An Exhaustion setting in

[Tyy1907]

Posted by Olam (here)
Thanks everyone for the replies, it's great to see I am not alone with all this.
I have come to a point of not even knowing what I am supposed to do here in this life.

Now, just to be clear, I'm not suicidal , I wish to live this life fully, and I know that ending the journey short will only make me start over so I'm going nowhere. Now this is the problem, I feel I'm stuck here.
My 30 year career is over, I have 3 months of funds left, I have no motivation to start over.
Of course I can find some simple minimum wage job, but I'm not here to work and pay taxes.

So I have been asking God, universe, Jesus, all angels, deceased relatives, what is it that I am here for? ( Still have no clue but at least I could pay rent)!...lol
I have no tv so these people don't drain me out, but I'm an empath and I get burnt out just being outside around people.
Anyhow, there must be a reason for all this, all I hope is that I find out soon enough before I totally give up and live by the minute.
much love to everyone, let's see soon hopefully what's on the other side of this rubicon....

I say it's more exausting to figure out why I am here than trying to survive the month financially.

In a broad sense we're all here to bring light into the world, in whatever way(s) we choose. If you're pressing for answers keep on pressing I say. You have every God given right to not only ask but receive something in response to your yearning. Your asking. What I found after 35 years is belief in the divine AND belief in the self is REQUIRED in order to, how do I say, go to the next level with respect to making things happen in your life through divine connection. Knowing your true standing in the eyes of the almighty and knowing the almighty is already within you. Always has been. Trust in yourself and yours heritage, seek and you will find.

[Harmony]

I really love how everyone is sharing with such heartfelt genuine sincerity.


So much disappointment felt over the past year or so, seeing the world heading in a direction that a part of my inner self is screaming out to stop, wrong way, go back. The feelings of truly being in some place where I just don’t fit in.


The feeling of having been thrown into a movie where I have no idea of where I am and who are some of these people in the movie I no longer recognise and where are they going. Although I have always felt that way on some level, as I know many others here have as well.


Since this whole episode of the acceleration of pushing people into “the reset”, the recognition right from the start that it was apparent that the biggest problem we would face was convincing others around us that something was really not right with what was happening.


I realise that maybe on some level others would disagree, but it feels so unfair because of the false information that has coerced people everywhere around the globe to follow the piper into the unknown.


I keep my alignment with what I feel is my highest guidance, know that I have help, listen to the heart, stay aligned, and just keep getting up, even if you feel down, with a kind of inner trust that even if you can’t see around the next corner you know you will be ok.

[Bubu]

Posted by Olam (here)
Thanks everyone for the replies, it's great to see I am not alone with all this.
I have come to a point of not even knowing what I am supposed to do here in this life.

Now, just to be clear, I'm not suicidal , I wish to live this life fully, and I know that ending the journey short will only make me start over so I'm going nowhere. Now this is the problem, I feel I'm stuck here.
My 30 year career is over, I have 3 months of funds left, I have no motivation to start over.
Of course I can find some simple minimum wage job, but I'm not here to work and pay taxes.

So I have been asking God, universe, Jesus, all angels, deceased relatives, what is it that I am here for? ( Still have no clue but at least I could pay rent)!...lol
I have no tv so these people don't drain me out, but I'm an empath and I get burnt out just being outside around people.
Anyhow, there must be a reason for all this, all I hope is that I find out soon enough before I totally give up and live by the minute.
much love to everyone, let's see soon hopefully what's on the other side of this rubicon....

I say it's more exausting to figure out why I am here than trying to survive the month financially.

Live by the minute is what all of us should be doing.

[Johnnycomelately]

Posted by Harmony (here)
I really love how everyone is sharing with such heartfelt genuine sincerity.

Gotta say, this is the ‘misery loves company’ thread.

[Harmony]

Posted by Johnnycomelately (here)

Posted by Harmony (here)
I really love how everyone is sharing with such heartfelt genuine sincerity.

Gotta say, this is the ‘misery loves company’ thread.

I see this thread as sharing so as not to feel alone in difficult times. Many members have experienced great difficulties during the past two years.

Letting others know of ways to uplift your mood, strengthen your inner commitment or to not fall into despair, or just accept there are times we feel saddenened by what we experience or are witnessing can sometimes lighten out load. We are not alone, and that in itself can bring strength and solace in sharing.

[Johnnycomelately]

Posted by Harmony (here)

I see this thread as sharing so as not to feel alone in difficult times. Many members have experienced great difficulties during the past two years.

Letting others know of ways to uplift your mood, strengthen your inner commitment or to not fall into despair, or just accept there are times we feel saddenened by what we experience or are witnessing can sometimes lighten out load. We are not alone, and that in itself can bring strength and solace in sharing.

Could be, Harmony. I have had some difficulties in the past few years, and in retrospect am glad that no one stoked my pain. Lucky I guess that I have very few friends.

Like that short poem from GI Jane, about the bird that fell frozen from the branch without ever feeling sorry for itself. Our power of life comes from within, I think. Looking outward for help and affirmation is contrary to the natural flow of heavenly energy in us.

I do have empathy, and wish everybody well on their journey. Keeping talking about own problems though is one sure way to keep them around.

[Olam]

Posted by Tyy1907 (here)

Posted by Olam (here)
Thanks everyone for the replies, it's great to see I am not alone with all this.
I have come to a point of not even knowing what I am supposed to do here in this life.

Now, just to be clear, I'm not suicidal , I wish to live this life fully, and I know that ending the journey short will only make me start over so I'm going nowhere. Now this is the problem, I feel I'm stuck here.
My 30 year career is over, I have 3 months of funds left, I have no motivation to start over.
Of course I can find some simple minimum wage job, but I'm not here to work and pay taxes.

So I have been asking God, universe, Jesus, all angels, deceased relatives, what is it that I am here for? ( Still have no clue but at least I could pay rent)!...lol
I have no tv so these people don't drain me out, but I'm an empath and I get burnt out just being outside around people.
Anyhow, there must be a reason for all this, all I hope is that I find out soon enough before I totally give up and live by the minute.
much love to everyone, let's see soon hopefully what's on the other side of this rubicon....

I say it's more exausting to figure out why I am here than trying to survive the month financially.

In a broad sense we're all here to bring light into the world, in whatever way(s) we choose. If you're pressing for answers keep on pressing I say. You have every God given right to not only ask but receive something in response to your yearning. Your asking. What I found after 35 years is belief in the divine AND belief in the self is REQUIRED in order to, how do I say, go to the next level with respect to making things happen in your life through divine connection. Knowing your true standing in the eyes of the almighty and knowing the almighty is already within you. Always has been. Trust in yourself and yours heritage, seek and you will find.

Thank you for that.

[Harmony]

I understand what you are saying Johnycomelately, and I am glad to hear your difficult times have improved and you have come through the experience now.

From my experiences, as you mention, going within is ultimately necessary, sharing what we find within can be a wonderful thing and make others path just a little bit easier. During difficult times I found the support and understanding of others a huge benefit and something to carry with me and reach out to others in times of need. Thank you for the clarification

[Bill Ryan]

Bumping this thread with something personal. Yesterday morning, I shared this with the other mods:

~~~

A minor personal update here. I was very reluctant to post this on Doug Auld's thread An Exhaustion setting in, but the last 2-3 days I was flattened by a kind of exhaustion myself. I just had NO energy, and no apparent explanation for it.

Last night I slept a little longer than usual, and today I'm going to march myself up to the Santuario Lakes, where I thought of going yesterday but could hardly get to put my boots on, let alone hike anywhere at all — even locally, just up the hill with Mara.

And then on the way back I'll pick up a few more prepping supplies, things which are cheap but will last almost forever (coffee, pasta, rice, some tins of things). I'm convinced the food situation in a few months' time will be dire, even if here there's zero sign of any problem right now.

Summary: my own advice on Doug's thread to anyone feeling the pinch was to (a) get active, (b) do lots of little things, even if they seem tiny, and (c) take proactive steps to at least to start to solve any problems one might be worried about.

So after I come back from my hike with a few more tins and packs of rice I'm also going to do some painting (I had to re-plaster part of a wall after water damage, but it's now dry), and painting always generates energy. If I have a good energetic day then maybe I'll post something on Doug's thread tomorrow.

~~~

Well, that's what I did, and it all worked perfectly. The more active I made myself be, and the more little problems I solved, one by one, the better I felt. And I treated myself to a giant fresh fruit smoothie when I got home — always good therapy. I ended the day feeling great, and I feel great now.

I also bought a tiny micro-chocolate cake (just 4 oz), usually reserved twice a year for Christmas and my birthday as fun little annual mountaintop rituals. So I'll take that with me maybe sometime next week on an expedition to Cerro Arquitectos, the highest peak in the local National Park which I've not climbed for over 6 months.

That's another fixture and another promise to self, and another little active project which will keep my energy high — when I'm focusing much of the time on all the problems out there in the wider world, some of which are being suffered by distant close friends.

All that can take its toll, and so the real moral of the story may be balance... always be disciplined to do things to take care of yourself too.

[Harmony]

I also find if you focus on what needs doing each day, and just get those things done without planning too much. Feed your animals or work in the garden, repair and fix little problems that need attending to and don't forget all the good and beautiful things around you to be thankful for.



Let your heart open to beauty and friendship and move forward into the next minute imagining how you want to make it. It's better to imagine how you want the house to look when it's clean, and automatically it somehow happens, instead of thinking, "I really dislike cleaning" it can make all the difference.


Then, when you need to face the challenges ahead, you are more prepared and have more energy to move into action.

[Yoda]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)


Bumping this thread with something personal. Yesterday morning, I shared this with the other mods:

~~~

A minor personal update here. I was very reluctant to post this on Doug Auld's thread An Exhaustion setting in, but the last 2-3 days I was flattened by a kind of exhaustion myself. I just had NO energy, and no apparent explanation for it.

Last night I slept a little longer than usual, and today I'm going to march myself up to the Santuario Lakes, where I thought of going yesterday but could hardly get to put my boots on, let alone hike anywhere at all — even locally, just up the hill with Mara.

And then on the way back I'll pick up a few more prepping supplies, things which are cheap but will last almost forever (coffee, pasta, rice, some tins of things). I'm convinced the food situation in a few months' time will be dire, even if here there's zero sign of any problem right now.

Summary: my own advice on Doug's thread to anyone feeling the pinch was to (a) get active, (b) do lots of little things, even if they seem tiny, and (c) take proactive steps to at least to start to solve any problems one might be worried about.

So after I come back from my hike with a few more tins and packs of rice I'm also going to do some painting (I had to re-plaster part of a wall after water damage, but it's now dry), and painting always generates energy. If I have a good energetic day then maybe I'll post something on Doug's thread tomorrow.

~~~

Well, that's what I did, and it all worked perfectly. The more active I made myself be, and the more little problems I solved, one by one, the better I felt. And I treated myself to a giant fresh fruit smoothie when I got home — always good therapy. I ended the day feeling great, and I feel great now.

I also bought a tiny micro-chocolate cake (just 4 oz), usually reserved twice a year for Christmas and my birthday as fun little annual mountaintop rituals. So I'll take that with me maybe sometime next week on an expedition to Cerro Arquitectos, the highest peak in the local National Park which I've not climbed for over 6 months.

That's another fixture and another promise to self, and another little active project which will keep my energy high — when I'm focusing much of the time on all the problems out there in the wider world, some of which are being suffered by distant close friends.

All that can take its toll, and so the real moral of the story may be balance... always be disciplined to do things to take care of yourself too.

A good friend likened energy flow to tides. He told me to be attentive, as to when the tide was out.
Pierre

[Ernie Nemeth]

The exhaustion spoken of was something I have attributed to getting older. Everyone always says they have no energy like they had when they were young. I found the opposite. As I got older my fortitude, my stamina, has increased steadily. It is only very recently that fatigue has caught up to me. And since I have been waiting for the onset of age related travesties for quite some time with no definitive results, I have felt it odd that this body can just suddenly wear out, I thought the tiredness was the first age-related symptom.

Since this thread, I have looked for a cause other than my age.

The only thing I can imagine is the weather modification technology that goes on overhead almost every day. That and the 5G deployment. Both are conveniently covered by the so-called pandemic and covid symptoms as they ramp up their activities in these two areas.

Yesterday we had a strange weather day. It started cold. Then it got sunny and warm. Then it got dark and cold and the wind picked up and brought rain and hail in a spurt of a storm. Then it got muggy and hot. My bones hurt all day and I had no energy. I lay down twice for a nap - I had all kinds of plans for this long weekend...


If we are talking about the exhaustion in psychological terms, the onslaught of crazy 'woke' ideology can make even the most stalwart individuals ready for the rubber room. We have watched those we thought had more sense turn into emotional basket cases while seriously convinced that it is we who are nuts. Up is down and black is white. But still most everyone insists nothing has changed, and it is we who have spun out on the road of sanity.

Still they keep it going. Still they insist everything will be alright just as soon as oil and gas are consumed no more, as soon as enough illegal migrants have invaded our countries, as soon as we take the next poison pill, just as soon as the nuclear option is loosed on the world. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Enough craziness!


Like many here, I try to focus on the immediate. That's all we ever have anyway.
I find meditation helps - with no goal other than relaxation.
Deep breathing is essential, more so now than ever before as they steal the very breath that we breathe with their nefarious technologies and evil deeds.


I have my own ideas about the human condition that do not jibe with the consensus viewpoint.

Still, is it not obvious, and logical, that what happens is always as intended by Source, our God, our Guiding Light?

And maybe, just maybe, there is something essential that we do not understand that would change the way we encounter the world and offer us another way to make sense of what we experience?

Another way to say the above would be:

What wonders await us that we have had no idea ever could?

Society has been transformed before in ways no one could have guessed. In fact societies grow in fits and starts, not in a steady fashion at all.
It is during times of calm and routine that things stagnate and no longer serve as intended. We have had a long run with the old tried and true way.
When the systems that once served serve no longer upheaval is inevitable. A time of uncertainty heralds change.

The greater the upheaval, the greater the change.

Let's hope and pray for the greatest change for the greatest good.

[Matthew]

My brother asked me if I was upset with him, because I seemed a little more down than usual. I explained the looming end of civilisation was bumming me out. Some of the signs are in everyone's peripheral vision, and the subjects of diesel costs, grain/wheat shortages and inflation are more on peoples idle conversation menus.

This awareness in people is not really activated though, so I spent some time talking to my brother in terms of the severity, bringing the scenarios to mind. Not in an upset way, but in a heads of state and advisors to heads of state are predicting this kind of way, so prepare and we lose nothing kind of conversation.

The underlying motto of the conversation was be in the best position of strength you can be in. I wanted to activate latent survival/farming/growing/foraging instincts in my brother and hopefully it cascades out to his friends; he has knowledge and skills from his youth, and a set of friends likewise.

I've run out of fear and righteous energy and to some extent sympathy. The reason is because I feel people in denial might become dangerous if diesel costs, grain/wheat shortages and/or inflation, etc cause a system shock enough for serious hunger. May never happen but the signs are strong enough I'm going to assume it might, put myself in the best position of strength I can be in, and activate concerns ...gently, as best as I can, in friends and family and stuff. So I guess I look like I have an exhaustion but I don't feel exhausted, just a heavy heart and a shift to a defensive position.

[Bill Ryan]

I want to bump this valuable thread with a Chris Martenson video, an unusual step. This really, really struck me.

The video title is about children. But it's about all of us, and the difference between depression and demoralization.

Martenson points out that demoralization (a) is an appropriate response to a dysfunctional system, and (b) can't be treated by pharma pills or by therapies designed to shoehorn the person back into accepting and rejoining the "normal" world.

I've not yet finished watching the video, but I'd be sure this applies to MANY reading this. The concepts are very important. This is an "ugly duckling" thing, where those who feel demoralized or exhausted may feel there's something wrong with them.

If you're reading this and feel that way, there's nothing wrong with you. It's a sign of health and sanity in a world that's very sick.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rjE9PNYImKQ

[wondering]

Ironically, just this morning, Ron and I were talking about the numbers of shootings that have occurred in just the past week - only the ones we know about. I said I really don't have a handle on the horrible shootings that involve children, which appear, God forbid, to sometimes be intentional and well planned. I said that I thought the purpose was ongoing demoralization...just heaping more of the incredible tragedies, and more, combined with everything else, and it becomes almost unbearable. Certainly demoralizing.
When I said the shootings were planned and intentional, I meant by others beyond the shooter himself. A well planned event way beyond the intentions and actions of one shooter.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
I want to bump this valuable thread with a Chris Martenson video, an unusual step. This really, really struck me.

The video title is about children. But it's about all of us, and the difference between depression and demoralization.

Martenson points out that demoralization (a) is an appropriate response to a dysfunctional system, and (b) can't be treated by pharma pills or by therapies designed to shoehorn the person back into accepting and rejoining the "normal" world.

I've not yet finished watching the video, but I'd be sure this applies to MANY reading this. The concepts are very important. This is an "ugly duckling" thing, where those who feel demoralized or exhausted may feel there's something wrong with them.

If you're reading this and feel that way, there's nothing wrong with you. It's a sign of health and sanity in a world that's very sick.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rjE9PNYImKQ

A little more. The section in Chris Martenson's video where he discusses demoralization starts at 19:13.

The article from which Martenson quotes extensively, and which I fully agree is inspired and urgently needed to be understood, is this one. I'll copy it in full. It's very well worth the read, and is full of important insights.

Again: if you're feeling exhausted and demoralized, and may be starting to think there must be something wrong with you, this most excellent article is for you.

• https://newint.org/columns/essays/20...iritual-crisis

The Demoralized Mind

Western consumer culture is creating a psycho-spiritual crisis that leaves us disoriented and bereft of purpose. How can we treat our sick culture and make ourselves well? asks John F Schumaker.

Our descent into the Age of Depression seems unstoppable. Three decades ago, the average age for the first onset of depression was 30. Today it is 14. Researchers such as Stephen Izard at Duke University point out that the rate of depression in Western industrialized societies is doubling with each successive generational cohort. At this pace, over 50 per cent of our younger generation, aged 18-29, will succumb to it by middle age. Extrapolating one generation further, we arrive at the dire conclusion that virtually everyone will fall prey to depression.

By contrast to many traditional cultures that lack depression entirely, or even a word for it, Western consumer culture is certainly depression-prone. But depression is so much a part of our vocabulary that the word itself has come to describe mental states that should be understood differently. In fact, when people with a diagnosis of depression are examined more closely, the majority do not actually fit that diagnosis. In the largest study of its kind, Ramin Mojtabai of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health sampled over 5,600 cases and found that only 38 per cent of them met the criteria for depression.

Contributing to the confusion is the equally insidious epidemic of demoralization that also afflicts modern culture. Since it shares some symptoms with depression, demoralization tends to be mislabelled and treated as if it were depression. A major reason for the poor 28-per-cent success rate of anti-depressant drugs is that a high percentage of ‘depression’ cases are actually demoralization, a condition unresponsive to drugs.

Existential disorder

In the past, our understanding of demoralization was limited to specific extreme situations, such as debilitating physical injury, terminal illness, prisoner-of-war camps, or anti-morale military tactics. But there is also a cultural variety that can express itself more subtly and develop behind the scenes of normal everyday life under pathological cultural conditions such as we have today. This culturally generated demoralization is nearly impossible to avoid for the modern ‘consumer’.

Rather than a depressive disorder, demoralization is a type of existential disorder associated with the breakdown of a person’s ‘cognitive map’. It is an overarching psycho-spiritual crisis in which victims feel generally disoriented and unable to locate meaning, purpose or sources of need fulfilment. The world loses its credibility, and former beliefs and convictions dissolve into doubt, uncertainty and loss of direction. Frustration, anger and bitterness are usual accompaniments, as well as an underlying sense of being part of a lost cause or losing battle. The label ‘existential depression’ is not appropriate since, unlike most forms of depression, demoralization is a realistic response to the circumstances impinging on the person’s life.

As it is absorbed, consumer culture imposes numerous influences that weaken personality structures, undermine coping and lay the groundwork for eventual demoralization. Its driving features – individualism, materialism, hyper-competition, greed, over-complication, overwork, hurriedness and debt – all correlate negatively with psychological health and/or social wellbeing. The level of intimacy, trust and true friendship in people’s lives has plummeted. Sources of wisdom, social and community support, spiritual comfort, intellectual growth and life education have dried up. Passivity and choice have displaced creativity and mastery. Resilience traits such as patience, restraint and fortitude have given way to short attention spans, over-indulgence and a masturbatory approach to life.

Research shows that, in contrast to earlier times, most people today are unable to identify any sort of philosophy of life or set of guiding principles. Without an existential compass, the commercialized mind gravitates toward a ‘philosophy of futility’, as Noam Chomsky calls it, in which people feel naked of power and significance beyond their conditioned role as pliant consumers. Lacking substance and depth, and adrift from others and themselves, the thin and fragile consumer self is easily fragmented and dispirited.

By their design, the central organizing principles and practices of consumer culture perpetuate an ‘existential vacuum’ that is a precursor to demoralization. This inner void is often experienced as chronic and inescapable boredom, which is not surprising. Despite surface appearances to the contrary, the consumer age is deathly boring. Boredom is caused, not because an activity is inherently boring, but because it is not meaningful to the person. Since the life of the consumer revolves around the overkill of meaningless manufactured low-level material desires, it is quickly engulfed by boredom, as well as jadedness, ennui and discontent. This steadily graduates to ‘existential boredom’ wherein the person finds all of life uninteresting and unrewarding.

Moral net

Consumption itself is a flawed motivational platform for a society. Repeated consummation of desire, without moderating constraints, only serves to habituate people and diminish the future satisfaction potential of what is consumed. This develops gradually into ‘consumer anhedonia’, wherein consumption loses reward capacity and offers no more than distraction and ritualistic value. Consumerism and psychic deadness are inexorable bedfellows.

Individualistic models of mind have stymied our understanding of many disorders that are primarily of cultural origin. But recent years have seen a growing interest in the topic of cultural health and ill-health as they impact upon general wellbeing. At the same time, we are moving away from naïve behavioural models and returning to the obvious fact that the human being has a fundamental nature, as well as a distinct set of human needs, that must be addressed by a cultural blueprint.

In his groundbreaking book The Moral Order, anthropologist Raoul Naroll used the term ‘moral net’ to indicate the cultural infrastructure that is required for the mental wellbeing of its members. He used numerous examples to show that entire societies can become predisposed to an array of mental ills if their ‘moral net’ deteriorates beyond a certain point. To avoid this, a society’s moral net must be able to meet the key psycho-social-spiritual needs of its members, including a sense of identity and belonging, co-operative activities that weave people into a community, and shared rituals and beliefs that offer a convincing existential orientation.

Similarly, in The Sane Society, Erich Fromm cited ‘frame of orientation’ as one of our vital ‘existential needs’, but pointed out that today’s ‘marketing characters’ are shackled by a cultural programme that actively blocks fulfilment of this and other needs, including the needs for belonging, rootedness, identity, transcendence and intellectual stimulation. We are living under conditions of ‘cultural insanity’, a term referring to a pathological mismatch between the inculturation strategies of a culture and the intrapsychic needs of its followers. Being normal is no longer a healthy ambition.

Human culture has mutated into a sociopathic marketing machine dominated by economic priorities and psychological manipulation. Never before has a cultural system inculcated its followers to suppress so much of their humanity. Leading this hostile takeover of the collective psyche are increasingly sophisticated propaganda and misinformation industries that traffic the illusion of consumer happiness by wildly amplifying our expectations of the material world. Today’s consumers are by far the most propagandized people in history. The relentless and repetitive effect is highly hypnotic, diminishing critical faculties, reducing one’s sense of self, and transforming commercial unreality into a surrogate for meaning and purpose.

The more lost, disoriented and spiritually defeated people become, the more susceptible they become to persuasion, and the more they end up buying into the oversold expectations of consumption. But in unreality culture, hyper-inflated expectations continually collide with the reality of experience. Since nothing lives up to the hype, the world of the consumer is actually an ongoing exercise in disappointment. While most disappointments are minor and easy to dissociate, they accumulate into an emotional background of frustration as deeper human needs get neglected. Continued starvation of these needs fuels disillusion about one’s whole approach to life. Over time, people’s core assumptions can become unstable.

Culture proofing

At its heart, demoralization is a generalized loss of credibility in the assumptions that ground our existence and guide our actions. The assumptions underpinning our allegiance to consumerism are especially vulnerable since they are fundamentally dehumanizing. As they unravel, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify with the values, goals and aspirations that were once part of our consumer reality. The consequent feeling of being forsaken and on the wrong life track is easily mistaken for depression, or even unhappiness, but in fact it is the type of demoralization that most consumer beings will experience to some degree.

For the younger generation, the course of boredom, disappointment, disillusion and demoralization is almost inevitable. As the products of invisible parents, commercialized education, cradle-to-grave marketing and a profoundly boring and insane cultural programme, they must also assimilate into consumer culture while knowing from the outset that its workings are destroying the planet and jeopardizing their future. Understandably, they have become the trance generation, with an insatiable appetite for any technology that can downsize awareness and blunt the emotions. With society in existential crisis, and emotional life on a steep downward trajectory, trance is today’s fastest-growing consumer market.

Once our collapsed assumptions give way to demoralization, the problem becomes how to rebuild the unconscious foundations of our lives. In their present forms, the psychology and psychiatry professions are of little use in treating disorders that are rooted in culture and normality. While individual therapy will not begin to heal a demoralized society, to be effective such approaches must be insight-oriented and focused on the cultural sources of the person’s assumptions, identity, values and centres of meaning. Cultural deprogramming is essential, along with ‘culture proofing’, disobedience training and character development strategies, all aimed at constructing a worldview that better connects the person to self, others and the natural world.

The real task is somehow to treat a sick culture rather than its sick individuals. Erich Fromm sums up this challenge: ‘We can’t make people sane by making them adjust to this society. We need a society that is adjusted to the needs of people.’ Fromm’s solution included a Supreme Cultural Council that would serve as a cultural overseer and advise governments on corrective and preventive action. But that sort of solution is still a long way off, as is a science of culture change. Democracy in its present guise is a guardian of cultural insanity.

We are long overdue a cultural revolution that would force a radical revamp of the political process, economics, work, family and environmental policy. It is true that a society of demoralized people is unlikely to revolt even though it sits on a massive powder keg of pent-up frustration. But credibility counteracts demoralization, and this frustration can be released with immense energy when a credible cause, or credible leadership, is added to the equation.

It might seem that credibility, meaning and purposeful action would derive from the multiple threats to our safety and survival posed by the fatal mismatch between consumer culture and the needs of the planet. The fact that it has not highlights the degree of demoralization that infects the consumer age. With its infrastructure firmly entrenched, and minimal signs of collective resistance, all signs suggest that our obsolete system – what some call ‘disaster capitalism’ – will prevail until global catastrophe dictates for us new cultural directions.

[Satori]

Many members and visitors to this Forum know, or have a good working sense of, what the problems are we all face at the hands of the psychopathic global oligarchs.

Viable working solutions to these problems are rare. Being a prepper is not a solutions to the problem. The need to prep is a symptom of a deeper cancer which is the cause. Prepping, for instance, is at most a momentary work-around for those who are prepared. And, this work-around leads to other problems for the prepared when the unprepared come looking for water, food and shelter. Also, you cannot eat or drink gold, silver, crypto currency or any other such inert commodity.

Moreover, most “solutions” require the masses to play within the rules the oligarchs created, which are ever changing, contradictory and inconsistently and unjustly applied, and which they always ignore and never apply to themselves.

It’s a zero sum game. They privatize profits and socialize losses. We, the 95 %, always lose, they, the 5%, always win.

They are coming for everything. Not just the kids.

What is the proper response, or solution, when you’ve lost, or more accurately, they’ve taken or are about to take, everything and there is no more to give or lose?

If you were at home and prepared, including armed, with your family and murderous thugs came busting through your door, what would you do?

[Johan (Keyholder)]

In essence, I agree with what Satori posted above. It makes perfect sense. It càn be that our age (71 and 64) have something to do with it, but I am not sure about that. When one is in his 30's or 40's and has children or teenagers at home it could make more sense to be a prepper or "survivalist". But even then... what difference would it make? Maybe it is better to teach one's children that there is more than just "survival of the body"? I know some do that (or do their best to do so at least). And that works just as well for any of us.

There are no simple solutions, and very, very few "complicated ones" in my opinion.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Johan (Keyholder) (here)
It càn be that our age (71 and 64) have something to do with it, but I am not sure about that.

The Demoralized Mind article I posted above starts off:

Three decades ago, the average age for the first onset of depression was 30. Today it is 14.

[Satori]

Posted by Johan (Keyholder) (here)
In essence, I agree with what Satori posted above. It makes perfect sense. It càn be that our age (71 and 64) have something to do with it, but I am not sure about that. When one is in his 30's or 40's and has children or teenagers at home it could make more sense to be a prepper or "survivalist". But even then... what difference would it make? Maybe it is better to teach one's children that there is more than just "survival of the body"? I know some do that (or do their best to do so at least). And that works just as well for any of us.

There are no simple solutions, and very, very few "complicated ones" in my opinion.

By the way, I am a prepper by most peoples’ standard. So, I’m not opposed to prepping at all.

My point is that prepping is not the solution to the causes that lead to the effect, ie, the need to prep at the level and in the way we are currently facing.

Throughout most of human history mankind has always been a prepper: Back when we lived off the land, so to speak. But when people were herded into cities and land was taken from them, and the skills and mindset of survival were flushed down the memory hole, prepping took on a new meaning.

My days are relatively few. I fear or worry not for myself. It is the younger generation and those to come that causes me to lament somewhat.