The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age,
by John Michael Greer
I caught wind of peak oil around the same time I woke to the fact that we had a certifiable moron in the White House, which clued me in to big trouble brewing under the foundations of the delusion passing as western democracy. That led me to John Michael Greer, who is probably the weirdest intellectual hero as well as the straightest thinker I have come across in my long years of nosing around trying to dig out the truth, if there is any, about our human predicament.
Good druid that he is, Greer takes the long view of things, long as in sidereal. When you think in terms of
saeculae saeculorum, that really puts things in perspective.
Thinking on that time scale brings to mind the views of the psychologist Rollo May, who classified human thought into rough categories of chicken shit through bullshit to elephant shit. When you contemplate the long run, that cuts through a lot of the tiny elements that feed our day-to-day streams of thought. We appreciate the deep currents more, and learn to disregard the tiny ripples on the surface.
We live in the ripples, and we are occasionally battered by the storms that take a few days to blow by. The unlucky ones are those who live most of a lifetime in turmoil. Sadly, that happens a lot, and for them, death may come as a relief. Moments, hours, days, decades, maybe a century is the time span which we can wrap our attention around.
When we look to recent history for guidance as to what we can expect over the next year or decade, even the experts get fooled on a regular basis. Who knows what another year will bring? Who knew a year ago that Trump would snatch the nomination from the Republican placeholders? Who knew in 2013 that Germany would call back their gold from 'safekeeping' at Fort Knox, and that the US would say you can't have it, dunno when, won't say why? In 2007 with the Dow over 14,000, that 18 months later it would be be down by half? That banks would charge you for holding your money instead of paying you interest? Or just take your money, 'legally,' because they need it?
So we see lots of things everybody thought would never happen, they happen, and keep happening. Something ain't right here!
John Michael Greer keeps coming up with lessons on how the ripples play out against the perspective of the deep currents. One of his best posts is up on his weekly blog right now at
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/