This blog tends to cover grim events related to the fall of empire and the rise of a new hegemon: war, genocide, politics (sigh), climate change, poverty, starvation and so on.
Fun stuff!
The people who read this are, I hope, the realists: people who want to know how things will turn out, who want to understand how the world works; people who don’t want to live in illusions or false hope.
But in staring into the darkness there is always the danger of falling into, to becoming depressed and fearful and feeling powerless.
There’s no need for this: the world has always sucked. Oh, some times and places were better, but no matter what time you look at horrible things were always happening somewhere to some people. Empathy and compassion and realism are good, but it’s not a victory or admirable to lose ones ability to enjoy all the good that life offers.
Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death
-Auntie Mame
The world is full of love, happiness, joy and beauty. In the middle of disaster, love can bloom. There are sunsets and sunrises, the play of clouds in the sky, flowers and leaves of fall, beautiful women and handsome men. There is great art to see, great music to listen to, thrilling or insightful books to read.
We live, still, in a cornocupia. There are vast varieties of food to delight your tongue. There are films and tv shows–some are crap, but many aren’t. There are museums full of artifacts.
And while life grows more constricted, in most countries, there are still helpers: doctors and nurses and others whose are available when something goes wrong.
Most of us have warm beds and cold drinks and few of us are going hungry.
Oh, much of it is gated behind money, but plenty isn’t. The world is full of plenty and beauty and love: to look only at the darkness and not the light is the height of foolishness.
Nor is there any virtue in suffering, despite what Christianity’s attempts to convince us otherwise. If life is bad for others, certainly you should have sympathy, empathy and help if you can, but you don’t have to be in a constant state of misery. The good is as real as the evil; pleasure exists alongside suffering.
The Buddha is reputed to have said that if your compassion doesn’t extend to yourself, it is incomplete. What you, I hope, want for most other people, is that they be happy: that should extend to yourself.
So allow yourself to sup from the feast of joy life offers. If you have money, by all means partake of what it offers, if you don’t remember that love and sunsets and flowers and petting a cat are all still free or cheap, and most of us, even those who are poor, can afford some lovely food and drink and can watch some great shows, listen to music, read books or play games.
Don’t let the world make your miserable. Don’t let your awareness, compassion, empathy and intelligence be your enemy. Sup from the cup of happiness whenever and wherever you can. It’s happiness and joy we’re actually fighting for: that’s what we want for others, and its what we should want for ourselves.
For me, it’s books and game and art and sometimes food. Fried noodles, a medium rare steak, a cup of cold fresh orange juice. Or watching the clouds take form after form as they scud across the sky, and listening to the drum of raindrops and the howling winds.
So much in life is good, even as so much is bad.
What is it, for you, that always brings joy? What do you reach for when you need a dose of happiness? Share in the comments, and more importantly, take some time, hopefully today, to indulge.
spud
get as knowledgeable as you can get. over come the myths, then its easier to see where we are going. protect yourself the best you can. watch movies, t.v. shows, mostly classic ones, beef up on physical music, movies, games and books.
make sure you have some foodie rewards. i keep some chocolate always on hand for others, as well as some ice cold pop.
i like coffee and tea.
bone up on all things solar. you can get solar fans, lights, radio’s and other things in case of blackouts. then you can still read, have some air movement, and listen to what’s going on, sip coffee.
then watch the system implode due to its internal absurdities and contradictions.
Bill
Thank you for the reminder.
Fresh grapes off the vine from the garden, sun on the back warming me, and rain, a good breeze. My family, fresh Cornish pasties and a cup of tea.
Nat Wilson Turner
Timely reminder. Thank you. As the Cramps said “life is short/filled with stuff/all I know/I ain’t had enough.”
Feral Finster
I have beaten the odds, lived longer than a starving kitten has any right to expect, fought for and won territory, mates, adventures, have sunny spots for napping, and my kittens are found all over the county and beyond.
Went to the homeless shelter for some volunteer pest control. I walk by myself and all places are alike to me.
Still, I suppose I could move to an girls’ college in India and spend my days napping on the girls’ beds and my nights looking for love and protecting the poor dears from rodent infestation.
Bullweather
Laughter of my kids and family. Cigarette on a terrace with a friend, late at night, deep in conversation. Rolling of the ocean tides. Exhaustion, grass stains, and euphoria of a morning soccer game. Cartwheeling. The smell and crunch of a crusty bread, with some soup. A plate of Cuban black beans and rice in a noisy house.
mago
Hmm. I’ve seen that sunset somewhere before. Actually, I have the good fortune to view sunsets from my mountainside perch year round through all seasons, and sunrises as well. It’s always inspiring.
I take joy in the birds that visit the suet feeder outside my window and even the scampering chipmunks who snatch the fallen seeds and chase each other around.
My geraniums and orchid and other houseplants are like a kind of family, odd as that may sound. I’m fond of them. I’m also surrounded by pines and firs and aspens and diverse plant life, all wild and untamed as are the mountains where they grow.
There’s more, much more. My life is filled with ordinary magic, and although by economic measures I’m living in poverty, I feel blessed in ways large and small.
Of course I’m aware of human and animal suffering and all the shitty things happening on the world stage, but I no longer let that affect my mental and emotional well being even if I am inclined to bust out the occasional rant.
I think a couple of things that weigh down westerners are guilt and being hard on oneself. It’s difficult to smile or have a kind attitude when those elements are in play.
So that’s my off the cuff contribution, and while I’m not a smiley face person, I’ll sign off by saying have a nice day. Hell, have a nice life if you’re able.
mistah charley, ph.d.
When I look at the big picture I can hardly stand it. Trying to come up with a mission statement here in the last part of my life, I wondered how to express it as if I were a Quaker:
I live under a practiced sense of creatureliness: the world is real, suffering is real, and my measure is not mastery but faithfulness. I am moved by the inward witness toward justice, tenderness, simplicity, and humility. I do not know whether what I call Spirit is wholly beyond me or also shaped within me, but I trust the leading that enlarges the self into fellowship with the whole creation. In a time of ecological unraveling and moral danger, I seek not consolation but right relation: to be small without being diminished, sober without despair, and present without puffing up.
However, as much as I admire the Quakers, I don’t have the faith to pull it off – and yet I am unwilling to let go of a childish feeling that “good is better than evil because it’s nicer”. Speaking more secularly:
I live in a finite biosphere, inside a species-history that may be entering a long decline driven by overshoot, entropy, and human misjudgment. I do not assume redemption, cosmic purpose, or survival. But I do affirm that ethical conduct still matters locally and now: justice, tenderness, humility, and restraint remain rational responses to reality. Whether “spirit” names an actual field of experience or a useful human construction, the effect is the same when it widens attention and reduces egocentric distortion. In that sense, the task is not salvation but lucid participation in a damaged but still meaningful world.
j
Posted by Rick Falkvinge as depression cure a long time ago. Possibly not the exact same video, but it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGF6bOi1NfA
Mark Level
A timely reminder, Ian, so thank you kindly.
I learned pretty early in my life that I am a big-time Sensualist, bit of a gourmand but not a snob about it, always hope to find new pleasures. Crowley’s Book of the Law taught me to always try to “Exceed! Exceed!” and “if thou drink, do so by the 9 & 40 rules of art.” (Hope I got that right.) 49 is 7 squared a Venusian vibe.
Travel is one of my great joys, though sometimes the road is rough. Born on a Wednesday so sometimes full of Woe, but Hermes at the Crossroads sends tricks and gifts my way in near-equal measure over time. Jupiter in the 8th house, knew to escape Belly of the Beast when I was only 23. Working out problems here (still working on the phone issue, but bumbling thru, new friends I make can call me about 40% of the time and then I can call back within Mexico.) Hopefully the problem will be resolved after Thanksgiving, in emergencies I have workarounds. Verizon told me they’d mail me a Phone replacement down here, but that dumped me into a scam by the Mexican government, I had to send it back, but after 2 hours on the phone with them this morning, looks like I’ll get a full refund in my service to pay my good sister back for $161 to (not) send the phone here. Also, talking to different authorities in town it seems I can get a Visa here without having to schlep over to Belize, which I believed I’d have to until 2 days ago. Grateful my sociability leads me to ask for “a 2nd opinion” when needed.
I’m grateful for the beauty I see every day in the Yucatan, I shared seeing my neighbor’s cat stare down a small hawk on the ground a couple days’ back, the cat is uninjured so used common sense. My elderly, 17 year old cat has become an outdoorsman finally, even when I was in California he never had direct sunlight as my 2nd floor balcony faced Northwest toward Mount Tamalpais.
Grateful for beautiful women and handsome and ugly men. Sometimes aesthetic ugliness (and judgments are usually arbitrary) conceals beauty of the soul. Grateful for the arts, comedy and even tragedy (which cannot be avoided in any long life), communion with others over food and drink. To quote an old friend years back, “I may’ve had a wasted youth, but at least I had a youth.”
Grateful for the sages. If you haven’s seen the Bill Hicks routine, “It’s just a Ride,” look into it. Bill should’ve lived longer in a just world, but such was not the verdict of the 3 sisters, the Morai dictate, and Atropos cut his life short at the ripe moment, so be it.
Grateful to have worked long enough to have financial Liberation at age 61, started working at age 16, and stopped at 61, nice reversal there, 45 years is plenty!! And grateful to have had a genuine vocation, Teaching, then Librarianship. Grateful to have a Union or I never would’ve survived. Grateful for my genuine colleagues with courage and grit, those who didn’t bend the knee to the petty bullies and tyrants. I have a new friend here who is literally half my age, but shares my vocation, Librarian for a Museum and the local University, great to talk shop. And he loves Alfred Jarry & ‘Pataphysics!!
Grateful for “Mad” comics when I was 14, Harvey Kurtzman the first to turn me into a little subversive, could enjoy beauty but equally could jeer at and disrespect pettiness, cant, conformity, the lazy received opinions of consensual “common sense”. Grateful for Punk Rock when I was 17, found my people, I was too young to be a hippy, nothing against most of them, nor a Beat, I joined the Blank Generation, & learned to “Take it or Leave it each time.”
Grateful for Free Spirits who showed me the way, Anarchists, Consensual perverts, those brave enough to embrace and follow their own Star, regardless of what others might think, Church of the SubGenius, the Situationists, Burroughs’ Thanksgiving Prayer, the road unspooling before me. Happy to break out of Plato’s Cave when inspired to, and know that Firesign Theater was correct, “Everything you know is wrong!” There’s always an obverse side of every coin/disk.
Grateful for multilingualism and the Holy Qabalah and gemmatria. For the Sufi sages, and Francois Rabelais’ exit door in the 5 books of Gargantua & Pantagruel, Thelema and “Trink”, the final answer of the Oracle of Bakbuk. Grateful for youth, grateful to have aged enough to understand the gift of humility, and as Mark Boland said, “With my Les Paul, I know I’m small, but I enjoy living anyway.” Tom Waits rasping away, creating a musical Cubism with Marc Ribot’s sharp, angular guitar licks. For Patty Smith’s version of G L O R I A, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine!!”
The way of the Buddha is noble, but the surrender to the Holy Tao is stronger, one is fortunate to have a life where the Joy weighs equally with the Sorrow at the moment of Liberation and exit. We’re just clever little monkeys at heart, Karma can be real at the social level, who knows what awaits with the final Transformation? Lethe is there as a form of Mercy, and to live forever like the Oligarchs dream of would be a misery.
Grateful to ignore politricks at time, the world of Lies and Mayas, and I respect Ian’s sigh, though I myself would give it a Gag!! or a kick in the balls were I able. Grateful in that realm for the luminaries, Max Blumenthal, Chris Hedges, too many to name, Aaron Mate and the others. Jeffrey Sachs at times, Sayed Mohammed Marandi. Astronomy & Astrology . . . The infinite Body of Stars in the Night outside the cities, Nuit.
I don’t know if I will rage at the Dying of the Light, or go with Joy, grateful for uncertainty when it’s warranted. Grateful for the smarter minds than mine here on this platform, and grateful even for the Trolls at times. If you can’t be a good influence, best to bestow laughter, a fine tonic during the absurd times we live in. Be happy, folks, as much as you are able, and resist letting the bastards get you down. Nice comment by Finster, and others, mago as nearly always, thanks to y’all.
Grateful for the Sun, Moon, and Stars, the animals, I’m awakened every morning now by the Gallos and Gallenas crowing. Grateful for the surprises ahead, and the ability to manouver (deliberate sic) either widdershins or deosil as needed. As the Band sang, Life is a Carnival, like it or not, 2 bucks a shot!! Go on, Go ON! Ever forward until you flame out.
spud
i have watched this guys journey for about two years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk8nJxCT0mg
When Life Falls Apart, You Start With One Thing | My Latest Update
spud
look what’s on his lap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6iwUuhBhfg
What Keeps You Going When You Live Alone?
Bukko Boomeranger
I follow the doomy news with intensity because I’m on the paranoid side of the psychological spectrum. Knowing about all the sh!tty things that are happening makes me feel safer, ironically. I reckon that I’m less likely to get blindsided by something coming from out of the blue. “Where did THAT disease/scam/conflict come from?!?”
Unlike most people, I can mentally detach from the disasters because I am one of the relatively comfortable types who read blogs. We have advanced devices and enough free time in life to observe letters on glowing screens. The people who scan your site are mostly the Luckies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
There are lots of non-Ianwelshers who are scrambling to eke out a few simoleons delivering takeaway food orders on a 2-wheeled vehicle in the rain, or hiding from Zionazi death-copters. It’s not twilight for them; it’s perpetual midnight. They have my sympathy. Only they’ll never know it because they’re too hard-pressed to observe commentary on current events.
What makes me happy is hella- weird. I enjoy finding food in the streets. I live in a country that’s a white settler colony, but it’s not a merciless place like Amerika. There are charity programs that deliver food to the homeless people who hide in the margins of this city’s streets. And those folks leave lots of it behind! I live literally above one of the drop-off points where a food van comes three times a week. I can look down on the events and have come to recognise some of the regulars. There’s one who always uses the free electric grills in the public park to cook up the raw meat that the charity gives away. He’s a generous fellow, apparently health-oriented, because he always deposits the candy bars, potato chips, take-away meals in those small plastic containers and other less-proteiny things he gets. I wait until he splits, then go down and swipe it.
In my freezer is a half-kilo of steak that was on the pavement under the railroad bridge near my building’s bicycle shed (encased in plastic) and still half-frozen. Not from that guy, either. I have so much other food to chew through that I haven’t got to cooking it yet. As the settler from Brooklyn said about the Palestinian’s house he was seizing, “if I don’t steal it, somebody else will.” But probably not with the food, because who but a nutter like myself picks up abandoned groceries? The psychobilly band The Cramps did a song titled “Don’t Eat Stuff Off The Sidewalk” and most people take that advice.
First World society is SO abundant, and SO wasteful. I frequently find bags of food by rubbish bins — without even needing to dive into the Dumpsters — where apartment tenants have moved out (or more likely been turfed out by their housemates.) A few weeks ago there were three still-wrapped packs with a nice raw steak in each, a tray with four marinated chicken skewers, a kilo of still-wrapped raw bacon and sundry other food items. I get around the city by bicycle and I have a keen set of eyes so I don’t ride over broken glass and puncture a tyre. That also helps me spot free food!
I don’t need any of this. Not to brag, but I have stacks of yellow metal (in a safe deposit vault) and a pantry full of spices, sauces, dry goods and other ingredients. I get pleasure from cooking and eating because I know how fortunate I am. I make a point of being conscious of my blessings, too. I think the Buddha would approve.
sbt42
I moved out to the country and began my homesteading journey to kick ass and live my best life. I put my hands in the dirt to grow plants, build things with hand tools, and play with cats while I’m out here. Anything else is just even more of a bonus. Like, watching classic cinema.
Jan Wiklund
Apparently, having an idea about how the world works seems to make one happier. It’s reported that a survival factor in the nazi concentration camps was a strong ideology, of whatever kind – Marxist or Christian didn’t matter, the most important was that it was strong. It works also under more normal times, according to Richard Layard: Happiness, lessons from a new science, 2005.
But of course it also helps one to make the right solutions.
Lena
My little rescue cat is the light of my life. She spent the first year of her life fending for herself out in the woods. When I adopted her, she had no idea what a soft blanket on a bed or food in a bowl was but she quickly learned. I adore spoiling her. She takes excellent care of me too. When I am sick, which is unfortunately often, she brings me gifts of her soft toy mice. She lines them up around my feet and then she cuddles next to me. This is pure joy. My advice in these dark times: Adopt a cat.
Golden Age mysteries and classic movies also help get me through the days, as does a feeling of connection with my Quaker ancestors who I believe watch over me.