Response from a Collapse Aware Young Person

This article on young folks, from an old folks’ perspective, doesn’t capture my experience or that of my peers. My crew & I, young and old, are grieving the losses but more interested in creating what we can from the shell & bones of collapse. We don’t have the luxury of dying before it happens, unless we die by suicide or natural disaster, so we’re skill-building on how to build community and coalitions of like-minded people; adapt to & filter out fast-moving news streams; breathe through & transmute pain; serve as death doulas, nurses, Community Health Workers (CHWs), facilitators, and artists; continue to sing & dance together like humans always have.

Acceptance is a great one-size-fits-all step right now, and an ongoing process. It’s beautiful in its way. But imagine being 27 and joining “Collapse Club” every Wednesday after work, with a bunch of people who describe your lived future, the loves and passions that you still have in spite of everything, as unwisely “floundering” and “learn[ing] how to swim in frozen water.” It is not a generative discussion.

Notably, the sound bytes you mention from all over the world are also giving us useable perspective. I (we) piece it together to witness a more coherent picture of the atrocities and power dynamics brought by human organization ala Manifest Destiny. As a result, nationalist propagandas don’t convince as many people anymore. In that way, my circles also see how humans could have done it all differently. This is another big-picture perspective available now, and it is a compelling alternative to Collapse Club. If you’re gonna watch it all crumble & morph, why not die while trying something new for humankind? Die enamored of all life!

Also with the advent of globalization comes this weird and wildly fecund landscape of working class solidarity, rapid cultural exchange -> evolution, and an exploding principle of curiosity and openness for anyone who wants to join. Even if the internet & air travel collapse, our next steps as a progressive subset will be unique in history because of this context, and that’s a cool experiment to die through!

So. If you’re gonna be 20 or 30 and alive right now, and you wanna stay in love with your people, your god/spirit, and the earth in spite of everything, then you’re gonna join “Anti-capitalist Club” or “Liberation Nation” or “Rally for Peace” to imagine a kind reality. You’ll need active “Battle in Seattle” type outlets for the grief & rage of all young life being threatened irrevocably. You’ll probably make sardonic memes about collapse so you can fold some things into good humor & camaraderie. You may even invest time learning how power dynamics work in large societies (civil movement studies) because you might just live to see ‘the day after’ collapse, and you’d better know what the hell you’re doing!!

So it’s not that loads of progressive youth are floundering in denial or simple “forsaken, betrayed, and doomed” victim narratives, despite the compelling argument you’ve made in favor of such a perspective. Certainly older folks are equally prone to such doomerism.

From what I can see in my circles, many youth were born into acceptance. Out of the accepters, statistics tell us that increasing numbers are choosing “the option of first exit” in suicide. Others are opting out of old structures, including “misery” & collapse, and opting into potentiality. Neither group is likely to see as much value in collapse club discussions that don’t hold room for rebirth.

I’m proud of the emotional awareness, high levels of empathy, expanding capacity for “grey areas” and difference, and decolonized identities that my “softer” generation is championing. I feel so at home in the spaces that we can create together with the mindsets that we have nurtured through collapse.

Because all people are creating the circles they need, including Collapse Club, I don’t see a great need to change CC meetings to invite more youth. But it might be interesting to convene these circles sometimes, and see what we learn in collaboration!

Cheers to our continued growth. May I continue to practice intergenerational learning in service of One Love, and so may we all.