I’ve been away for (another) two months, but I know there is still a reader here. I heard from him yesterday.
Tom, it’s been a long while since we have heard from you. With so much to write about I can’t help but wonder if you are well. I’m so very fond of your work. Hope you are doing okay. Don’t think for a second that what you do isn’t important. Reading you keeps many of us sustained in this time of madness. please come back to us.
Talk about mixed feelings. I am immensely grateful for the concern, and for the compliments. At the same time I feel shame for having abandoned you.
Which is odd, because nobody signed up for this. We don’t have an explicit contract, you and I, and yet when people have been hanging out together for years, and one of them suddenly leaves, does he not owe an explanation? Of course he does. We don’t sign contracts to become friends, either, but we know when the terms of friendship have been violated.
So I want you to know, dear reader, that my absence from you has not been casual, or uncaring. There has been a distracting illness — not mine, but in my family — and I am tempted to blame everything on that. But that would be incorrect.
Some things weigh heavily, and increasingly, on my ability to keep writing The Daily Impact. I go into this not to make excuses, but to assure you that my attitude is not cavalier.
For one thing, I am tired of repeating myself. I have been writing about the dangers of climate change, and peak oil, and the California earthquake faults, and industrial agriculture, and pollution, and the over-inflated stock market etc., etc., for 30 years. When the signs and portents and warnings have been ignored for 30 years, it does sometimes seem pointless to bring them up again. Like my Momma never told me, nobody likes a nag.
Far more importantly, it is becoming more difficult, every day, to find reliable information on which to base logical conclusions. Journalism, a profession I love, and called my own for many decades, has been degraded beyond recognition, both by those intent on discrediting it and those who practice it ineptly and/or corruptly.
And then there is the sadness, over all of it. But that’s a different subject, for another time. Today, I have been summoned back to duty by one who, like myself, seeks to be sustained in a time of madness. I will do what I can for a s long as I can, Dear Reader. Thank you for sharing the ride.
— Tom Lewis
Seeing The Daily Impact in my RSS feed again just now lit up my day. There is such a dearth of reason today that every drop shared is precious … whether you post once a week, month or year. And thank-you to your anonymous reader, all of whose sentiments about your work I share, for troubling to get in touch with you.
There’s an old joke about Vivaldi: ‘He didn’t write 200 concertos, he wrote one concerto 200 times’
…Maybe, but everyone I’ve heard is really great.
Another joke about the Red Priest: “Vivaldi was ahead of his time.”
Q: “How far ahead?”
A: “I’ll let you know when we get there.”
Don’t make me send more Vivaldi jokes – start writing again!
Okay, okay, hold the Vivaldi — I’m writing here.
So glad you are back, Tom. I’ve missed your reports.
I have posted ELAM (Earth’s Lodgers’ Activities Management) in an endeavor to encourage young people to adopt measures to cope with what industrialized civilization is doiing wrong.
Tom – glad you’re back. Missed the occasional poke in the (growth/capitalist/pollution/population/energy) bubble. Russ
Hy hearing is not the best and I have trouble understanding words in music. Sometimes it seems I’ll listen to a song a hundred times and then unexpectedly I might understand a word in a lyric for the first time. Yes you have written about climate change, and peak oil which to you seems ad nauseum but you have written to an audience which has a lot of trouble reading. This will change and we must persevere.
I speculate. ‘Why hast though forsaken me.’
To test your resolve. We live in uncertain mad times and we do not know when the public will decide sustainable ideas are popular but it will happen if the message is out there to find. There will be the right mix of misery and Trump or perhaps another buffoon at some time in the future which will cause people to latch on to the ideas we push.
Taking the 10,000 foot looking down view I see Tom Lewis basically trying to teach a classroom of wild kids who knows they don’t have to listen because the ‘bell’ has not rung yet. The bell will ring, give it time.
As a member of the collapse crowd I know full well the bell actually has rung but that’s another story.
Part of the frustration is to know that propaganda easily defeats the collapse message and there is plenty of money to sponsor such propaganda. As time passes evidence (personal collapse awareness and cognitive dissonance) will challenge that propaganda and the truth will be able to fight to the top of the awareness pile.
But this will not happen if everyone gives up. While new collapse-aware people can come along and replace those who leave in disgust, experience is valuable and those who leave take their value with them.
An example of this is my comment. If I was a newbie I’d think all we have to do is ‘raise awareness’.
As a long time member of the collapse community I know ‘raising awareness’ is a ridiculously naive notion but that is where we all started from when we first learned about peak oil and climate change.
With my experience I have encountered organized efforts to defeat the collapse message. Our government considers the message to be ‘terrorist’ as it could cause the rabble to be roused and as they influence and actually control media they are a problem. The war on terror has locked America into preserving the status-quo and dissent is suppressed by it. Not eliminated but suppressed in many quiet ways.
My experience is my own but you also have experience of your own Tom as do many of your readers. We will be doing a disservice if we become silent.
Think of yourself as a veggie in a cold frame ready to be transplanted into a garden. You give the garden a head start because you did not have to grow from from seed in the garden which would have taken longer.
Well, your in good company. Chris Martenson and Adam Taggart, Howard Kunstler, John Michael Greer, David Collum (comedic gold), Art Berman and I’m sure many others who have been pointing to the emperor with no clothes for years and continue on. Mr. Martenson calls it confirmation bias, we read what we agree with and skip what we don’t – the other side of coin for the Fox News consumers I guess.
I myself have no hope for the future and take some twisted joy in knowing that there are others out there.
Perhaps you would consider opening up the space to guest authors?
I don’t think that joy you speak of is twisted at all. We all need to know we are not alone in the world.Being mammals, this is part of our nature.We are surrounded by crazed lunatics, who think nothing of the destruction of all things living. Paper money in exchange for life itself. An omnicidal orgy of a scale never achieved before in world history. What a terrible thing to be alone in the midst of all that. As for hope, I too have none for the future of mankind.When I see young parents with their innocent children I can’t shake off the dread I hold for their bleak and not very distant future. Thank you for being here.
Hi Tom,
looking at things from a German perspective I am glad about every American who has retained a sane view of things, so I´m likewise sad about every intelligent, prudent voice that´s going silent – good to hear from you again ! I didn´t know you´ve been writing that long – I´ve followed this blog for about 7 years now, and I´ve never been bored let alone felt nagged by it.
It´s a shame about reliable information being harder to come by; I find that´s the case on this side of the pond, too. Your blog is, among a few others of the kind named by CJ, one of the sources of information I´ve come to trust these days, so here is a heartfelt ´´thank you´´ from me.
greetings
Frank from Germany
You’re welcome. But I’m the one who’s feeling grateful for the warm welcomes back. This site is about nine years old, prior to that I wrote for other venues, many of which actually paid me money.
Mr. Lewis – Glad you’re back. I’ll spread the news. Yeah, burn out is a bitch. But never loose sight of the fact that we find you thought provoking, educating, entertaining and amusing. Sometimes, in the face of all that’s going on, all you can do is laugh. You write, well. And, it helps keep me on the path of mitigation and preparation.
Here’s another fellow who feels “It’s all been said.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/26/were-doomed-mayer-hillman-on-the-climate-reality-no-one-else-will-dare-mention
Lew
Thank you. I saw the piece on Hillman, it could have been titled “Brace for Impact.” But you’r right — we migt as well have some fun while we’re braced.
I know what you mean about the difficulty of finding decent information. The whole mess with the Skripals and the chemical attack – or not – on Syria leaves me feeling bewildered. The conventional narrative isn’t believable to me any more, and I don’t feel I can trust most of the alternative sources either. It just keeps getting worse. Thank you for writing – I know I don’t reply much, but I am reading, and do appreciate your work.
Those are two of the worst examples of recent mainstream journalism. I plan to write about them shortly.
I’m as sure as one can be that the so-called chemical attack was staged. No one died, no injuries nothing. Gulf of Tonkin, sinking of the Maine etc. all over again. When all else fails they take you to war.
I’m sorry to hear about the illness in your family. That is never easy.
I’ve been trying to find out what happened to your articles, but, as a computer novice, had no luck until someone cleverer than I got things explained. Thanks to him and you.
Illness is always draining, claiming all one’s time often. I’m so sorry, and hope all goes well soon.
So very grateful to hear from you again. Your description of the relationship between you and your readers is spot on. I consider you to be a close and trusted friend. I’m not ashamed to admit that reading you is a comfort to me. If you showed up at my door, my humble home would be open to you. We would wile away the hours in conversation, drinking my best bottles by the hearth. It would be glorious! I imagine you have done well by your sick relative and hope that things have taken a turn for the better. Keep the faith, friend.
I’ll be there late tomorrow. If I stay till Christmas, would that be too long? Thank you, my friend.
As long as you would like!!
Hi Tom,
Thank you for your honesty, and for all of the hours that you have put pen to paper for us here. It has been a wild ride!
Yes it has, and the ride continues. I looked at your website, and admire very much what you have done at Fernglade. Permaculture, it seems to me, is the most valid pursuit for humanity now. Like the Titanic’s lifeboats, it can’t save all of us, but it sure can save some of us.
Thank you, Tom.
Yes, welcome back Mr. Lewis!
To quote Jimmy Buffet, “if we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane…” Thanks for the laughter in my life…and the thoughtful and informative pieces you write.
Go to know you’re writing again, Mr Lewis! Sorry to learn about the illness in your family. Hope recovery is on the way if it hasn’t arrived yet — the sorry state of our sorry world notwithstanding…
I’ve all sorts of things to say, except they’ve all already been said one way or the other by the above posts. Keep at it, will you?
Thanks. I’ll do what I can….
“Welcome Back” greetings from Down Under. Australia is no longer “The Lucky Country” and we are afflicted with all the issues you so eloquently write about. I share your work frequently on social media and expect you also have a solid readership here. Never give up.
Thank you for pushing through I have learned so much from reading you, and you have helped me to look at information so much more criticly.
I am so glad to see your posts again. I have missed them and always checked in with a bit of hope every day to read one of my favourite writers, today is my lucky day
I hope all is well with your family, I find as we get older family concerns become more frequent…just part of life now.
Stay well