling to take part in what I know is a really important event for my siblings, whom I love dearly, but I feel if I’m going to use up that resource, it’d be better to do so when I can actually fulfill a critical need– like maybe I’ll fly over when my little sister has a baby because I know I can provide a really valuable service for her at that time. Better that than using all that resource just to attend an overblown party. So, ok, that decision made, here’s the next one I’m grappling with.
The wedding registry. Oye.
Whenever I go online to start shopping for my little sister’s wedding present, I feel kind of sick looking at her registry. Judgmental at all the stuff she wants or feels she needs– the electronic devices she wants for her kitchen when she can’t even cook. Ok, ok I know people who can’t cook need can openers, but electric? Why? And people who can’t / don’t cook definitely don’t need an elaborate set of top notch kitchen knives or a pastry brush, do they? I know that all this is normal. My older sister who also doesn’t cook had all this crap on her wedding registry too. And at that time I just grit my teeth and bought her that espresso machine, thinking at least she won’t drive 10 minutes to go down the street and get her latte every day, right? Wrong. She still drives the couple of blocks to get her daily latte. The machine is too hard, and nobody walks in LA, so she seems to think.
My idea was this: f**k the registry. I’m getting the newly married couple The Transition Handbook. At least someday they might be compelled to use that. I may be depressed or something but it’s truly the only thing that I can think of that will actually be of use to them in the long run.
But they’ll think its crazy. And the wedding has already happened and I am too anguished to have sent them a gift yet. It’s not that she will sort of hate me or think it’s really awful if she doesn’t get a present from me, it’s just… how to describe this feeling.. first of all: my sister is really dear to me I want her to know I love her and support her marriage. Second, I’ve spent most of my life being the odd one out amongst my family, and I’m tired of being yet again the only one who doesn’t this or does that and stuff. Or the only one who worries about things that they assume can’t be changed anyway. On the other hand, it simply feels wrong to support this unreasonable consumption. And yet I also feel guilty because I also over-consume. I have a different standard, but I’m still embarrassingly affluent and wasteful, and I’m also reproducing, and have hugely increased my use of resources since having a baby. So who am I to judge?
It’s complicated.
What it comes down to is I wonder if anyone out there has come up with a wedding gift that isn’t just ridiculous, and that actually really means something.
Thanks for the website, it’s just perfect.
With appreciation,
Gift Giver in Dilemma
I am amazed that those of us in the peak oil community have been able to come to any consensus or perception regarding the dilemma before us, considering the amount of inaccurate and conflicting information that has been spread in front of us. Were this 20 years ago without the power of the internet, I’m certain none of us would have any awareness of peak oil. Our perception would be that the glass is full, unless somehow told otherwise.
We are all familiar with the question, “is the glass half empty, or half full?” Perception of the economic and energy environment around us elicits the same wide spectrum of responses, even though the information we are receiving is similar. Many will perceive no existing problem; “the earth is half full of fossil fuel resources”. Another group will be alarmed; their perception is that “the earth is half empty of fossil fuel resources”. There is yet another group that will see nothing at all; they are consumed by their own personal issues or the trivia of life.
If the information we were receiving were unbiased and not manipulated for political or corporate purposes, perception of the economic or energy environment could be debated intelligently. However, our perception is being manipulated along with the information that we are receiving. There is an old saying in the information technology world; “garbage in—garbage out”. It is very difficult to perceive an understanding of a complete situation if we have only partial information, or if the available public information is corrupted.
On June 1, 2009 Air France flight 447 departed Brazil en-route to Paris. Halfway through the flight something went terribly wrong and the aircraft was lost with all 228 on board. Subsequent recovery of the flight data recorder from the bottom of the Atlantic this spring revealed that multiple airspeed sensors had iced over, with each sensor reporting erroneous airspeed readings. The autopilot computers were programmed to disengage when multiple conflicting readings were detected and revert to manual control. The experienced pilots could not perceive the aircraft’s true condition from the erroneous and conflicting information, thus the aircraft remained in a dangerous attitude that several minutes later resulted in its crash.
We have great difficulty today developing an accurate perception of our own energy and economic environment. Like the highly experienced pilots of the ill fated Air France flight, we are being bombarded with wildly gyrating information. Crude oil prices are up, but the price at the pump is way down. Corporate profits are down but the market is up. The economy is recovering but more people are unemployed. Even “experts” are confused because energy and the economy are in unusual positions not seen before.
Fortunately, we in the peak oil community have been exposed to some highly trained and experienced people who have worked as detectives piecing together the information needed, allowing us to do our own homework regarding upcoming dilemmas, and their possible personal impacts. Our general knowledge will not guarantee that we remain calm when the majority is panicking. What our declining economic and energy homework will do, is allow us to make wiser choices today.
The peak oil community has perceived for a long time that turmoil would accompany declining energy, and that the economy would mirror that turmoil. Keep searching out information, to help you formulate your plans. Try to be an observer of the turmoil and panic, not a participant.
It appears the turmoil has begun, or is very close.
Chuck
Every year about this time, little snow globes with winter scenes, snowmen and Santa appear on store shelves. As long as they are not disturbed the “snow” stays at the bottom of the globe. Shake the snow globe, and you have an instant blizzard. Fortune tellers, on the other hand, have frequently employed crystal balls to foresee the future. So what happens when you combine the two globes?
You get a situation that gives a glimpse of the future from current events that occurred during an intense snow storm. On Oct 29, the Northeastern part of the US was blanketed by a very heavy snow storm, unusual for its intensity this early in the winter season. The trees, still having their fall foliage, acted like giant strainers, catching and trapping much of the heavy wet snow. Predictably, the snow laden branches came crashing down on power lines all over the Northeast, blacking out large areas. The state of Connecticut was especially hard hit, the second time in as many months.
At first the inconveniences of the power outage were endured for a few days. Not only were residences affected, but the business sector was also powerless from the effects of this intense storm. After three or four days, people were becoming impatient, especially in hard hit Connecticut. After about a week of being without power, the public was getting very upset with the pace of power restoration, complaining loudly and frequently to their government officials and the utility. What made them even more distressed were the daily pronouncements from the utility and government officials that the power will all be restored “tomorrow”. Tomorrow came and went, in the dark. Even today, some 15 days after the initial snow fell, there are isolated places in Connecticut without electricity.
Being without electricity is very distressing. I know from experience. In 2005, we had an ice storm in early January that knocked out power in our neighborhood for 9 days. It was an eye-opener to see how dependent we had become on the genie in the wall outlet.
Peering into this combo snow globe-crystal ball of the Oct 29 storm, what can we foresee? Well, I think we can see what the public reaction will be when we start having energy shortages in the fossil fuel sectors. First, there may be annoyed resignation over the service stations being out of fuel. After three or four days pass and still no fuel, annoyance may turn to anger. After seven or eight days, anger may give way to rage. The public won’t have the visual reminders that a snow storm has left behind. Instead, there won’t be any fuel energy, and the sky may be sunny, and the birds are chirping. The culprit for their discomfort won’t be anywhere in sight. Public and private leadership will be passing the same information, “Tomorrow, everything will be restored”.
We in the peak oil community keep wondering when someone in leadership, either in the government, or in industry will own up to the dilemmas of peak oil. The truth is, they never will utter the words “peak oil”. To do so would beg the questions of “Exactly what did you know, and when did you first learn of it?” and “Why have you done nothing to prepare for this situation?”
What comes after rage? It all depends on the individual, and their circumstances in life. You may have rage turn to action, such as the Occupy movement. That will probably not be as effective or visible, because the fuel won’t be as available for them to travel to a point of protest. I believe rage will morph into fear. As the realization that a “normal” tomorrow isn’t likely a part of our future, the fear will encroach on everyone’s lives. People with great fear are prone to making all sorts of bad decisions, even those in top levels of government.
I feel we will see much of our remaining resources squandered, both individually and collectively, in an effort to re-establish some kind of familiar normal. The only way I know to prevent this type of activity personally, and calm some of the butterflies in our stomach, is to do a little something every day, every week, every month to prepare you for the inevitable decline in our energy futures.
We know in the peak oil community, that the day of permanent loss of personal fossil energy is drawing close. By preparing now for this future, we are letting the “snow” in our personal snow globe settle out, so we can see our choices for the future clearly. Most, unfortunately, will be trapped by the “snow” in a physical, mental, and emotional blizzard within their personal snow globes and therefore see no future. Our society is in for great turmoil, the likes of which we have never seen.
Take a sheet of paper. Write one thing you have done in the last 30 days to prepare for the future. If the page is blank, then my crystal ball sees a blizzard in your personal snow globe.
A snow shovel won’t help!
Chuck
Over 150 years ago, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, wrote a poem about a famous battle in the Crimean War. The poem was called “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and many of us had to read it in high school or college. One passage was called to mind this morning as I scanned my usual news sources.
Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
Today, instead of cannon, we can substitute turmoil. It seems that economic turmoil is firing volleys of bad news at us from one side, political turmoil fires volleys of bad news at us from the other side, and energy turmoil is loading up directly in front of us. Environmental turmoil continues to snipe at us from behind every rock.
Many of the Light Brigade 157 years ago knew their plight to be very dismal indeed. But as the poem said “Boldly they rode and well”. I have begun to see a weak connection between “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and those of us who have been on active duty in the peak oil community for a while.
There are many similarities between the “peak oilers” and the soldiers of Light Brigade. The Light Brigade was few in number, some 600, as recorded in the poem. We in the peak oil community find our number to be far less than needed for the magnitude of the energy shortage challenges approaching. Large caliber media cannons fire at us from every side. Governmental agency cannons fire at us repeatedly, from behind a very thick “smoke screen”. Corporate cannons fire at us from behind “smoke and mirrors media campaigns”. Our closest associates snipe at us from behind every rock. And yet, we continue pressing forward, for we know that there is no going back to the life of wasteful energy usage. Yes, we ride boldly forward with many of us having been wounded by ridicule, or apathy.
The Charge of the Peak Oil Brigade bears many similarities to the Light Brigade, and yet there are many differences too. The field across which we must ride recently filled with economic land mines, a problem the Light Brigade did not have to endure. We cannot anticipate what exact effect these land mines will have as we charge the challenges of peak oil. It is one thing to prepare for a peak oil future when the economic ground beneath our feet remains firm. It is totally another when we have to proceed with small steps, analyzing every inch of ground for fear that the path ahead of us may explode at any moment.
One trait common among the soldiers in the peak oil community is battle fatigue. The survivors of the Light Brigade knew this well. I think that on a regular basis, I really need to stop and step away from the issue a bit and rest, but I find myself drawn back to the issues and preparations like a moth to a porch light. Fighting a war on one front is hard. Fighting a war on two fronts is extremely difficult. We are engaged in wars on both the economic and energy fronts while contending with environmental issues as well..
I think that the large scale Occupy movement erupting all over the US, and now spreading to the rest of the world is a collective cry for relief from economic battle fatigue. Even those still employed are developing this malady, afraid to open emails from the boss on Fridays, afraid to watch the evening news, afraid to open the business section of the newspaper, afraid to look at their bank and credit card statements, and afraid to open their quarterly 401k statement.
What can we do to combat this battle fatigue? I find that working with my hands towards a long term sustainability goal is a great stress reliever. Peak Shrink has encouraged us to take a break from the talking heads on TV, as well as the peak oil sites when things seem to be overwhelming. Good advice. You can’t stick your head in the sand and leave it there like 98% of the population, but you must maintain balance in life. Like the old saying we used to hear; “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” The version that we need to consider is “All Peak Oil and no play makes Jack very mal-adjusted”.
We could combat economic battle fatigue by joining a protest movement like the Occupy group, but I think that beneath the surface we realize the economic battle fatigue has roots further down than the financial institutions, The energy monster is what we peak oilers most fear. Gathering in front of banks would soon be recognized as a fruitless venture for us.
How is our charge to proceed? Everyone can’t do everything, but everyone can do something. This statement will have to be our marching order going forward. We will need to build our community around us and share the things we can do with others, as they in turn share with us. This is our only practical formula for combating energy and economic battle fatigue.
All the soldiers of the Light Brigade had great fear for the immediate future before them, but they were determined not to be defined by their fears and battle fatigue.
Is your sword at the ready, or is it rusty?
Charge!!
Chuck
My Mom just died.
It wasn’t unexpected or sudden. She was very ill, and it was a relief for all of us that she wasn’t in pain anymore.
But it’s my Mom, and now she’s dead.
I realize, like a lot of things, my mind knows one set of facts, and my emotions know another set. I can revert emotionally to being a five year old in seconds, even while a moment earlier I was calmly and maturely saying “It was a relief. I’m so glad she’s not suffering anymore.” I’m tearing up while I write this, so I know it’s true.
And adjusting to being an “orphan,” (“having lost both parents,” as one of my friends calls it) takes a while. One friend told me that a group of elderly ladies mentioned that after losing your mother: ”at six months you’ll take a turn, and at one year, you’ll take another turn.” That helped me to hear that. It gave me space to grieve and feel confused and then feel okay about feeling like crap. Waking up at night. Tearing up unexpectedly.
I realized that was the reason I started this blog: to let people know that if they feel like crap, that’s to be expected, and that they’ll find themselves feeling like this or that for a while and finally taking a few turns along the way.
I like the phrase “turns.” It isn’t saying “You’ll feel better.” I know some people in the Peak Oil movement say “It will be a BETTER life without fossil fuels” but I think that’s like my saying “At least she’s not suffering anymore.” Yes, it has some truth to it, but it is hardly the entire story, and no, it doesn’t make me feel any better. The five year old in all us doesn’t wants the planet to suffer AND we still want the ease of life that comes with oil. We want our cake and we want to eat it, too.
I had a good and loving Mother. She loved being in that role, and it was the only job she ever really wanted. She was happy being in the home, with her own mother and siblings as neighbors, all living in the town they grew up in. She was the youngest in a big family, and she could turn to her older sisters for help when she needed it.
She started life as a young girl in the twenties, no doubt an easier time for her family before the first Great Depression. Both parents were immigrants from Nova Scotia, and her father’s mother still lived on a farm there. Several of the kids were born on the farm, while he traveled home to build a home for his mother. My Mother was one of the kids born in Canada.
Her Dad was a finish carpenter, which, like now, wasn’t the most lucrative of professions. People needed the work done, but didn’t have the cash to pay for it. His attitude, the story went, was “Pay me when you can” which kept him working, and sent his kids to bread lines. Bread lines were so shameful an act, they were vigorously denied, when my Mother recalled them to her older sister. She told me that the two older sisters quit high school to become servants in the homes of wealthier people. Those two kept the family fed and allowed the younger kids to complete high school with clothes on their backs.
They lived in a town close to Boston, because my grandmother lost a three year old to flu she blamed on “living too far out and not being able to get a doctor.” She refused to move out to the “woods” that later became a wealthy suburb with an excellent school system. The town they settled in became annexed to Boston, but never lost it’s “townie” flavor. It did, however, inherit Boston’s school problems, but that was much later.
She tells a story about her father bringing home guests unexpectedly for dinner during those Depression years. Word would be whispered from child to child: ”Don’t take a pork chop.” I assume, as the youngest, she remembers this well, because it meant she didn’t get a chop of her own for that meal. She also recalled cardboard in her shoes, to block the holes, and a mother who baked bread because her father “didn’t like store bought. It tastes like dough.”
Her father helped each child (or son-in-laws) build their homes, which was paradoxical, because he never built or owned his own home. Ours was one street over from my her mother’s rented apartment and one sister. Another lived across the street. I have a picture of my Dad and I, I was a toddler, holding a finishing trowel with cement on it and another standing in a gravel driveway. He was young, handsome, and smiling. He was 35 years old then, nine years on the Boston Fire Department, and contributing to overpopulation with 4 children to raise and one on the way. Earlier that same year, he was commended for his courage for attempting to rescue a drowning seven year old boy. I saw the picture of him as he carried out the boy’s body in his arms. The anguish on his face is an image that has never left me.
My Mom married a man capable of that kind of courage and deep feeling.
My maternal grandfather, like my father, was a fanatic about things being built right. The house I grew up in-the only house I grew up in-was kept in tip-top shape, and until he grew too old, my Father sanded down the white paint on the shingles before he repainted it white once again. I pity the people he’d hire, who had to paint it to his standards later on. It may have been why he had it vinyl sided. Nobody painted it to his standards.
The people who bought it got an incredibly built and meticulously cared for home.
My Mom, who has what we’d now call “Attention Deficit,” would also never live up to those kinds of standards. But I was very fortunate to have parents who were still very much in love, even after a quarter century or more of marriage.
My Mom never excelled in housework, but she could be silly and fun. I’m sure she was also a very sensuous wife. Here’s a picture of her (would you say it was the late 40′s or early 50′s, based on the fabric and style of the suit?) in all her glamour. Look at those red lips!
Despite her beauty, she wasn’t vain. My Mother bought new clothes for her children each holiday season, but never for herself. In the early years, when money was tight, she’d tailor the older children’s clothing to fit the younger kids, but wear her old coat from one year to another. Notice in the picture below that the coat she’s wearing doesn’t fit her. She has to hold it together for the picture. That was typical of her.
My mother and her sisters were fabulous bakers, like their mother. They’d get together for the children’s birthdays, and an entire table was filled with sweets, all made in their kitchens. They’d bake the mini-sandwich rolls and assemble the ham salad. The house would be full of presents and kids running around. Ditto for Christmas, which had to be moved to the church hall when the family got too big for anyone’s individual house. Those were the 1950′s and early 1960′s, when America was rich with oil, and returning veterans had jobs to come home to.
I know about life with a loving Mom. I know about life with plentiful cheap energy. Both make me feel good, and not having either one of them sucks. While I have no choice but to live without one currently, and to live with another in shrinking supplies and rising costs over time, I don’t have to like it or think it is “better.” It is life. It is what happens. Mature people deal with it, cope with it, manage the feelings and go on. But they don’t have to “look on the bright side.”
No, they don’t.
They have to adjust to it, and accommodate to it. It’s part of life. Nothing really can prepare you for it. It happens. And you just have to live with it the best you can. And over time, you’ll adjust.
My Mom
Thanks for sharing so much of your life with me, Mom. I miss you. We all do.
Kathy
“The Peak Shrink”
Several weeks ago my attention was drawn to the many news clips of engineers climbing around on the Washington Monument looking for potential earthquake damage. My thoughts centered on the idea that they must have nerves of steel, titanium steel at that. It is one thing to be on a tall skyscraper separated safely from outside danger by thick glass or a sturdy fence. These four brave souls had nothing between themselves and danger other than a rope, safety harness, and physical strength and training, along with a focused determination to succeed.
Many will consider their exploits as being fool hardy or reckless. To take such personal risks today may seem unnecessary in our high tech world. I’m certain that these experienced engineers have heard the same kinds of statements for years. Some of their nerves of steel are no doubt reserved for dealing with the critical and uninformed words of the public.
It occurred to me that most of us will have to acquire nerves of steel to deal with our futures. It is unlikely that any of us will be called upon to dangle from a rope 500 feet in the air while performing some function. Our nerves of steel will have to be honed to cope with daily economic calamity coupled with energy shortage. There will be no protective barriers between ourselves and the danger of dwindling energy and economic resources. As time passes, we will find ourselves precariously dangling by a rope above a great unknown. This will require the same degree of nerves of steel that the engineers are using daily in their job.
So how do we go about developing the nerves of steel needed for the future? First of all we must realize that we don’t develop nerves of steel quickly. None of the engineers on the Washington Monument were in their first week on the job. They had trained for years, learning the skills of climbing. They had practiced with their equipment many times and learned from experience its limitations. To the entire world it looked as though they were out on the sides of the monument all alone. In reality, another behind the scenes team was at work on the other end of those ropes, assisting them in their function.
Our quest for nerves of steel will require much the same degree of planning, preparation and support that these courageous engineers possessed. We can’t procrastinate until the day the first “Out of Gas” signs appear in our gas stations, the food shelves are empty, or our debit cards don’t work in the ATM, to begin our planning and preparation. As with the engineers on the monument, much of that work occurs between the ears, well in advance of the challenge. Without such advance planning, we will have to work with nerves of glass or worse.
Secondly these engineers had practiced many times before on much smaller challenges to develop their skills and confidence. They did not crawl out of the windows onto the sides of the Washington Monument with all of their advance planning, see the ground for the first time and allow their fears to overpower their advance preparation. We must do the same. We must become familiar with the tools that we are likely to depend on in the future. We must determine if our water filters will indeed produce clean water. We need to find out if we have a green or a black thumb when it comes to growing food. We can’t assume that we will quickly acquire those skills when we need to use them. If you can’t hit a nail with a hammer today, you need to practice using a hammer now. Otherwise, our nerves will turn to jelly when confronted with our own version of the Washington Monument.
Finally, these engineers were not cubicle or office dwellers all the time. They had to keep working with their primary tool, their bodies, strengthening and conditioning themselves to be able to perform the tasks that lay in front of them. I will be the first to admit that I dwell in the chair too much, graze in the refrigerator all too frequently and that my physical stamina is far less than it should be. Simple walking can go a long way toward getting you started. I ride a bike, but not as much as I need to. Admitting my shortcomings does nothing for my getting into shape. I have to take conscious action in order to obtain useful results. What kind of simple action will you strive to begin with me today to get ready to meet the challenges ahead?
These engineers didn’t accomplish their tasks alone, and neither will we. We will need the help of others on the opposite end of our rope. They can’t be helpers on Facebook, on the other side of town, or out of state. They must be close at hand. Peak Shrink, and many others, have been constantly advising us on the criticality of community in the future that we all face. That is not just geographic community in terms of dwelling between city limit signs, unless yours is a small community. It is the community of your closest neighbors. In the urban setting, one or two blocks at most. In the rural setting it may be within a couple of miles around you. We will have to pool our resources to obtain the skills, transportation, protection, and daily sustenance that we all will need. Hanging a label of introvert on yourself will not assist you with meeting the life challenges ahead. You will need to step up and step out to begin building that necessary community around you. In our neighborhood, one neighbor was moved several years ago to invite people living around them into their home once a month for a pot luck dinner. Eight or nine families now regularly come together to eat and fellowship every month. We share our aches and pains, our skills and resources, our victories and our failures, and now also a sense of belonging. This simple gesture has collectively developed in us nerves of steel attitudes, for we are not facing the future challenges alone.
Your personal Washington Monument is dead ahead. It may not be 550 feet high. It may only be 50 feet high, but it could also be 1000 feet high.
What will you begin doing TODAY to develop your own nerves of steel, and to prepare you to conquer your own upcoming Washington Monuments?
Chuck
I don’t know about you, but these past couple of weeks have been a real roller coaster for the economy. Amusement parks would be hard pressed to come up with a ride as scary as this past week. Not only was the economic ride a scary one here, it was scary in most of the developed world as well. Unfortunately this ride is far from being over.
It was interesting to see some people going through the past weeks totally oblivious to the wild economic gyrations, while others reacted negatively to its many ups and downs. The latter group looks desperately for some indication that the ride is about at its end. Many are beginning to realize that this wild economic ride is just getting started, and you can see the realization in their faces and hear it in their conversations. Even the talking heads of the media are showing a few extra wrinkles in their brows.
There are many indications that the economic roller coaster has just paused briefly at the top of a small rise before it starts a breathtaking dip again. This time there may be upside down loops, tight high speed curves, dark tunnels, and lots of yelling. Despite our begging for the scary ride to end, it will continue on. The media talking heads will exhaust their phrases to describe the indescribable.
Much of the developed world bought tickets for this ride many decades ago. We were seated in the cars and the bar lowered to our laps to secure us in place as it started. Now the ride is underway and there is no stopping place to get off of the economic roller coaster. The leaders in the first cars keep shouting instructions. If we would just lean this way or that way at the same time the ride will smooth out. We know deep inside that none of these exhortations will have any effect, but we half heartedly do them anyway.
Seated along with us in this Economic roller coaster is our riding companion, Energy. With every severe dip of the coaster, Energy gets a little sicker. In the dips, there is less capital for exploration and development, and Energy becomes less and less of what it was at the beginning of the ride.
At some point in time, the economic roller coaster will coast into the platform (coast being the operative word) and we will get off, spent and feeling ill. Then we will discover that we still have to get on the remaining Energy roller coaster for more fun than we can stand.
Many who rode the economic roller coaster of the Great Depression, finished their ride vowing never to get on it again, and spent the rest of their lives saving everything, and accumulating great quantities of “stuff” around them. Unfortunately, they had to endure the horrors of war after their economic ride was over. Fortunately they didn’t have to get on another roller coaster after finishing the first. We won’t be so fortunate.
Watching the public hand wringing after this past week’s ride I wonder what the future holds when we hit the next gut wrenching drops and turns. For the most part the ride will be unpredictable; when we think it will go up it will go down, when we think it will go right it will go left. This will challenge our mental state, creating internal stress and discomfort. The only advice I offer is to take a deep breath, tighten your seat belt, stow your tray table and return your seat back to an upright position, the path ahead appears to be turbulent and noisy.
We too, can survive.
Chuck
