Hopless Messicus

What does it mean to prepare for the collapse of our petroleum laced convenience anti-culture? The easy answer is to learn how to grow your own food, but that's too easy. Growing food isn't easy but that answer is. "Ohh, just learn how to grow your own food, that will prepare you for the end of petroleum!!" Now walk out into your yard (which is probably surrounded by zombies) scratch the sod off and plant some seeds. Wa la...or as Merlin might say, "hockity pockity wockity wack." Now just go back into the house and turn the television back on secure in the knowledge that food is on the way. Well you might want to make sure that you have at least planted something that is going to yield a lot of energy...like taters. Now all we have to do is get everybody in this anti-culture to start planting taters in their yards and we'll all make it...won't we?

While the taters are growing, let's look at a few more items of concern for our petroleum people in this petroleum society which is made possible by...well...petroleum...and corn. The reality is that we have become fat and gooey in our air conditioning. About those taters that we just planted. It's wonderful that we don't have to worry about such things as colorado potato beetles or any of those other pesky pest insects. Let's not forget a few other factors we would have to worry about if it were not for technotriumphalism. Factors such as the unknown affect of GMO's on humanity, migrating insects that are in the wrong place at the wrong time due to the changing biosphere, or soil that looks more like the wore out innards of an elder prostitute. If it were not for those scientists out there pounding the "manipulating physical reality with cute gadget" pavement, we would have to worry about subjects like the laws of thermodynamics and biology.

Did you hear that ding? It was the sound of the potato that just got cooked in the ground. Thanks to nuclear power plants that are just leaking radioactive shit to beat the band out there in Aikido land, we no longer need microwaves to nuke what little bit of nutrition was left out of them taters. Now our genetically modified tater chips can add some nice radiation to our diet. Who needs radiation therapy any longer when you can just buy it for .99 cents at your local convenience store, and with free monosodium glutamate. Wait...but isn't that fighting the cancer causing agents with cancer? Okay, I'm confused. Phew...it's a good damn thing that high fructose petroleum sugar green guilt gulp drinks are so cheap. If they weren't so cheap, I might have to drink that even cheaper rain water complete with every fucking toxin you care to guess at. You know the space brother's are close when the rain water ain't fit for human consumption and we've got zombies chewin' each other's faces off on the side of the interstate due to "bath salts." Whatever the fuck that is...is that the slash and burn Walmart Meth that's causing all of these zombies? Is it true that people go to Walmart and gain everything they need to manufacture meth while there? And is it true that they even make the meth there and then use it and leave? I heard that was true.

Our world has past the point where fiction can go. Orwell and Huxely didn't even envision zombies chewin' each other's faces off as reality...at least not to my knowledge. Is this really reality now? I heard another story that broke my heart the other day. I heard that if you go to jail your gettin' strip searched. Better not go to jail for any reason. It's a good thing that the police can't just pull you over for no reason and then take you to jail because you are suspiciously acting suspicious. It's also great news that the federal government can't show up and take you away for doing nothing wrong. Wait...so you can get pulled over by the law for no reason and then never be seen or heard from again? It's a good thing I don't have a job to drive to, or I might have to put myself at risk of never being heard from again for no reason. I guess it really doesn't matter because just being alive gives you cancer these days. What a fucked up prize to inherit. It's a wonder I'm not a pessimist, or facetious for that matter.

We need to learn to let go as a species, and I'm not talking about Buddhism here either. I'm talking about learning to let go of the leisure we have all grown accustomed to for the last 100 years or so. I suppose the "middle class" didn't exist until after the second world war. That means this illusion we have been living in has only existed, this time around at least, for roughly 70 years (there's always the possibility that technologically advanced civilizations existed on Earth and vanished with no trace...like Atlantis). Everything we know as normal about society these days ain't even old enough to have died from old age yet. It's gettin' there though isn't it? Think of all of the things about our technopoly that we take for granted every second of every day. Drinkable running water (you won't die from a waterborne pathogen at least), electrical outlets, personal motorized transport, food that magically appears sterilized in grocery stores, climate control, free entertainment at your command, telecommunication technology. I could go on, but I've gone on long enough.

Knowing all of the above, who would remain optimistic about our future? Or as Archimedes might say, "Whoooo...I'ddd like to know Whoooo" (I've been brainwashing my son and I with Disney's Sword in the Stone"). My wife has baby fever now that my son's learning to use the potty. I'd love to have another child for many reasons. However...see above. The world is a clusterfuck and the prognosis is continual clusterfuck status for the next 100 years or so, and that's being optimistic. If we are to listen to magi's such as John Michael Greer, then we've got another 300 years before something like a steady state world will exist. That's 300 years of worse than the year before, for members of civilizations at least. I keep thinking that I need to inject some hope into this blog, but I can't seem to stop paying attention to reality. I feel like a fraud when I try to muster up some happy shit to say about the future.

I'm marinating in a permaculture tribe right now. I'm making connections with real people in person. The only problem is that I have to drive 70 miles to participate. I have to go up the mountain. How am I supposed to do this where I'm at? There's nothing but zombies out there...chewing each other's fucking faces off. They don't even have the decency to do it in private. That's the reality that I'm supposed to fight with optimism. I'm supposed to start my own tribe here in Stupidville, where they water their plants with electrolytes and they can't figure out why they won't grow. Where they think their vote for president counts and Coca Cola is good for them when they are sick. They go to the Dollar General to buy their sustenance for cryin' out loud. Let's not forget the shit house rat crazy southern baptists Christians that are the majority. These are people who like to spend their time exercisin' demon's in retard tongue. They don't have to worry themselves with reality because Chebus is coming to save them. It's enough to make a grown man cry. A majority class of people who never left their childhood.

I want so badly to believe that the 100th monkey is going to arrive for humanity before it's too late. Yet I know that it's already to late. What do you do when hope becomes gossamer delusion? Sometimes sadness is appropriate and healthy, and our society is a sad mess. There's a very real human drive inside of me to do something about this fucked up prognosis. I am doing something about it, but men can't be islands unto themselves. So I want to get on with it. The shit has already hit the fan but society is to anesthetized on stupid and ignorant to notice or give a shit. How am I supposed to grow a tribe in Stupidville? I can't leave because leaving takes letting go of any sense of stability on my families part. My wife and I fantasize about becoming gypsies, but it's just fantasies. This is where learning to live in the moment comes in handy. Much past the present moment and your just trying to kick water up hill. Why do we insist on trying to kick water up hill on our way to Hopeless Messicus?  I'd like to know.