Dear Diary: I Can No Longer Pretend That Practically Everything Is Not, Indeed, Unravelling
My first entry in my secret diary that's also on the internet, because this is totally a way to make sense of the ignorable fact of civilisation collapse. Right?
Staring at the waves
Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
Feeling…is existentially bereft a feeling?
Dear Diary
The last time I wrote about the Unravelling of Practically Everything, it was the 1990s. I was an angst-filled teen. My diary was a luridly fluorescent fluffy notebook (remember those?) And the Practically Everything that was Unravelling'was the chance of Tom Darch being my boyfriend, on account of him repeatedly calling me "Jabba the Hut", with arm gestures of 'jiggling', until I ran into the girls’ toilets burning with misplaced shame.
It's a quarter of a century later that I write to you (in you?), Diary, seeking comfort once again. This time the Practically Everything that is Unravelling is, in my humble opinion, of far more significance than the teenage cruelty of Tom Darch.
“Was his teasing before or after the commencement of the eating disorder which would dominate your life and choices for many years to come? I have an archive of especially painful memories from this time which I can pull up immediately, if you like"
Diary... our world, life as we know it, is collapsing. We are facing an unprecedented existential crisis.
No, really.
A mind-boggling mix of ecological devastation, economic instability, social fragmentation, and dangerously unstable power dynamics have convinced me beyond doubt that Practically Everything Is Unravelling.
Collapse, in the way I think about it, is the disintegrating of our biosphere, systems, structures, institutions, ways of being, modes of thinking, and ways of relating
A more formal version that I read somewhere but can’t recall where now (so does that mean I’m not allowed to share it?) might be "the breakdown of societal structures, economies, environmental systems, and social cohesion under the strain of human overexploitation, unsustainable practices, and depletion of natural resources" intensifying economic inequalities"
I like Jem Bendell's description. His work has shaped my understanding of The Unravelling of Practically Everything and he describes collapse as "an uneven ending of our normal modes of sustenance, security, pleasure, identity, meaning, and hope”.
Huh.
Less than a year ago my life was 'normal' (where 'normal' means blithely uninformed about the realities of collapse and diligently plodding toward whatever milestone capitalism said I had to achieve next so that I may feed and clothe and shelter myself...all the while dealing with a persistent gnawing sense of impending doom...and my hair was inexplicably falling out....so, y’know…normal) until (first by ego-driven coincidence when taking a course in systems thinking to be better at work, and then continued by somewhat masochistic self-organised compulsion) I started to learn about all...of this.
Since then everything I thought I knew, everything I unquestioningly relied on, and everything I innocently thought would last forever is falling apart. This includes our planet, the way our society works, and the basic systems that provide us with food, jobs, shelter, leisure, and meaning.
Even my own beliefs about the world and myself are breaking down.
Which is not a bad thing…
After all, If I am not, as my institutionalised Western conditioning would have me believe, a self-interested consumer of extractive products looking to maximise output in a great race towards death in an inert universe...then who am I?
“You are nothing and no one and you will die alone and this diary is stupid"
I am still very new to this. A mere infant in the journey of collapse-awareness. Collapse-awareness! It's a thing! A stage! If my collapse-awareness were a baby, it would be a tiny one trying to roll over with earnest but still being periodically sick on itself. That's how life feels, a bit.
I need to talk about it, make sense of it, untangle it... but I'm somewhat inconvenienced by the inane tendency for us humans to ignore enormously complex issues that have no clear enemy for us to funnel our hate toward.
The niggling, annoying, intrusive part of my inner world: the critical voice, the ego, whatever it's called, does not like what's happening one little bit and has been louder and more of a pain than ever.
Not only is learning about The Unravelling of Practically Everything causing a tightly gripped worldview to disintegrate, taking my identity, my ego, my whatever-it-is along with it, but this inner chattering-thing is preventing me from talking about what's happening because of the pervasive belief that anyone discussing societal collapse is an eccentric preparing for an apocalypse. The inner-ego-identity-voice-thing thinks I'll be searched for extra tin foil to make hats, dismissed as a weirdo, shunned, rejected, exiled.
"And rejection means death! You will die!"
I want to understand what's going on. I want to talk about it with others, and share worries, resources, fears, ideas, funny collapse memes, and cuddles. Why don't we cuddle more?
"Cuddling means emotions and feelings and that's bad for business"
It strikes me as awfully peculiar — dangerous, even — that we are not talking about a matter of such utmost significance as the survival of the planet.
As my collapse-unaware friends go about their collapse-unaware lives, racking up the milestones set by capitalism, too distracted, disinterested, tired, or worried about the cost of living crisis to consider the breakdown already underway across our civilisation, too necessarily focussed on maintaining their existence to hang out with me and cuddle —
"No cuddling!!"
— I am here, instead, with you, dear Diary. Your role is as my emotional support animal, but a notebook. My emotional support notebook.
"Clearly this is on the internet and not a notebook. Your attempt to be cute is utterly pathetic"
My entries are not supposed to be original, insightful or solution-focused. If someone who was already informed about collapse and breakdown happened to come across this diary, they would probably find my discoveries frustratingly obvious.
“And you’d be rejected again!”
But if other collapse-aware-noobs happened to find it lying around, perhaps they'd be a little comforted or reassured, perhaps a little less disorientated, knowing they are not quite as alone as they thought in all of...this.
I'm trying to untangle the jarring, bewildering, utterly disorientating worldview-tilting realisations I am having as I keep seeing more and more about how the elements of our global civilisation intersect and compound.
I'm finding it hard.
Apart from those moments of peace, relief, calm or gratitude that I can't explain yet. They're weird. And those rare bursts of joy… what the hell are those?
I want you, dear Diary, to keep me company. To provide comfort if not answers. To help me make sense of all this maddening weirdness, if 'sense' can even be made ever again.
Be there for me as my understanding grows and I discover new things, as more pieces of the extraordinary puzzle of our planet, history and each other come together.
Welcome me with your clean fresh pages as I cry and be confused and hurt and conflicted and want to get really sodding drunk or high before I remember I am nearly middle-aged (I think? When does 'middle age start?) and have no idea where to get drugs from anymore (among other good reasons for why getting drunk or high is not always the best response).
Help me discern which tools, people or resources that I come across are actually helpful and not-bullsh1t.
Support me as I figure out my next steps in the world and what is mine to do.
(And help me with whatever else is supposed to happen when Practically Everything is Unravelling)
And if you can do anything about the brain noise, that would be quite nice.
"As if you just wrote all that self indulgent nonsense. Why is there always a problem? Can’t you just get on with life, like everyone else?”
XOXO