It’s laying down the stick you’ve been beating yourself with and realizing you can still plant a garden, write a poem, or watch the damn sunset while the scaffolding falls.
Collapse doesn’t cancel meaning. It just strips away the illusion that meaning was ever dependent on winning.
What if I’d rather try my very best to prop up the scaffolding so it won’t fall? I may not succeed entirely, but I’d rather do something about it to the bitter end.
Seth, some of us are holding the beams because if they fall, people get crushed. Others are tending the roots so there’s something left when the beams give way. When you’re standing between harm and thousands of lives, you don’t get the luxury of choosing one or the other. You brace and you plant. You protect and you imagine. That’s how you keep the scaffolding from becoming a coffin.
If the Scaffolding collapsing means we can build something better in its place once its cleared away, then I’d certainly let it fall and protect who and what I could so they could live to see the good results. :)
Such a beautiful and perfect articulation of where so many of us are at these days.
"You could describe someone in the acceptance phase of collapse as collapse-adjusted. Psychologists say that when we accept death and loss, we don’t just get over it. We learn how to integrate it into our lives. We still miss who and what we lost. We still feel sadness, anger, fear, despair, regret, and everything else. Those emotions simply don’t control us anymore. We learn how to manage them."
"We feel grounded again."
It's not "giving up" and saying "do nothing". Something I get accused of all the time because my articles never end with a "hopeful" message.
It's acceptance of "what is" and integrating that into your perception and understanding of the world you live in. Which, I think, is an incredibly valuable thing.
Excellent essay, thanks for expressing with such clarity what so many of us are feeling/going through.
Watch out for the relapses into depression. It's a real bastard.
Yes, I started my day with a relapse akin to depression, but the universe somehow made sure your message found me. Such gratitude for your wisdom, Jessica.
I think that with Trump's takeover of DC by the National Guard, we are now a fascist police state. Some are saying he's trying another distraction from Epstein, but i think it's much more. I've heard a few people say that a lot more bollards, Jersey barriers, and permanent steel fencing has been going up around federal buildings. Keep a close eye on this.
I agree. Maybe a future article: I'm getting a little tired of people obsessed with issue X saying everything else is a distraction from the thing they want everyone to care about. Seems like most of us, at least on here, understand that at this point, every "distraction" is its own terrible development. So, yep, a sexual predator and convicted felon serving as president of the U.S. has effectively blocked investigation into his crimes and, to consolidate power, has started deploying the military to American cities. Seems like every word in that headline matters.
And every word does matter. We're going to see repression and violence that is beyond anything this country has seen since the Civil War. It's going to be a real wakeup, and Trump's followers will not be spared.
I think a lot of us who are still in the reality based community can see and disregard the distractions. I don't want to sound ageist, but this of us educated before the Reagan years are better at seeing through this.
Very well said, Jessica. We are perfectly capable of giving every grave development the attention it requires (whether or not we can maintain our sanity throughout is the question). It’d be great if MSM joined the fight, but that’s why we’re on Substack, I think.
Dealing with collapse emotionally is an individual process. Perhaps the greatest variable is age. Witnessing it at age 25, 45 and 75 are extremely different, and some of us want to run towards the danger, while others want to run away. Once you see collapse is inevitable, you can lose the heavy sense of responsibility. Lately, in my own writing I'm trying to newly figure out its purpose. In four short years the situation is profoundly different. Good luck to all of us trying to find peace in the madness.
Yes as we age, some of us begin to come to terms with the reality that our life is finite and it will end. I think that is why I can feel sad about Collapse, while knowing that I ultimately have no control over it. I find it incredibly helpful to talk to others on substack, because no one I know in my day to day life will face what’s ahead - all my liberal friends still worry about trump but think he will ultimately be defeated. But no matter what happens politically, the die is cast for the collapse of climate as we know it and all that entails. I still go to protests and support the resistance to the trump regime, because it is the Right Thing to Do.
As we get older we learn to be gentler with ourselves…
Thank you sister Collapse-Adjusted, for putting into words so eloquently what people need to know about how to get through the coming times. While there are those ups and downs, I have found more peace and fortitude as collapse-adjusted than I’ve known before I became a survivalist in 1970.
Aging brings its own revelations and challenges, but I’ve faced no life challenge greater than acceptance that I am living in an extinction event. I still actively engage against it all: the billionaires acceleration of what will come and the tyrants brutal, hateful treatment of people. But acceptance that it’s pointless now to rage and weep and dwell in guilt has become a sort of final enlightenment in my life.
I share your pieces with family, friends and social connections out of love, hoping when they eventually need to deal with what is coming, your words will help them process and adjust so they can still function and find all joy available to them.
Very nice post. Collapse takes quite awhile in human terms but a blink of the eye in geologic time. I think that it's a Buddhist quote 🤔 when I write "what do you do before enlightenment? Chop wood and carry water. What do you do after enlightenment? Chop wood and carry water. " We must live according to our own creed and principles.
Thank you for your honesty. I have acceptance some days. It's taken me decades. I started with guilt I'm pretty sure. And I get angry still. But I've been reading about the stoics and it has helped, slowly. And I re-read Cormac McCarthy's The Road recently and allowed myself to completely lose it, which is so cathartic and I recommend it.
I’m never going to accept that we’re all just going to die off someday after everything humanity has been through. I believe we can still persevere through any crisis that comes our way, even if it takes a lot of pain and suffering. I want to live in a world where people are truly free, can coexist with one another, and aren’t dominated by greedy billionaires. I wanna raise a family that’ll last for generations and inherit a good, stable world. I’m never gonna give up on the prospect of a better world that me, my children, my grandchildren, and whoever comes next, will be able to live in and prosper.
I won’t try to say you or anyone in this comment section are doomers or overly negative, I get it. Seeing so many terrible things, its understandable to believe the end is inevitable. I hope you are all able to find peace in that, but me personally? I’d much rather go down fighting, knowing I did everything I possibly could to make a better world, and maybe inspiring others to do the same, than just wait to die knowing its never too late…
Do you think there’s a point in fleeing to, say, Kenya or Ghana? I have no desire to go to a European/western country. And it would take us selling any and everything, if that would even be enough to get us there. I keep alternating between acceptance and feeling like we have to get out of here.
Anywhere in Sub Saharan Africa is likely to be a bad choice. It gets hit FIRST by the warming climate and food production is predicted to drop dramatically.
By 2035 at +2°C, agricultural outputs are projected to decline about -60% and 2/3rds of the population could be starving.
Yes, Africa is getting hammered, plus there are serious wars to consider. Where to go is an article in my mind, but there's no escape, it's all relative. Certainly choosing a place with adequate water is a priority now.
Yes, sorry to say I agree with Jamie. After four years of studying climate change and more recently overshoot, I am 90 percent certain too many points are tipped.
Sarah- the cognitive behavior folks tell us that flight, flight, float or freeze are our very natural responses to trauma.
My sense is that we are being re-wilded. I do not respond to the current crisis as something to react to in a way that will preserve my life.
We humans are not at all in control. We might make a way for our own lives as best as we can, but the far more important consideration is whether or not we are willing to be re-wilded.
Mother Earth will rewild us all.
Earth and Sky are our source and also our destiny.
We belong eternally and we are beloved forever.
Do not flee or fight or freeze or float unless your heart tells you to do so.
We are each here for only one reason.
We are here to love.
It doesn’t mot matter if I tak one more breath or else live for a thousand years. If I do not love, it is nothing either way.
If I love, it also does not matter whether or not I live for another nanosecond or for another thousand years.
Sarah, your sentiment “flee” is a good one, I suspect your specific choice of location less so (though none of us know - we humans need diversity in action to improve the chance of a better end-outcome).
I say “flee” is the right sentiment as that is how humans/hominids (in fact all life) survived up until perhaps 12k years ago. Then as a species, we stopped fleeing, most settled down in one place and developed a sense of “possession”. Therein lies our end-story.
There is an old saying, 'Don't run away from, only run to.' I have found it good advice.
It means don't just flee, but choose the place you want to be and, in the current circumstances, I'd say choose it carefully.
Obviously try to work out a place with a reasonable climate even with the fast climate heating, and a reliable water supply and rainfall. But also you need to fit in and that means being culturally similar and, because racism and cultural and religious differences do exist, to find somewhere where you'll be accepted.
Two of the hardest parts are language, because it takes so long to learn a new language, and earning money, not least because that generally means being competent with the language.
Lot's to think about. But when all that is said, don't be put off, make your move to where you want to go, ideally where you have always dreamed of living, and then MAKE it work. Good luck!
In the kingdom of heaven, the least will be the greatest.
I don’t suggest this as some posthumous comfort - but that the North will probably suffer a lot worse than equitorial regions. The higher latitudes are warming at much higher rates than equitorial. I remember diving through a wildfire area near a wildfire in Oregon a few years ago - It was 2 hours of burning eyes and sneezing. That was in a closed car driving at 70mph - if I lived in that area, it could have been fatal.
Any data on Uruguay? I haven't found much in the English language press, and Rioplatense Spanish is much more difficult for me than the dialect I grew up with in Tucson.
Anywhere North of the 45°N parallel which runs through Michigan in North America, France, Croatia, Mongolia, and Xinjiang in China should be temperate enough.
The South isn't as suitable because there’s much less land. Yes, there are isolated spots, usually elevated, where it will be possible to thrive. But 99% of the action will be North.
I very much appreciate this article. I seem to be stuck in a loop of all the stages but have not yet found an offramp to acceptance, even for a little while. I just get stuck in trying to decide how to resist this authoritarian takeover, and, ultimately, whether it’s even worth trying, considering the acceleration of collapse it brings with it.
Why should I fight to keep a toxic system? How much of my time do I wanna spend enjoying what little future we have left? How much time should I be spending fighting for those who don’t have the privilege that I do, so that they too, can have some joy in the remaining time?
Jessica’s piece lands squarely on the nerve that most commentary on collapse dances around, that we are not just “preparing” for disruption, but we are metabolizing the death of the world we thought we’d live in. It’s not about bug-out bags and rain barrels, it’s about grief literacy in a culture that pathologizes grief.
What she’s describing is not surrender. It’s what happens when you’ve burned through the adrenaline of outrage, the bargaining rituals of “just one more policy change,” and the puritanical guilt of “I should have done more.” Acceptance isn’t apathy, it’s triage for the soul. It’s what lets you plant a garden knowing you might never harvest it, and still find the act worth doing.
The people who call this “giving up” are the ones who can’t face the loss. They think hope is a mood you can will into existence, when in reality, hope is an action - and sometimes that action is choosing to rest, to create beauty, or to hold your community together in the face of what’s coming.
Collapse acceptance doesn’t mean you’ve stopped caring. It means you’ve stopped pretending.
Well here we are. The National Guard is in DC. If he can do this in DC, he will most certainly do this in a major American city. Now we know why he pardoned New York City Mayor, Eric Adams.
But wait there's more...Every insane move this administration has made this summer is not part of the campaign platform that lead to his unfortunate re-election. So, what is going on here? Jeffrey Epstein introduced Melania to Donald through his construct that the Miami Herald interrupted years ago. Taking over DC and all of these other distractions is designed to keep that from coming out. It is in the files.
I have grandchildren. Their parents are in denial. I suppose I am a bit, too, or at least a certain "forgetfulness" when I imagine seeing them grow up and be happy. But mostly I am raging right along with you...for them. And for how it all could have been prevented.
Jessica, acceptance isn’t surrender.
It’s laying down the stick you’ve been beating yourself with and realizing you can still plant a garden, write a poem, or watch the damn sunset while the scaffolding falls.
Collapse doesn’t cancel meaning. It just strips away the illusion that meaning was ever dependent on winning.
What if I’d rather try my very best to prop up the scaffolding so it won’t fall? I may not succeed entirely, but I’d rather do something about it to the bitter end.
Seth, some of us are holding the beams because if they fall, people get crushed. Others are tending the roots so there’s something left when the beams give way. When you’re standing between harm and thousands of lives, you don’t get the luxury of choosing one or the other. You brace and you plant. You protect and you imagine. That’s how you keep the scaffolding from becoming a coffin.
If the Scaffolding collapsing means we can build something better in its place once its cleared away, then I’d certainly let it fall and protect who and what I could so they could live to see the good results. :)
Such a beautiful and perfect articulation of where so many of us are at these days.
"You could describe someone in the acceptance phase of collapse as collapse-adjusted. Psychologists say that when we accept death and loss, we don’t just get over it. We learn how to integrate it into our lives. We still miss who and what we lost. We still feel sadness, anger, fear, despair, regret, and everything else. Those emotions simply don’t control us anymore. We learn how to manage them."
"We feel grounded again."
It's not "giving up" and saying "do nothing". Something I get accused of all the time because my articles never end with a "hopeful" message.
It's acceptance of "what is" and integrating that into your perception and understanding of the world you live in. Which, I think, is an incredibly valuable thing.
Excellent essay, thanks for expressing with such clarity what so many of us are feeling/going through.
Watch out for the relapses into depression. It's a real bastard.
I think I just went through one, or at least a round of intense futility. :)
Yes, I started my day with a relapse akin to depression, but the universe somehow made sure your message found me. Such gratitude for your wisdom, Jessica.
I think that with Trump's takeover of DC by the National Guard, we are now a fascist police state. Some are saying he's trying another distraction from Epstein, but i think it's much more. I've heard a few people say that a lot more bollards, Jersey barriers, and permanent steel fencing has been going up around federal buildings. Keep a close eye on this.
I agree. Maybe a future article: I'm getting a little tired of people obsessed with issue X saying everything else is a distraction from the thing they want everyone to care about. Seems like most of us, at least on here, understand that at this point, every "distraction" is its own terrible development. So, yep, a sexual predator and convicted felon serving as president of the U.S. has effectively blocked investigation into his crimes and, to consolidate power, has started deploying the military to American cities. Seems like every word in that headline matters.
And every word does matter. We're going to see repression and violence that is beyond anything this country has seen since the Civil War. It's going to be a real wakeup, and Trump's followers will not be spared.
I think a lot of us who are still in the reality based community can see and disregard the distractions. I don't want to sound ageist, but this of us educated before the Reagan years are better at seeing through this.
Very well said, Jessica. We are perfectly capable of giving every grave development the attention it requires (whether or not we can maintain our sanity throughout is the question). It’d be great if MSM joined the fight, but that’s why we’re on Substack, I think.
The trajectory has been set....like a runaway train..
I believe .. there is only One who can stop this .....
Dealing with collapse emotionally is an individual process. Perhaps the greatest variable is age. Witnessing it at age 25, 45 and 75 are extremely different, and some of us want to run towards the danger, while others want to run away. Once you see collapse is inevitable, you can lose the heavy sense of responsibility. Lately, in my own writing I'm trying to newly figure out its purpose. In four short years the situation is profoundly different. Good luck to all of us trying to find peace in the madness.
Yes as we age, some of us begin to come to terms with the reality that our life is finite and it will end. I think that is why I can feel sad about Collapse, while knowing that I ultimately have no control over it. I find it incredibly helpful to talk to others on substack, because no one I know in my day to day life will face what’s ahead - all my liberal friends still worry about trump but think he will ultimately be defeated. But no matter what happens politically, the die is cast for the collapse of climate as we know it and all that entails. I still go to protests and support the resistance to the trump regime, because it is the Right Thing to Do.
As we get older we learn to be gentler with ourselves…
I often feel like you’re in my head
It's my superpower. :)
Thank you sister Collapse-Adjusted, for putting into words so eloquently what people need to know about how to get through the coming times. While there are those ups and downs, I have found more peace and fortitude as collapse-adjusted than I’ve known before I became a survivalist in 1970.
Aging brings its own revelations and challenges, but I’ve faced no life challenge greater than acceptance that I am living in an extinction event. I still actively engage against it all: the billionaires acceleration of what will come and the tyrants brutal, hateful treatment of people. But acceptance that it’s pointless now to rage and weep and dwell in guilt has become a sort of final enlightenment in my life.
I share your pieces with family, friends and social connections out of love, hoping when they eventually need to deal with what is coming, your words will help them process and adjust so they can still function and find all joy available to them.
Very nice post. Collapse takes quite awhile in human terms but a blink of the eye in geologic time. I think that it's a Buddhist quote 🤔 when I write "what do you do before enlightenment? Chop wood and carry water. What do you do after enlightenment? Chop wood and carry water. " We must live according to our own creed and principles.
Thank you for your honesty. I have acceptance some days. It's taken me decades. I started with guilt I'm pretty sure. And I get angry still. But I've been reading about the stoics and it has helped, slowly. And I re-read Cormac McCarthy's The Road recently and allowed myself to completely lose it, which is so cathartic and I recommend it.
I’m never going to accept that we’re all just going to die off someday after everything humanity has been through. I believe we can still persevere through any crisis that comes our way, even if it takes a lot of pain and suffering. I want to live in a world where people are truly free, can coexist with one another, and aren’t dominated by greedy billionaires. I wanna raise a family that’ll last for generations and inherit a good, stable world. I’m never gonna give up on the prospect of a better world that me, my children, my grandchildren, and whoever comes next, will be able to live in and prosper.
I won’t try to say you or anyone in this comment section are doomers or overly negative, I get it. Seeing so many terrible things, its understandable to believe the end is inevitable. I hope you are all able to find peace in that, but me personally? I’d much rather go down fighting, knowing I did everything I possibly could to make a better world, and maybe inspiring others to do the same, than just wait to die knowing its never too late…
Well said, Seth.
This might be of interest https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_TVe2-qoN2rDsCFYYecPNdvjNI85L9vAGiHVTMfdOA4/edit?tab=t.0
NB I am NOT selling anything. Please organise this for me :)
Do you think there’s a point in fleeing to, say, Kenya or Ghana? I have no desire to go to a European/western country. And it would take us selling any and everything, if that would even be enough to get us there. I keep alternating between acceptance and feeling like we have to get out of here.
Anywhere in Sub Saharan Africa is likely to be a bad choice. It gets hit FIRST by the warming climate and food production is predicted to drop dramatically.
By 2035 at +2°C, agricultural outputs are projected to decline about -60% and 2/3rds of the population could be starving.
Yes, Africa is getting hammered, plus there are serious wars to consider. Where to go is an article in my mind, but there's no escape, it's all relative. Certainly choosing a place with adequate water is a priority now.
Go North!
Just not too far, Canada is on fire again. : (
there is no place on Earth... that is not showing the effects of climate change now...
it`s only going to increase in intensity & frequency..like Jamie Walden said..." The Water has broke "
Yes, sorry to say I agree with Jamie. After four years of studying climate change and more recently overshoot, I am 90 percent certain too many points are tipped.
Sarah- the cognitive behavior folks tell us that flight, flight, float or freeze are our very natural responses to trauma.
My sense is that we are being re-wilded. I do not respond to the current crisis as something to react to in a way that will preserve my life.
We humans are not at all in control. We might make a way for our own lives as best as we can, but the far more important consideration is whether or not we are willing to be re-wilded.
Mother Earth will rewild us all.
Earth and Sky are our source and also our destiny.
We belong eternally and we are beloved forever.
Do not flee or fight or freeze or float unless your heart tells you to do so.
We are each here for only one reason.
We are here to love.
It doesn’t mot matter if I tak one more breath or else live for a thousand years. If I do not love, it is nothing either way.
If I love, it also does not matter whether or not I live for another nanosecond or for another thousand years.
Only love counts.
Only love matters.
amen....
Sarah, your sentiment “flee” is a good one, I suspect your specific choice of location less so (though none of us know - we humans need diversity in action to improve the chance of a better end-outcome).
I say “flee” is the right sentiment as that is how humans/hominids (in fact all life) survived up until perhaps 12k years ago. Then as a species, we stopped fleeing, most settled down in one place and developed a sense of “possession”. Therein lies our end-story.
There is an old saying, 'Don't run away from, only run to.' I have found it good advice.
It means don't just flee, but choose the place you want to be and, in the current circumstances, I'd say choose it carefully.
Obviously try to work out a place with a reasonable climate even with the fast climate heating, and a reliable water supply and rainfall. But also you need to fit in and that means being culturally similar and, because racism and cultural and religious differences do exist, to find somewhere where you'll be accepted.
Two of the hardest parts are language, because it takes so long to learn a new language, and earning money, not least because that generally means being competent with the language.
Lot's to think about. But when all that is said, don't be put off, make your move to where you want to go, ideally where you have always dreamed of living, and then MAKE it work. Good luck!
In the kingdom of heaven, the least will be the greatest.
I don’t suggest this as some posthumous comfort - but that the North will probably suffer a lot worse than equitorial regions. The higher latitudes are warming at much higher rates than equitorial. I remember diving through a wildfire area near a wildfire in Oregon a few years ago - It was 2 hours of burning eyes and sneezing. That was in a closed car driving at 70mph - if I lived in that area, it could have been fatal.
Any data on Uruguay? I haven't found much in the English language press, and Rioplatense Spanish is much more difficult for me than the dialect I grew up with in Tucson.
Nope:
Head North
Anywhere North of the 45°N parallel which runs through Michigan in North America, France, Croatia, Mongolia, and Xinjiang in China should be temperate enough.
The South isn't as suitable because there’s much less land. Yes, there are isolated spots, usually elevated, where it will be possible to thrive. But 99% of the action will be North.
I’m just south of the 45th parallel. Like, just a couple of hours south. So staying put makes the most sense for us after all.
I very much appreciate this article. I seem to be stuck in a loop of all the stages but have not yet found an offramp to acceptance, even for a little while. I just get stuck in trying to decide how to resist this authoritarian takeover, and, ultimately, whether it’s even worth trying, considering the acceleration of collapse it brings with it.
Why should I fight to keep a toxic system? How much of my time do I wanna spend enjoying what little future we have left? How much time should I be spending fighting for those who don’t have the privilege that I do, so that they too, can have some joy in the remaining time?
Your posts help immensely, Jessica. Grief, indeed. I’m not at acceptance yet. I’m somewhere between depression and anger.
Jessica’s piece lands squarely on the nerve that most commentary on collapse dances around, that we are not just “preparing” for disruption, but we are metabolizing the death of the world we thought we’d live in. It’s not about bug-out bags and rain barrels, it’s about grief literacy in a culture that pathologizes grief.
What she’s describing is not surrender. It’s what happens when you’ve burned through the adrenaline of outrage, the bargaining rituals of “just one more policy change,” and the puritanical guilt of “I should have done more.” Acceptance isn’t apathy, it’s triage for the soul. It’s what lets you plant a garden knowing you might never harvest it, and still find the act worth doing.
The people who call this “giving up” are the ones who can’t face the loss. They think hope is a mood you can will into existence, when in reality, hope is an action - and sometimes that action is choosing to rest, to create beauty, or to hold your community together in the face of what’s coming.
Collapse acceptance doesn’t mean you’ve stopped caring. It means you’ve stopped pretending.
Thank you. I’ve been thinking about hope a lot lately and these words ring out to me. Hope is an action.
Well here we are. The National Guard is in DC. If he can do this in DC, he will most certainly do this in a major American city. Now we know why he pardoned New York City Mayor, Eric Adams.
But wait there's more...Every insane move this administration has made this summer is not part of the campaign platform that lead to his unfortunate re-election. So, what is going on here? Jeffrey Epstein introduced Melania to Donald through his construct that the Miami Herald interrupted years ago. Taking over DC and all of these other distractions is designed to keep that from coming out. It is in the files.
Howard I doubt anyone who doesnt see this already is able to see anything. It's simply a question of how rigged the midterms will be (I suspect; very)
Agreed, one should take a look at Texas and the obvious attempt to permanently control the state.
I have neither acceptance nor hope. I am raging. No help at all.
I have grandchildren. Their parents are in denial. I suppose I am a bit, too, or at least a certain "forgetfulness" when I imagine seeing them grow up and be happy. But mostly I am raging right along with you...for them. And for how it all could have been prevented.
There is hope
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_TVe2-qoN2rDsCFYYecPNdvjNI85L9vAGiHVTMfdOA4/edit?tab=t.0
I’m still in the anger phase but do understand where I need to be. It’s not easy.
Perhaps the trick is to be patient with yourself. Accept it takes time. Forgive yourself for your anger, and other people too (harder!).
G_d that's well put.