Mark me down for yet another unannounced, unauthorized vacation (in an undisclosed, secure location) from the rigors of chronicling the crash of the industrial age. In the past these respites have been enforced by mental roadblocks — depression, writer’s block, whatever you want to call it — but this one is different.
I’ve always had an unspoken deal with you, Dear Reader (if you’re still there, and if you are not I certainly understand), that I will write here only when I believe I have something valid to say, not to fill a hole or meet a contrived schedule. But with each passing year it has become less possible to know, with any reasonable degree of confidence, what is going on anywhere. The people and publications doing honest reporting are declining rapidly in both number and quality, leaving us observers adrift in a toxic sea of misinformation, propaganda and drivel. Our collapsing empire is increasingly insane, from the emperor on down, and there is no alchemy by which lunacy can be turned into anything useful.
Nothing the president says about anything can be believed. No utterance of any politician or bureaucrat or industrialist can be taken at face value (don’t trust, and verify). The bimbos and bimbettes of the mainstream media are happily gamboling through the woods chasing the pretty little squirrels who are running for president, ignoring the fact that the woods are on fire, a hurricane approaches and a tsunami looms offshore. How can one pretend to think, much less write, sanely in an insane world?
Well, if you’re a member of the orchestra on the Titanic, and your world is going down, you keep playing. Not because you think it will save the ship, or even be of much comfort to the panicked passengers, but because it’s what you do. If you don’t play your instrument, then you just die in silence.
So I shall try to write on, as and when I can do it with some confidence of validity, because writing is what I do, and if I don’t write I’m just sitting here listening to the ship fill with water. As Hamlet asked of Horatio, I shall absent me from my vacation yet a while, and in this harsh world draw breath in pain, to tell its story. Or at least, the next chapter.
Thank you for your honesty and sincerity. I think it’s worth pointing out that the only reason the next major “leg down” hasn’t happened yet is because certain central banks have been printing money with frantic, desperate intensity and using it to buy financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, mortgage paper, derivatives, etc.
The article I linked above says that these central banks stopped doing that for a while last year, but the financial markets started seizing up like a junkie needing his fix after only about three or four months without the printed-money heroin. So the central banks in question started delivering the junk again at the beginning of the new year.
Granted, this keeps Business As Usual going for a while longer, but the imbalances created by these “keep-it-going-for-a-while-longer” tricks means the next lurch downward will be that much more traumatic and catastrophic when it finally does happen. That the perpetuation of BAU is leaving more and more people out in the cold is a major reason why there’s so much anomie in the land right now, leading to things such as mass shootings, alcoholism, and opioid addictions.
It’s pretty tough not to be terribly anxious living in this day and age, isn’t it? :-(
Yes it is, but then we all have to die of something. Your analysis is excellent, and thanks for the good thoughts.
Thanks, Tom. We’re still here and glad you’re back. Talk about insanity, I’m trying to raise young ones in the midst of this madness. I’ve got one fledged and two to go, and who knows what the timing of the collapse will be! Keep writing and I’ll keep reading.
Keep writing if it helps you and I’ll keep reading because it helps me too.
Deal.
“How can one pretend to think, much less write, sanely in an insane world?”
You’re doing it so it can be done. Good have you back, Tom.
Thanks.
Yes, we are still here and still interested. Well understood, nothing to say, then keep the pen still and ones mouth shut! We know its a war against nature and the planet and in this war everyone is on the same side across the globe. So your letters from America are always welcome! No need to apologise for anything Tom, keeping your balance and sane is enough work for all of us.
Good to hear from you, Mike, thank you.
I think in terms of the reality what is irreversibly happening in global physical operations rather than the decisions, good and bad, made by people.
I didn’t realize I mas missing you . till you re appeared come on don’t give up. we are all on the same boat and need everyone to pull it´s oar till the time comes
You are right. I’ll do what I can. But you know, I really enjoy these welcome-back parties…..
My sentiments exactly. Thank you for the message in a bottle. Writing what you actually think is happening or will likely happen is dark, draining work these days. I managed to get the first two novels of my Inter States trilogy out on time in 2015 and 2016, but have been scaling an endless mountain of doubt, cognitive dissonance, and loathing ever since. Spoke to my publisher last week. Being a writer, he gets it. I am grateful for that. Must push on.
Play your instrument. Nothing else to do.
Tom, couldn’t agree with your analysis more. Though it is hard to focus on any one issue or set of problems causing the rot of Western civilization, there is an unmistakable sense of being too near a bomb with a short fuse. It previous ages, there was always some frontier where one could escape a decaying society. Now, you only have one bad choice or another. There are too many of us, all trying to hold onto a share of the ever-decreasing goodies. The big reset cometh…..
Good to see you resurface. Thanks.
As Catton puts it, we are in a bottle neck. Too many living creatures fighting to get through the bottle neck of declining resources, energy and increasing detritus. Insects, birds, fish and large mammals are taking the hit at the moment but everyone knows, subconsciously at least, that our turn will surely come and global overshoot will correct itself eventually.
All of the doom bloggers I read have declined significantly in output or withdrawn totally over the past year or two. That includes me. Whether it’s psychological fatigue or content exhaustion is hard to say, but BAU rolls merrily along on fumes. I’ve given up wondering why the next leg down hasn’t yet occurred or which of several predictable forms it might take. In the fullness of time, we know something’s coming. Of course, that given the MSM a new story to tell, which I daresay will be egregiously wrong. So a few lone chroniclers with clear vision are needed. I appreciate your efforts in that regard.
One factor is that the BAU people are being paid for rolling merrily along, and we are not. Thanks for the good thoughts.
Hey nice to see you back good sir. I’ve been a lurker and very occasional commenter since 2016.
Your articles along with those of the authors of the economicundertow and ourfiniteworld blogs really helped me form a balanced and rational view of the impending collapse of BAU.
One thing that frustrates me is that even such insightful people as yourself cannot predict when things will truly start unravelling in earnest. But that is the pillow of stone we collapseniks have chosen to lie upon.
Indeed. Enormous forces are in play, trying to prop up BAU for one more day, week, month…only when they play out will the laws of physics reassert themselves.
As JHK said in his blog-post today quoting eighties-rocker Tom Petty, “The Waiting Is The Hardest Part”.
Having just discovered your site, I am immediately dismayed at the suggestion that you might be ‘hanging up your pen’ as it were. So few thoughtful writers out there, hate to lose another. BTW, I’m anxious to read your books; gonna hafta do somthin about that…
Thank you. I’m not exactly hanging up the pen yet, it’s just that I keep gouging the parchment and bending the hell out of the nib in spasms of rage. But I think they have a pill for that…
Glad to see your still alive and kicking. i guess we all have to find a reason to remain positive and find purpose at the end of empire, maybe we can get some good advice from the russians or the british. and yes, we do need someone to chronicle this, a witness if you will.
Your back! The word is spreading. I’ll do my part. Today’s ear worm … “Dancing in the Street.” Lew
It’s the ennui Tom. It strangles your flow with entities like NTHE, Keeling Curve, 6th Mass Extinction, Arctic methane. There’s many more to add but I’m ennuied enough. Enjoy your compositions and hope you keep paying the muse.
Hellow Tom . the name is Eduardo Arias , I live in South America , namely Argentina I own a countyry house in Tucuman among gentle slopes full of trees ,and small animals, a large amount of books , many in english 5 terabites of clasiccala music a swiming pool , It´s hot in summer and a guest room and bath which would welcome you . Eduardo
On my way.