(1) Don’t put storage food, or any doomer supplies on a credit card.
On second thought, don’t put anything on a credit card, if you can help it, and if you can’t, buy less stuff. Get out of debt is still one of the most useful bits of advice any Doomer can offer to another.
(2) Don’t call yourself a “Doomer” in polite company, and never at the company you work for.
While there are now really cool blogs out there with names like “Canadian Doomer,” and the “Conflicted Doomer” “Doomer” should be a used as an inside term for those you know really well, and who have a sense of humor. Everyone else will just think you are a weirdo.
(3) Don’t spend your life on the internet researching doom.
I know, I know…there is so much to learn. But you also need your sleep, and to spend time with your family and friends. Clearly spending more than the majority of one week-end online researching, more than four hours a day after the first two weeks, or more than four hours a week by the end of the third month, anxiously online, researching, researching…after you learn about this stuff, should clue you in that it is time to check your assumptions. If you are still spending an hour or more a day reading the Doomer news and commenting in chat rooms, after year two, try to find something more productive to read or learn about, like horse shoeing or pruning fig trees. News doesn’t change that quickly, and the time you are spending reading this stuff, you could be spending doing other stuff that is likely to be more helpful to you.
Doomer porn doesn’t count, as most of us consider it relaxation. Limit the Doomer documentaries to a few movies a week and DON’T force your children or spouse to watch them with you. You can ask, just don’t insist, or play it so loud that the “doomer message” will creep into their subconscious. That will just annoy them.
(4) Don’t make any major life transitions you weren’t going to make anyway, during the first 24 months of learning about the 3 E’s (energy depletion, economic hard times, and environmental problems). You are likely to do so driven by fear, and not by careful thought.
(5) Don’t scare your children.
If you’re not sure whether or not to talk about certain subjects with your kids, ask your spouse, and then do so carefully with kids under 14. You might think they “need to know this” to counterbalance the negative messages they are getting from the media, but they don’t. You are the parent, and you don’t need doom to restrict their access to mindless electronic entertainment. Put a kid-positive spin on any bad news.
(6) Nobody, not even your most favorite writer, knows what is best for you, or what you should do to keep yourself safe.
That’s because nobody knows the future, even if we Peak Oil writers think we have a good idea. Every decision you make will have an advantage and a drawback. You can store hundreds of pounds of wheat, and then learn you are allergic to it (ask me know I know). Take everything more slowly and weigh the pros and cons of your decisions.
(7) Don’t tic off your extended family.
I know your brother-in-law is an idiot-know-it-all, but that’s just your opinion. Acting competitive with him, or ignoring him at family gatherings, just alienates yourself. Do your best to get along with all of your family members, especially the ones who take the most pleasure in telling you how much the economy is improving, or how the fall of the Euro will boost the US dollar.
(8) Don’t talk about your own spouse or put down other people’s spouses in chat rooms.
Unless of course you want to say how wonderful he or she is, and that will only make other people jealous or think you are a braggart or a liar. And when it comes to someone else telling the group what a “sheeple” his/her spouse is, remind them of how rude that word is, or just keep silent. Chiming in with agreement is a no-no.
(9) When you are absolutely feeling totally isolated, like nobody within a hundred miles ever heard of Peak Oil, don’t get depressed.
Offer to run a movie series at your local library for free. Even if one person shows up, show the movie anyway. That person is the start of your community. The End of Suburbia is always a good choice. Leave time for people to talk to one another, and make sure it is a “series” so people get more than one shot at coming.
(10) Talk about your feelings, not just the facts, when broaching this subject with your life partner.
And take long pauses to breath, and see if they have anything to say in response. If you find yourself providing college lectures, instead of discussions, complete with quizzes, maybe you aren’t really communicating. Feelings can and should be met with sympathy and support. Facts can be debated. With you life partner, you need the support, more than the intellectual challenge, at least initially. And give some sympathy back, if you see a frightened person starring back at you, wondering who has taken over your mind.
What about you? Do you have any tips for the New Doomer you’d like to add or would you like to take exception to anything I’ve warned about?
Kathy
About Kathy McMahon
I like points 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 9. I don’t talk much about my feeling but about the facts and the need to take certain decisions as a family. Probably because my husband tends to be more rational, and I don’t want to scare him with my bi-polar reaction about Peak Oil.
I would add some tips that are working for me (I’m pretty new at this too):
1. Use some perspective: it is not the end of the world and nobody really knows how all will develop. Panic and anxiety are usually the first reactions, but it is good to know that many other countries have gone through this and that history is full of collapses. Live goes on and people are much more resilient and resourceful than they think they are.
2. Be thankful and enjoy what you have now: thinking on what you won’t have will bring the feelings of loss to the present. I enjoy what I still can do and have around me: I still have a job, a house and a computer with Internet. I have access to music and live in a beautiful area. I still can enjoy hot water and watch a movie once a week. We may not have access to all that in the future, so enjoy what you have now while still switching to a simpler and more sustainable life: we cut the cable, but we watch documentaries and movies on Netflix once a week, for example.
3. Carefully choose who to share the news with. Same as your doubts and feelings. I felt isolated and needed to talk. I found a few forums where I can read post and relate without jeopardizing my identity or that of my family. I am known as “weird” at work, but I don’t push it: I don’t want to lose my job or be considered as crazy by my colleagues
4. Analyze your family situation: start with the finances and check your access to water, food and energy to cook and heat your house. Analyze your neighbourhood cons and pros. Also check for safety.
5. Make a plan and prioritize what you need to learn, based on your analysis above. The plan can also include the things you may need to have as a “must” such as an alternative way to cook and heat, water and food supply.
6. If you are strong enough, imagine the different scenarios. I play with this as a way to be prepared. This is not new for me, it is not “Peak Oil” related. I have done this for years: it produces some adrenaline, but helps you to respond to things if they really happen. Imagine a drill or “mock” where you would go over the different things that may happen: “what if…”. It works for me, and it keeps my mind sharp.
7. Accept your own reality as t is: many of us don’t have enough money or time to learn certain skills, buy gold or put solar panels, move to a farm or change careers. Do what you can with your own reality: can you start a community garden? Take a First Aid course? Teach budgeting and how to cut spending at a local high school? Volunteer at the Disaster response team in your community? Create a co-op to start sharing skills and tools with your neighbours? Ride a bicycle to work or at least around the block? De-clutter and have a garage sale and then use the gained space (and money) to stock food and water?
All great suggestions, Silvia.
Having news breaks – sometimes called “news fasts” (Wordspy defines as: The deliberate avoidance of all forms of news media, particularly to relieve stress and relax the mind.) can be helpful to people who feel pressured to check up on the news 10 or more times a day. It becomes a repetitious pattern, almost a compulsion.
Not sure what you mean by “bi-polar reaction” to Peak Oil…
I wasn’t using the term (bi-polar) as it is used in psychology. But my reaction at what we call “Peak Oil” (including financial breakdown, potential disruption of major systems such as transportation/communication, food, water, power, etc.) swings from maniac (trying to get into three volunteering projects, de-cluttering the house to make room for six months of food supply, reading blogs/books and abandoning studies) to depressed (nothing that I can realistically do will be enough, and we have no time/no money to do anything what’s required).
With time, it has moved to another place: now it swings from analysis/gaps assessment and action (trying to start a community garden, slowly doing the things that can be done), to “I need to know more” (back to checking blogs/forums/continue reading books) to find “the clue” of what exactly will happen, when and how and how we can be prepared (even when I already know the answers: nobody has the crystal ball, but it’s coming, and I can only do so much with the resources I have).
That’s my bi-polarism, which can be sometimes nerve-wracking even to me.