Do you have to be weird to deal with collapse?
Yes.
Yes, you have to be weird to deal with collapse! It’s so big and so outside our usual ways of understanding things that being normal is just not adequate.
I started out as a normal person. I’m perfectly aware that talking about the “Cosmic Spirit” and eternal consciousness is weird. I can talk about science, economics, history, and politics as well as the next guy. But the problem is that none of those topics actually address the real consequences and meaning of collapse.
Arguing about politics, history, etc. at this point is like yelling at the news on T.V. when the channel is about to be changed, the plug pulled from the wall, and the T.V. crushed under ten tons of rock. It’s amusing, but it just doesn’t matter!
I have a rather expansive view of collapse. I’m what you might call an “obliterationalist.” You can find people who think that, yeah, maybe our civilization will collapse, but somebody will make it through and they’ll be able to rebuild a civilization in the ruins that maybe will be better, wiser, and more sustainable than the one we have now.
I don’t think so. I think the Earth is going to recycle us down to our chemical constituents, and every trace of our physical existence will end up as a thin line in sedimentary rocks. We have disrupted a delicate Earthly balance that took millions of years to establish and has lasted for a million years. Look at the graph! (James Hansen, 2022.) It’s like a heart attack destroying the regular rhythm of a heartbeat. We are goners!
But (and here’s the weird part): this grim story is irrelevant! It doesn’t matter what happens in history, or even in the physical world. Because the physical world and the things that happen in it are expressions of processes taking place in a completely different way. Physical worlds come and go without ever touching what is real and important.
There is a world of “spirit” or “potential” or “pure consciousness” which is “beneath” or “behind” or “within” the world that we think we inhabit. The spirit world is like a river, and the things of the physical world are like whirlpools in that river. The whirlpools come and go and change their shape and position, but the river flows on, unaffected by the splashing! We are the river.
This is a fairly commonplace view. Mystics throughout time have perceived this, and nowadays even some of the most important scientists understand that the material world is an expression of underlying consciousness. The idea only seems weird because of relentless propaganda for the past few hundred years from the “reductive materialist” school of thought, which tries to convince us that the universe is a bunch of dead stuff bouncing around in empty space, utterly devoid of purpose or meaning. It’s a lie!
But to perceive the lie and approach the truth you have to be a bit weird. You have to be open to the spirits in your life, and be willing to engage with them. You need to comprehend your own spiritual nature, and understand that you are much more than just your body and your mind and the story of your life so far. You are one of countless souls swimming together in the great river of existence, and no matter what happens the river flows on.
This is easier to see if you’ve had what’s known as a “mystical” or “religious” or “psychedelic” experience, of which more to come.
(‘The Mask,’ image by Rozzi Roomiar.)
Yep agree! Except I use the word "feral" instead of weird. Helps me get closer to the deeper connections I know and share with the other beings here. Feral is most definitely freaky and weird, as a push back on our domestication should feel.
I've taken magic mushrooms in the past, had many mystical experiences. Try not to take life too seriously these days and imagine myself as just an ant in the grand scheme of things, nothing special, just carrying my burdens around on my little shoulders, throwing them into a great pile of woes and worries Do ants have shoulders?