by Daniel Drumright, a lifelong radical environmentalist who has followed climate science for the last 25 years, and has been a feral “collapse theorist” for the past 13 years
Once again, the following has been written for an extremely limited audience. This essay is ONLY for those who have come to accept the probability of our near term extinction and the emotional anguish it obviously generates.
For those who haven’t accepted this, or those who have long term dependents in their care or have a particular survivalist imperative, there is no reason to read any further, and I honestly hope you won’t. This is a commiserative thought experiment written ONLY for those whose lived experiences have afforded them the intellectual/emotional freedom to fully explore the dismal implications that virtually no one will survive near term global starvation.
But more importantly, this was written for an audience that has come to comprehend the principal concept of ‘hopium’ more than anything else, even the climate science behind NTHE. Once one is able to see beyond the palliative effects of hope, or rather our inherent fear of hopelessness, much of the smoke of our cultural predicament begins to clear.
While I originally sought to write this homily in essay form, due to the mystifying density of the subject matter where most days I find myself utterly dumbstruck by the sheer scale of the cataclysm, I can at best only string together a series of meditative vignettes that further explores an uncomfortable taboo, and which is but a continuation of an essay I posted in this space over a year ago.
For those seeking concision on the murkiness of mass death, you’ll need to look elsewhere. Lest we forget, at this moment in time, in spite of NTHE being empirically based on overwhelming physical evidence, for those on the radical fringe who have come to ‘accepted it’ today, it still exists almost solely as a philosophical concept. In my opinion, all conversations concerning NTHE, can only seriously arise after having long contemplated the implication within Guy’s climate-change summary and update.
As well, the following is also not written for those who still consider “resistance” to be an arguable moral imperative, even in a Pascalian sense. Acceptance of NTHE obviously renders ALL forms of resistance but an article of faith after the fact, compared to the last half century where the ethical imperative of resistance was primarily rooted in the ecological necessity of safeguarding against the very outcome “we” have now come to accept. If nothing makes it out alive, then nothing can be saved. On this side of acceptance, every act is just a coping mechanism.
While I have dedicated my entire adult life to ecological anarchism, in light of the overwhelming unprecedented empirical evidence now before us, resistance is no longer an imperative I can honestly possess nor defend. I am beyond heartbroken, the tragedy of the human condition will never cease being anything but an endless cause of sorrow and grief. For me, the continued destruction of the natural world for the sole purpose of sustaining a doomed civilization has been nothing but agony my whole life. However, the conflict created by acceptance of NTHE has not prevented me from vainly questioning what is left to be experienced in the phenomenal time that still remains.
*
There probably isn’t a single aspect concerning NTHE that isn’t a cognitive dissonant trigger. All of us are of at least two minds: how we intellectually process information and how we emotionally respond to such information — the phenomena that exist to be observed and our ability to observe it. And our emotional capacity to observe a thing often dictates what we imagine exists to be observed. While NTHE is rationally and empirically based, acceptance of such dire evidence however, is wholly an emotional endeavor … and that’s where everything flies off the tracks.
So acceptance of NTHE not only demands “we” first put the highest intellectual value on observable empirical evidence that we innately comprehend undermines our sense of self-preservation, but then, “we” must completely shift to an entirely different emotional state of ‘being’ with such evidence. There are very few individuals in the world who are even capable of attempting this, not alone, maintaining their sense of bearing once they have.
*
“We have great difficulty dealing with philosophy in context of real events” (John Ralston Saul)
Yet, here “we” are, attempting to do exactly that, not only in context to an event that has yet to gravely impact the affluent western world, but presuming that when it does, most of life on earth will cease to exist. Like I said, most days I find myself utterly dumbstruck.
Selfishly seeking illumination in the dark light of NTHE is either profoundly absurd or absurdly profound, but then again, so is most of humanity. As to whether “we” agents of demise have any “right” to even seek peace in the wake of our ongoing collective annihilation, is but one of countless questions made irrelevant by the acceptance of NTHE. Never before, has the forced acceptance of thing, so completely erased that which came before it. And where on this side of acceptance, we’ve only the cold vacuum of truth to keep us warm, while virtually every past attempt to define the meaning of life is but now suspended in a state of erasure. There isn’t a single story or event within all of human history that can even remotely serve as a comparative example or an analogy to what the human race is now experiencing.
*
At this late or last stage of collective awareness, I find myself only interested in commiserating with those who have come to share a similar dire perspective, given such commiseration is attempting to wrestle with the greatest cognitive break in human history. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time talking to myself.
From here on out, the entire conversation of NTHE will probably never move past several central themes and points of predictable contention: Denial vs. acceptance; observable evidence vs. peer review science; truth vs. hope; survivalism vs. resignation; resistance vs. acquiescence; service vs. self-interest; cognitive dissonance vs. commiseration; suicide vs. starvation, and so on. But it is impossible for humanity to resolve any social disparity, there is no such thing as consensus at this scale, nor is there any such thing as “we”.
Endlessly arguing with those who don’t accept NTHE does little but keep “us” emotionally and intellectually trapped in past paradigmatic behavior that I believe many here at Nature Bats last (NBL) are now attempting to get beyond. While I have spent decades cataloging, referencing and debating the mounting evidence, this was done with intentional purpose during a time when I believed it mattered, but on this side of acceptance, I can no longer see the point, given that the point is, is that there is no point. For why would I seek to prove I am right, when all I wish for is to be wrong?
The unprecedented evidence has forced me to finally accept a truth which I have resisted all my life. It is time to take a serious look at what past behavior is still habitually keeping me from truly being present with this tragic reality, given that the vast majority of my identity has been married to the principle of resisting the very thing I can no longer deny.
*
We are a hopelessly divided species. Our divisions are incessant even among those who share a common culture, so I have no idea as to what personal character trait or individual background affords someone the ability to seriously consider something as emotionally ruinous of NTHE. But whatever it is, aside from obviously valuing “truth” at all personal cost, and the privileged opportunity to seriously contemplate such truth, an intimate relationship with humility seems to be required in navigating the desolate labyrinthine of remorse that all is most likely lost.
One could argue that the whole of our collective ecological awareness over the last half century has been nothing but an exponential humbling experience, where the human race now finds itself on the wrong end of a growth curve, rounding the final corner of a Copernican Turn that apparently never stopped turning. The same humility required in objectively accepting the sheer scale of the known universe, as well that we evolved from lower life forms seems to be the same requisite values for comprehending the dire implications of non-linear climate change.
And I would go so far as to say that ‘acceptance of NTHE’ is probably only a current “moral dilemma” for those who have long possessed ecological values and the intrinsic culpability those values naturally entail. One simply must have within them the capacity to comprehend the hypocrisy behind all that has already been lost, before we are able to see all that will continue to be lost.
Similar to all the evidence proving there was clearly more involved with 9/11 than just the dominant narrative, when one finds themselves having to explain that which is otherwise self-evident, it doesn’t usually have much to do with any amount of evidence, and usually has everything to do with what personal biases are creating certain blind spots within our worldview. So just as a previous understanding of realpolitik aides one in coming to terms with 9/11 most likely being some kind of an inside job, possessing ecological values aides one in fully being able to internalizing the conundrum of NTHE.
It seems the longer one has been divorced from the subjective trappings of a consumer culture, the clearer objective reality can be perceived in all its belittling splendor. But as anyone who has spent even a modest amount of time engaged in ecological conscious raising, inevitably discover for themselves a myriad of competing cultural vested interests, which makes bearing ecological values little more than a tragic burden within an utterly indifferent economic reality, where our species biological imperative trumps all else regardless of the culture we were reared.
The evidence of NTHE will obviously resonate more with those who have been “psychologically primed” by decades of lost battles, compared to those who have never really given the entrenched cultural and economic factors of our ecological dilemma any serious thought.
*
Environmentalism has always been a game of chance, where the odds have always been stacked against any significant societal change ever occurring. The cultural impediments have never been anything other than stupefying; capitalism has been as immovable as our competing self-interests. And while resistance has never seemed like anything other than a losing battle, there was at least the perceived opportunity for a major sea change of consciousness to at least start to take root, or least “we” imagined there was still enough time for such a transformation to manifest. No matter how slim or distant that prospect has always been, the environmental movement of the last five decades could at least hold the high moral ground, as well as logically out debate any counter argument to maintaining the self-evident destructive trajectory of the status-quo.
However, while environmentalism has always been a game of chance, it has also always been a race against time. And not a race where we get to continually move the finish line as every new generation of vanguards is handed off the baton, but a race that mother nature eventually decides she is just tired of watching, or rather, the laws of thermodynamics eventually shift to a new equilibrium.
The major blind spot of environmentalism has been the moral imperative itself, for it has blinded us to the fact that humanity’s biological imperative has always superseded any subcultures concept of ethical behavior. In light of NTHE, only certain eastern religious branches and western nihilism can now in hindsight claim to have always known the greater “truth,” while we western radicals now find ourselves twisting in the wind at the end of a rope that was only ever attached to a castle in the sky.
It is not by accident that over the last fifty years, most environmental protest movements have been overwhelmingly generational youth movements as well, and in the same inverse vein, it is not by accident the adherents of NTHE are now overwhelmingly near or beyond retirement age. Relatively the same imperative and cultural obstacles still exist as they always have, the only difference is how long one has honestly lived with these cultural impediments; the number of years one has repeatedly banged their head against the epitaph of immovable human nature (growth). All that is eventually lost over the years is just our open-minded naivety and the illusion of human agency where there apparently never was any (i.e., the essence of hopium).
*
It is far too easy for us humans to project our private values unto the world at large, it’s debatable as to whether it’s impossible not to. And not unlike birds of a feather, moral imperatives tend to gravitate towards sympathetic in-groups, where a crusade mentality quickly becomes a self-identifying Hallmark against perceived otherness. (I am less pointing the finger at other’s fringe behavior, rather I’m just looking back over my own life.)
There has probably been very few “in-groups” who believed they knew something to be self-evident, where they didn’t endlessly decry why “others” just don’t “get it”. Whether it is Rightwing Christian Fundamentalists or leftwing radicals, the patterned behavior so overlaps it almost doesn’t matter what “we” believe. Whether it’s a particular faith in divine intervention or private illusions of collective human agency, we have always found ourselves in exactly the same position when it comes to the endless fracturing of society as a whole, as well as our collective penchant for myth making. (There are at least 21,000 different denominations within Christianity alone, I wonder how many environmental groups there has been over the last half century.)
And yet, in spite of all our cultural divisions and self-delusion, the fact remains, that at no other time in human history has a certain extreme minority ecological subculture (NBL) been faced with such an inconsolable dilemma as having to accept the empirical evidence of NTHE, i.e. non-linear climatic positive feedback loops. Aside from all the human behavior that has repeated generation after generation to no avail in preventing this phenomenal moment from arriving, here “we” few stand, now being forced to accept something no living human being has ever had to before … as if our idiosyncratic stew wasn’t spiced enough.
*
In my opinion, the only thing that is open for debate regarding our near term future, is our imaginations and the ever present probability that we are wrong about everything (read the mindboggling 5% of UFO phenomena for example). But as far as our tribal brains can deduce, thermodynamics doesn’t care what we think, or that “we” even exist at all. Regardless of how the future plays out, it will most likely be nothing other than what has come before, just endless horrific suffering, until most of life on earth is snuffed out. All that’s changed, is it’s just now happening at an incredible rate coalescing during many of our lifetimes.
Consequently, all NTHE amounts to is just all the dire warnings of the last five decades coming to fruition. A half century of yelling “FIRE!” has now passed, and in both the throes and on the cusp of mass extinction, on which side of acceptance does the burden of proof fall? Whether all of life, or just most of it will be driven into extinction is an irrelevant distinction, because the outcome remains the same for most of life on earth, including any definition of “us”.
*
Many who might be reading this have been thinking about mass die-off/back for probably way too long. But most of that time has been in context to the ongoing collapse of IC, not on this side of having to accept the evidence of our NTHE. We’re now talking about an entirely different reality that has simply never existed, but we’re often still speaking in a past parlance that is no longer germane to the unprecedented phenomena that has only just been discovered. By the time an individual has jumped through enough mental hoops to eventually shed a degree of their inculcation, to where they finally come to comprehend the meaning of hopium, language itself has long been deconstructing into useless symbolism. The word play involved in NTHE is terribly easy for “us” to continue to conflate, connote and resignify given we’ve been watching the same storm approach for most of our lives. There isn’t a soul here who isn’t in some way still blinded by our past vested interests and using outmoded language to specify a reality that is sadly no longer there, especially given we are still at a loss as how to describe what is. And as with every dilemma concerning NTHE, this will never be resolved.
*
The dawn of NTHE awareness/acceptance has a surreal limbo period, where our internal dialog exists in a near schizophrenic state of competing loyalty to both the “truth” we have long sought, and the identity of the seeker that has driven us to such dire awareness. Again, NTHE represents the greatest cognitive break in the history of our species, and it will never cease in being anything other than that, but though it has long been in the making, it still takes some time for this new awareness to level everything once we’ve accepted it has finally arrived.
So as the irrefutable evidence mounts that our race against time has ended, a multitude of unprecedented dilemmas present themselves, leaving us to decide whether we can truly internalize them without going completely mad, or whether going completely mad might not be so bad given that the long term consequences of madness/addiction have recently ceased to exist as well.
So, those of us who have the queer emotional wherewithal, to attempt to crack the utterly dismal enigma as how this irreconcilable knowledge will alter our lives during the twilight of our existence, the entire concept of ‘suicide’ eventually comes to be shown in a totally different light than it has ever been before. Again, lest we forget that every thought pertaining to NTHE has never existed before! We are in completely uncharted territory, there are no landmarks out here.
*
Regardless of where we see ourselves on this side of acceptance, our sentiments surrounding both the meaning of life and death has been completely turned inside out. There is now within each of us, a newly exposed part of ourselves that has never existed before this moment. This new wrinkle in our consciousness has left quite the rub. Each and every one of us, now has the evidence to shed virtually every thought we’ve ever had if we so choose.
As a highly informed community (NBL), where many of us have long been critical of “others” cognitive bias/dissonance, we are ourselves still coming to realize that NTHE has presented us with a unique mirror in which to see everything in a completely different light, if but only for a very limited amount of time. We are finally being confronted by a degree of irrefutable truth we’ve long seen approaching, but have never actually directly experienced … until now.
*
I have come to accept NTHE for the same reason why I don’t fight to preserve grizzly habitat in my home state — though they once ruled these parts — because there is a significant difference between threatened, endangered and extinct. The very basic cause and effect of ecological degradation that we have observed all our lives has done nothing but slowly move the entire world through all three.
Personally, as time passes, moments throughout the day are becoming more acute as my estranged terrestrial perspective is being forced to become ever more cosmological and transient. On my better days, I can see it as if falling in love with the ephemerality of time itself. The very thing I once took for granted has become the most sacred, while the very biota I once held above all else, has become the very thing I must learn to let go of. The guilt, shame, outrage and sadness of what could have been never fades, it’s just the lens through which I have perceived the meaning of life is broadening to encompass the meaningless erasure of all of life as if we never even existed.
The web of life was hopelessly broken before any of us were born, time to stop holding onto to the dream that there is no difference between ‘falling scales’ and ‘life still hanging in the balance’. Even conservation work now seems little more than just another anthropocentric coping mechanism, though I see it as the only gracious endeavor that remains for humanity.
*
The specter of death is now all too intimately looking over all of our shoulders. There is a definite look in our own eyes now that we have never seen; a certain knowing that we can’t yet describe out of fear that by naming it, we might conjure up something we’re yet prepared to face and/or let go.
Acceptance of NTHE equates to no one survives, period. And where only those who fight to the bitter end, only survive for a little longer as a result of either dumb luck, or the horrors they are/were willing to commit.
While the mantra “cut wood and carry water” is poetic, it’s a little saccharine to assume we’re all just going to drop dead in a field once we can no longer do either.
I may be mistaken, but I see those here at NBL aren’t all too concerned anymore about how we are going to survive what we now accept can’t be. I like to imagine “we” are a little more interested in how we resign ourselves to live with the full acceptance of the near timing aspect of extinction, which is literally a degree of philosophical inquiry that again has never emerged until now! “Cutting wood and carrying water” helps get us through these days, but days like these aren’t going to last much longer.
*
So, since we aren’t talking about surviving nor resisting anymore, what are we attempting to talk about? Or more to the point, what are we NOT talking about, while imagining we are?
Most here know the answer to that rhetorical question. What we’re all talking around is the same thing humanity has always talked around, death. But it’s one thing to speak about death in future abstract terms or even in context of hospice care, but it’s an entirely different dilemma to see it fast approaching and understand it can’t be avoided regardless of what we do, while still having much life left in us.
Just one of the many problems those of us who seek to commiserate about NTHE experience is that there aren’t any social mores that allow for such a discussion in any culture. But given we’re now living on the wrong side of non-linear rates of climatic change, and NBL is the only public space this reality is being openly discussed, how about we take a stab at creating a few new mores for ourselves.
Let’s start talking about how we’re all going to die, not vaguely, halfheartedly or sarcastically, but specifically so that we can actually begin to get beyond that specter, and start being creative in figuring out how we’re going to live through extinction until that fateful day comes for each of us. Because if we’re talking about acceptance, it’s probably time we get around to actually talking about what IT is we’ve come to accept, beyond endlessly lamenting the loss of all the rest of life, and incessantly debating our legacy of agency which has nevertheless led us to where we are today irrespective of our personal opinions.
This is what I imagine to be that ever present dark side of the spectrum we’ve yet to openly explore, that unknown that reveals the essence of all acceptance to be but ephemeral; that space from which every next dot to be connected inevitably emerges. Our foreboding next step where we realize the proverbial “the dark night of the soul” we like to envisage we’ve somehow passed through in just getting to this unbearable stage of acceptance, actually starts all over again in how we attempt to live with “it” over the coming decade(s).
Many of us have already stumbled into this unfathomable abyss many times, but just haven’t been able to “breakthrough,” because … well … look at what in the fuck we’re actually discussing. It’s not like the subject of en masse starvation readily lends itself to public deliberation. But not because we are actually talking about starvation, but because there just aren’t that many of us who are comfortable talking about what we’re going to do in lieu of it, which is most likely suicide, or maybe some creative passive version of it.
Probably very few of those who are fully aware of what is coming, will actually end up needlessly putting themselves through the painful act of starving to death. Why would we put ourselves though such intractable suffering when we won’t be able to argue against the fact that any number of remedies would do the trick in but an instant? That is ultimately the whole point of discussing suicide now. Not because we are some ecological Thanatos cult who share an unconscious death wish, but because “we” want to be able to honestly live in the time we do have left, without living in fear of some unspeakable truth that our culture doesn’t allow us to openly discuss.
The knowledge that we will not survive, supported by the comprehension we most likely wouldn’t want to survive even if we could, along with a little pathos that we might not even deserve to survive, does make one’s acceptance of our near term death a little easier to, well … accept.
No one consciously wants to be miserable, and there is no comforting way to talk about suicide while we’re still attempting to cling to the last vestiges of life. Lord knows we can go round and round this subject until the very last Brussels sprout ceases to sprout. But we have already inadvertently planted our last figurative seed, and it’s time we get around to smelling its strange fruit.
*
Before I am accused of any number of abominations, let me state that I have no plans on killing myself anytime soon. I still have much life to live and I can still find much to live for, and I plan on living for as long as I see fit. I’m not speaking of ‘altruistic suicide’ here, though I can see much nobility it such acts. No, this is just your ordinary quiet resignation, peace of mind, end-of-suffering variety of self death.
After having seriously contemplated the empirical reality of NTHE probably longer than anyone other than maybe a few here, I have come to realize that having an exit strategy makes living with our NTHE far more bearable after one has come to truly internalize it.
For those who have emotionally come to accept NTHE and the fate it naturally entails, inevitably come recognize that suicide is most likely the only way this ends well for anyone. But today, that is not our fate. Today, those few here at NBL are faced with having to learn how to live with the time we have left until a very perceptible fate arrives, whether it be throwing ourselves into conservation work, throwing our sabots into the gears of industry, checking off our bucket list or throwing ourselves off a bridge, it doesn’t really matter what we decide to do on this side of acceptance. It is as horrific as it is astonishing.
*
So let’s use Michael Ruppert as a recognizable case study. (While I was very familiar with his work, I did not personally know Mike, nor do I have any knowledge as to what was specifically going through his mind in the moments that led up to his last decision, other than what has been revealed since his death. This is pure speculation on my part.)
While I have no issue with Ruppert’s choice to take his life, my only qualm with his suicide is how he went about it. Because while many of us, out of both respect for his life, along with our own discomforts with the definiteness of death, will want to treat his passing as somehow being just a personal choice one man made, and while that is true, it is far from the whole truth based on what we all know to have most likely been a major driving force behind his decision.
Our cultural scapegoat of “depression” being the driving force is way too easy of an out this time around, even though that clearly played a huge part. However, there is a far greater narrative at play than just one man taking his life. Framing Ruppert’s suicide in any remotely familiar past impression of emotional instability, is a bit of a farce at this late stage of planetary ecocide. Many of us are all too painfully aware of the same soul devouring information that helped guide his hand.
Maybe he wrote more than we are aware of that better explains the timing of his decision, but nonetheless, given how everyone was taken aback, yet not surprised, it seems like an incredibly profound opportunity was lost, because it seems like his choice was made in a state of duress and desperation when it didn’t have to be so. It just doesn’t appear that he left this life in peace — putting aside the moral debate as to whether any of us deserve to leave this life in peace.
He had obviously reached a state of mind where he no longer wanted to carry on. The issue I have with Ruppert’s suicide is that he could have come to the same conclusion, where instead of deceptively concealing it in a seemingly ignominious act, he could have chosen to embrace his death in an entirely new way, which could have been surreally aided by the dire knowledge which has only recently broken through our collective consciousness. He obviously took time to plan his last days, so why not just take a little while longer, and plan a little more.
If there is one silver lining concerning NTHE, it is how readily we’re going to be able to approach death differently.
Had he been able to discover a way to move pass the loneliness, grief and despair so commonly associated with the choice to end one’s life, and recognized that it’s impossible for our NTHE to completely alter the meaning of our life, without equally altering the meaning of our death, he could have allowed those he cared about the ability to be present with him. He could have just said “I’m tired of fighting and it’s time to take my dirt nap, and anyone who has a problem with that … well tough shit.” His death could have avoided being a shocking violent bloody shot to the head, and been far more an act of peaceful resignation, which I’m sure at one time he must have at least considered. Haven’t most of us, at one time or another?
So why not a serene letting go that would have helped pave the way for all those who are surely going take a similar path when our time comes?
There is absolutely no reason to fear death. It’s just our selfish egos that can’t let go of the anticipation of a life yet lived. However, once one truly accepts NTHE, they have already involuntarily accepted the death of not only their ego, but all of life which renders the actual end of our individual lives even less significant. There is absolutely no reason why the decision for someone to take their life — for whatever reason — can’t actually be considered a commemorate act, especially now. Especially now!
So let’s use Ruppert’s life and death as a keen teachable experience for us to explore an entirely new reality, which yet again is clearly on all of our minds to a degree it has never been before.
Let’s look at how Ruppert could have still ended up just as dead as he is now, but rather than having pulled the trigger alone most likely consumed in doubt and despair, he could have chosen to take a different path, whereby continuing to be a medium and gone out in a far more exceptional way. Because I’ll be direct, while I completely support Mike’s decision to take his life, his suicide was a total waste of everyone’s time and energy, not because it was a betrayal to the rest of us, but because he betrayed himself by how we went about it … and yes, that’s painful to admit.
*
Let’s imagine Mike had finally decided enough was enough, and just no longer wanted to be alive, which was obviously the case. He wouldn’t have needed to explain his reason to anyone, unless he wanted to. It’s not like he was short of reasons. It’s not like he really had to even explain these reasons to probably anyone close to him. I’m sure most everyone he knew, was/is fully aware of why someone would choose to end their life, even if the whole concept of suicide was difficult for those close to him to accept, or was something they just ethically disagreed with.
He had already more than laid out the equation for everyone to add up for themselves. All that was left, if he wanted, was to explain why he had finally decided to let go at this particular moment. And that reason could have been nothing more than just not caring to care anymore, or that his health had faded, or that he was financially destitute and was sick of the futility of having to make a living, or his past had finally caught up to him, or he didn’t want to live with the growing despair anymore. The reason(s) could have been anything. The choice was his and his alone to make. And if it wasn’t a rational decision at the time, then it may have been avoided if he was able to openly talk himself through it. Who knows?
All he had to do was own it. That’s it.
The entire concept of shame is wholly subjective and is easily dispelled. We would think no less of him, but it would have given those closest to him the chance to say goodbye and speak their peace, and avoid the bitter lasting regret that suicide almost always leaves behind. He could have removed all doubt and set an amazing precedent. The reasons behind his decision would still be the same, but the major difference would be having confronted a useless taboo that has yet to be reexamined in light of the unprecedented reality now upon us all.
He could have chosen to communicate his thinking on the subject in varying degrees depending on who was sitting across from him. He could have given those he loved the opportunity to be present with his death while he was still alive, and possibly achieve a level of serenity he himself may have never thought possible. The very end of his life could have been the greatest cathartic moment of his entire life, as well as those close to him.
However, his mental state prevented him from making any of those choices, wherein he only perpetuated the stigma of suicide being a desperate act, made only by those in a distressed state of mind, which is sadly what it was, and that is truly a shame because it didn’t have to be that way.
He could have thrown his own memorial ceremony and invited all his friends to come celebrate being alive, and challenged those to look at life from a perspective that can only be achieved when faced with our own mortality. Because what else is acceptance of NTHE, other than having to face the near-term mortality of all of life? He could have told everyone who chose to come, that the time for arguing and despairing about the meaning of life and death was now behind him, and it was time to seriously ponder what we are now living for, given the absence of precedence we are all now aware of. He could have challenged us to the very end, and allowed his death to continue to serve those still living awhile longer.
He and some close friends could have gotten high as hell and laughed their asses off while taking turns literally digging his own grave. He could have built a pyre, passed out a bunch of peyote and McKenna quotes, played the drums and danced until he could no longer stand and then drink a cup of hemlock tea and have everyone pass around the torch. He could have gone for a long swim or just an epic walk into the desert after a tearful round of long hugs and even longer kisses. There are many peaceful ways one can end their life, if they allow themselves to consider it.
But he did none of these things. Instead he stained his life’s work with the knowledge and lasting memory that he left this life in the same quiet desperation that he lived, and that is truly tragic because it stole from him the very higher consciousness in which he sought to aspire later in life.
*
While it is hard for us to accept, nonetheless, a horrific death is coming for us all my friends. We can continue to avoid talking about it in any detail out of fear of the depression and despondency it naturally provokes, or we can look it straight in the eye and somberly plan today on how we might have a good last laugh whenever we decide that fateful day has finally arrived.
I have spent most of my life stuck somewhere between anger and grief for all that has been lost and what might have been if only … I have never not fought against the system, but I can no longer argue against myself, in spite of myself out of guilt and shame for having to accept all has been lost. I can’t honestly allow a once-revered moral imperative to continue to dictate what I can’t accept.
This is the tragic chapter we now find ourselves, not still lost in all the past dismal chapters that led us here. There is nothing I would wish for more than to continue to believe as I always have that my little actions somehow make a difference. But I full well know that the best thing for the rest of life on earth, including the human race, would have never to have been born in the first place.
I have deliberately chosen not to have children, and that reason honestly isn’t all that different from my opinion on the merits of suicide. The two stem from the same basic understanding. To have accepted that humanity can’t ecologically continue to bring more souls into existence isn’t all that different from accepting those already born probably shouldn’t have been. The ethical choice not to create life isn’t all that different from ending our own.
I would be utterly out of my mind, which I most likely am, to suggest that suicide could somehow be considered life-affirming, but in context to our NTHE, in my opinion, that is exactly what it is.
Once we let go of the fear of death, everything else we know we must eventually let go of, simply starts to fall away on its own. We can go out with a bang or a whimper. We can be left as nothing but a pile of ashes, or we can make sure our body is never found. We can be holding hands as we draw our last breath together, or we can watch the sun set quietly sitting alone knowing it’s our last.
The choice is only ours to make. There are so many other fulfilling ways of looking at our last days on earth than just mourning what we now consider to be inevitable. The life we have now is limited, let us be done with the stigma of suicide and see it as the most likely solution for avoiding needless suffering and start to see it as the sacred act it’s always been.
With that said, let us revel in the peace that Ruppert has now found and truly respect the choice that he made. He was an incredibly inspiring fucked-up human being who had profoundly touched more than his share of lives in any one lifetime. He strove to make this world a better place. Yes, he failed, but then again, so did we.
Let others hold onto the bitter end for whatever reason they feel they must, it makes no difference either way. We’re all just living with different stories in our heads as we circle eternity, where some of us just gravitate towards those here, who share a common unbearable insight and take what solace can be found in the digital commiseration that remains.
We few here, the stragglers on the beach of doom have been washed up like the sand and plastic itself, these days aren’t the headwaters of past generations, as with all things, they have long passed us by. We can’t pretend to live as if the day matters, while living in fear of the financial destitution and death that await. Exercise the stigma of suicide so as to embrace the quietude of the resignation that comes to fill the void, and get on with truly living in the phenomenal time left us.
_______
Going Dark was reviewed recently by Anne Pyterek at Blue Bus Books. Check it out here.
Daniel, so nice to have you back.
Thank you for addressing the topic of suicide. We need to talk about this, I think, but every time it starts to be discussed, we get trolls to derail the conversation.
Wiki has a nice little summary of various ways to self-exit. I have chosen my method. I agree, though, that it isn’t time yet.
I think we don’t really fear death so much as we fear the dying. No one wants a long painful tortured end. I know I don’t.
Glad you are still with us.
I now have the unenviable, one of the first positions to comment. I am writing from Thailand, under the grip of a brutal military coup detat that has overturned the government, outlawed elections, set up a stazi gulag witchhunting snitcher police stat, closed hundreds of community radio stations, implemented wild censorship and placed soldiers in every broadcast and print newsroom in the country as well as on the beaches in tourist areas, is capturing people on the streets and in public venues for holding up blank signs, wearing the wrong t-shirt, eating non-Thai “foreign” cuisine like sandwiches, reading 1984 in public, singing songs with tht ewrong lyrics or playing the French national anthem on your phone. Thousands of democracy activists were rounded up, put in a military gulag. No accurate numbers exist as to who was tortured, who is still missing, or what is really going on anywhere.
I am a kindergarten and high school teacher. My students and their families are under severe threat. None of their pain is theoretical. t is very real. And it is not trumped by everyone’s complete annihilation 25 or 30 years down the road. If you are implying that there is nothing that can or should be done on their behalf, then I guess that you are probably a severely depressed nihilist, and as James Joyce said of Mr. Duffy, that you like so many others are probably living somewhere outside your actual body.
I draw a line straight from the misery of people I see and work with every day to the endless wretched denial of people all over the developed first world who endlessly rationalize whatever comforts and privileges they enjoy which are born directly off the backs of imiserated and violently suppressed working populations in Thailand, and all over the world.
While you and others are enjoying their last remaining days on Earth, other less advantaged people, who are equally human and equally terrified, will be suffering more, and worse than you can ever allow yourself to imagine while you all are dealing with your angst by proffing this bizarre idea of capitulatory nothingness and nihilistic violence while doing less than nothing to ameliorate the horror of the rest of the world now dying under the boot of civilization from which you all have reaped the most benefit and comfort.
As long as you keep making excuse after excuse, you’ll get no sympathy from me and probably deserve none from anyone else.
In many ways, NTE is like a hurricane. And you have to experience a hurricane to know what I mean. First off, you know the storm is coming, but not sure where it will hit. Then once the storm system is closer and it appears you are in its path you get to decide what to do next. While some people have taken off at the first opportunity, that’s not always an option. And you have this big massive storm heading straight for you and it’s still three to four days out.
It is a singular experience to be awoken at 4AM by a fire truck, lights flashing, bullhorn blaring “You must evacuate! You must evacuate!” The odd, almost instinctive move is to turn on the TV to find out what’s going on. Sure enough, the hurricane is expected to hit town dead center in roughly three hours. Evacuation centers are listed, repeated, announced filled up and closed and new centers are mentioned. And they are all across town.
The last place one wants to be in a hurricane is in a car stuck in traffic. The chance to leave is now four days in past. The decision is made to ignore the fire truck and to stay put. And then the TV announces a place much closer to home. An easy drive, even if the traffic is high.
Fleeing for you life turns out to be anti-climatic. It’s down right boring. Huddled in a brick building with nothing to do but talk softly to other people there until the storm hits. The eye passes over for a moment of calm and the storm hits again.
This where NTE and hurricanes part ways because with NTE the storm hits and never stops hitting. But like a hurricane, there is nowhere to run to, nothing to do. No great revelations come to you in the middle of a hurricane. It’s just a storm after all.
Later on, pleased to discover the house hasn’t been destroyed, you hear about the deaths. The man who drowned playing in the flood in front of his house. The woman in her car crushed by a falling tree.
The boy out to rescue his dog hit by a power line. But it’s no one you know, and it doesn’t really affect you.
With NTE it is everybody. All the strangers and all the family and friends and there’s nothing you can do about it. It boils down to almost hoping you go before they do so you don’t have to watch them die. This is the isolation that surrounds NTE. Death takes everyone, wholesale, like a good capitalist.
But that storm is still out at sea. Approaching, but not here yet.
There’s nothing I can do about hurricanes. There’s nothing I can do about NTE. When it comes, I will still be caught off guard, unprepared, despite all the precautions taken. The difference being that in NTE, I will climb on top of my roof and embrace it because there is nowhere to run.
Until then, shit, I got things to do.
Thanks to both Daniel for his honest and brave essay. Thanks Guy for having the courage to put forth the information for those of entrenched in the strangle hold of this culture. The topic of suicide is undoubtedly going to take on a new paradigm for many once the inevitable is fully realized. Thanks for sharing. May we all have some peace from this more than fucked culture and existence we have gotten so terribly wrong. Till that comes may we all live with as much peace and love in our hearts for all others we come across. Mike the Father.
I like to say that one should live their lives as though it was their last day. While I’m not perfect at this I try. Whether we talk about NTHE or our own individual deaths, I think in the end they amount to the same (or similar, if you prefer something less strong) thing.
So follow your passions purely. If you do this, whether it is NTHE, your own death looming, or an utopia coming up, it will/should all work out. But perhaps one person’s solution isn’t meant for someone else.
As always, one has control only over their own actions, no one else’s. We can’t control what other people do, only ourselves. So I don’t see how to live life or how to die in any manner other than following your passion.
I appreciate that to have this view, the “lower” rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy being met makes it easier. To this end, to the poster Wester from Thailand, my better half is Thai and her family is still there. I’ve worked with Thailand extensively. Things could be worse I suppose but I often have remarked, even before this recent upheaval, that as NTHE approaches and we’re still BAU, then the last bastion may well be the US. Should we do something about my family’s situation before it is too late is a question we ask almost everyday but there is a lot of inertia. But outside of this, there are other places and situations where things seem really worse, like parts of the middle east or Africa.
This is why I think quality of life is as important, if not more so, given the prospect of NTHE. We all die anyway, and it’s how we live up to the moment we die that matters really.
So I’ll tie it back to the beginning: follow your passions purely, without compromise. I arrived at this conclusion, and remind myself of it, because of my awareness of my own mortality and the mortality of organisms around me (not only other humans). The prospect of NTHE just makes me more acutely aware of the importance of following one’s passions.
I wrote an essay on Death a while ago which I think is apropos here. http://ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/death.html –
–Ram
Daniel,
Thank you so much. Your beautiful essay points out the elephant in the room.
I wanted to quote something of yours but I can’t decide what because, as far as I’m concerned, it’s all profound.
You’ve expressed everything that’s in my heart too.
So dear NBLers, let’s be truly adult about discussing our demise and how best to go about it.
I was actually appalled at how he damns Ruppert for dying the way Ruppert wanted to. I mean, its bad enough that he admits the folly of “othering” tribalism while employing (hopium this and that) – but seriously?
Maybe Mike didn’t want a “party to death” – perhaps he wanted to be alone, private, in a beautiful spot and make it quick. That doesn’t mean his choices are less valid than any of the ways the author proposes.
As far as leaving a prettier corpse – poisoning, etc? Eventually, those who understand death, realize the meat package we walk in doesn’t matter a flying fuck. Quick and efficient is far better than any lingering or painful way. You would think that a group that knows how transient our existence is would not demand to be spared “gruesome” death. Like the aesthetics matter?
Here’s my thinking on a lot of the NBL NTE people, at least this author and perhaps J.G. because I knew her best. While obsessed with death, they haven’t spent any actual time around it. Because every person’s death is just as personal as their life was. If they had been around as many deaths as some (myself included) they would realize that the last thing life should be is obsessing about death. Its there. Its coming. Its always right over your left shoulder at any second.
So, you grin at it, say “Yep, I see you,” and LIVE fully, and beautifully. Its Because that is all you had in the end… moments. No one here gets out alive, whether or not the planet survives us. The planet won’t notice our passing, nor in our passing will we recognize what is left after us.
While reaching for some more “peaceful and accepting” death, all they really have done is become a cult of depression. And anger, I might add, for those who don’t want to spend their life obsessing about death.
I accept NTE as inevitable. That doesn’t mean I want to spend my precious moments talking it to death. (figuratively or literally)
I understand the writers process, he is working through it, as grieving people do. Americans, in fact most “civilized” peoples are very removed from death. They don’t put down their own pets, don’t kill their own chickens, and rarely, if ever have someone die in their home. They ship them to vets, off to hospitals or hospice. They don’t look it in the eye, and accept it as part of life. So it is hard for them to work through.
Sorry for the epic-long reply… but I got on a roll here. And when its my time? If I have a choice? My words will be my own.. not his “fuck off” nor Mike’s “offering of flesh”. And no one should second guess it.
I went to nursing school, wanted to work in hospice, I admired Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the teachers thought I was crazy and did not allow me to graduate. (I ended up suing them all the way to the US Supreme Court, lol.)
My ex-neighbor has a chronic disease, he wanted to commit suicide, I told him I’d go 60-miles to a veterinarian supply store in Mexico and pick up some phenobarbital and be with him. He turned my offer down, failed at his suicide attempt and moved closer to his sister 1000-miles away.
Great essay, Daniel! TLDR? Exponential world population growth, arctic methane extinction, climate-change is worse than Al Gore and President Obama are telling us, cognitive dissonance, do you really believe jet fuel and a plane crash would cause a high-rise building to collapse (not to mention Building 7), pulverizing it leaving nothing but steel girders and inches of dust all over lower Manhattan; crying “wolf,” voices in the wilderness, what are we going to do when SHTF?
Ten years ago I wrote a negative, one-star review on Amazon about Mike’s book, “Crossing the Rubicon”.
I learned a long time ago and I came to this conclusion. The day you are born. You are living to your Death. Yes that on appointment we all have to make. We just don’t know what the time of that is. I have lived a full life to this point. I’m 52 and for most of my life I have struggled with depression and from 2001 to 2010. I struggled with living health wise.
When I was told how bad it was and could be if I didn’t stop what I was doing to myself. and almost dying and wishing to die. I found. “God” Not a religion! I have a 2nd chance at living out the rest of my life no matter how long that could be. I will still live life and enjoy the time I or we have left. I have all my life known what eventually will be and what is coming and I do hope I don’t suffer. Yes I have my way of taking care of it. If need be. But until then I will embrace life and live it my way without hurting anyone. I was put here to make people feel loved and that is my purpose. My “God” not religion will decide when my time has come.
Daniel, another beautiful essay. The problem I have, as usual, is trying to understand why anyone really cares.
That is, what genetic and/or cultural influences created a species of humans who think life (experiences) are either “good” or “bad”. To wit, who created these words and their definitions, and to what purpose were they invented?
Most people are aware that lion cubs are routinely killed by new pride males. But did you know this behavior exists in other groups as well? There was a recent Nature program that filmed a young stallion zebra – which had recently taken over a mare group – killing a young colt immediately after its birth. How did the stallion know it was the one newborn not his own? What moral imperative compelled him to take such action?
This concept of agency, this inflated sense of self-worth driven by ego is, IMO, the single key component of unhappiness. It is the degree of false expectations driven by pride & hubris that cause endless disappointment.
Here’s a simple mental exercise: be happy you weren’t murdered today. If that is the hallmark of your days achievement, then everything else is gravy. Perhaps even better, be happy you weren’t aborted – then you wouldn’t even have a chance to experience consciousness, and be aware of what is occurring around you.
Take a man and put him in the field for 3-5 days without bathing and/or shaving. What do you have? Someone stripped of artificial separation from nature. Oh, how quickly we revert back to a natural state. It is modern conveniences that have really warped our sense of self.
If we truly lived more natural lives, none of what is occurring would surprise. Rather, it would be entirely, 100% consistent with the actions & behavior of every other kingdom, from plants competing for sunlight, to bacteria creating poison(s) to combat infringing cells.
This is what life is all about – to live, at any cost, even if it means destroying ones very own life sustaining environment. To treat humans as some kind of uniquely flowed animal that operates outside of normal bounds is to make an unfortunate mistake, one that necessarily leads to depression.
If people can be shown how to see life as it really is, rather than what they image or hope it could be, then something as simple as just typing these words at this **moment in time** is joy in itself.
The idea that one’s expected future pain/suffering/death in an expected future scenario is enough to push one over the edge is ludicrous, imho. This is because there is no such thing as absolute certainty that you are right about your projections about how the future will unfold. That doubt, subtle though it might be, will steer most of us towards life until the end.
Yep. In my opinion right on target. I will send the link to your essay to our Eco-collapse Support Group, suggest that everyone read it, and propose that we discuss one or both of these two paragraphs in our next meeting, tomorrow evening:
Let’s start talking about how we’re all going to die, not vaguely, halfheartedly or sarcastically, but specifically so that we can actually begin to get beyond that specter, and start being creative in figuring out how we’re going to live through extinction until that fateful day comes for each of us. Because if we’re talking about acceptance, it’s probably time we get around to actually talking about what IT is we’ve come to accept, beyond endlessly lamenting the loss of all the rest of life, and incessantly debating our legacy of agency which has nevertheless led us to where we are today irrespective of our personal opinions.
…
There is absolutely no reason to fear death. It’s just our selfish egos that can’t let go of the anticipation of a life yet lived. However, once one truly accepts NTHE, they have already involuntarily accepted the death of not only their ego, but all of life which renders the actual end of our individual lives even less significant. There is absolutely no reason why the decision for someone to take their life — for whatever reason — can’t actually be considered a commemorate act, especially now. Especially now!
Thanks Daniel!
You’ve made me think about suicide differently. I also found the following paragraph helpful:
“From here on out, the entire conversation of NTHE will probably never move past several central themes and points of predictable contention: Denial vs. acceptance; observable evidence vs. peer review science; truth vs. hope; survivalism vs. resignation; resistance vs. acquiescence; service vs. self-interest; cognitive dissonance vs. commiseration; suicide vs. starvation, and so on.”
I see now how all these dichotomies are end runs around the reality itself and its quick approach.
I agree 100% with Wester. We don’t have to look too far to see what we’ve done to so many innocent life forms. I disgust myself for having participated so long…
I’m ashamed that the best I can do is to just do as little as possible.
“For why would I seek to prove I am right, when all I wish for is to be wrong?”
“It’s just our selfish egos that can’t let go of the anticipation of a life yet lived.”
Very good, Daniel.
Wester, what in god’s name would you have us do differently?
We did try to help you. We protested peacefully. We protested violently. Some of us even took Derrick Jensen’s advice to blow up dams.
All our efforts were crushed, not merely by our rulers, but by our parents. Our friends. Our neighbors, who simply did not want to understand where we were coming from.
There are millions of activist groups in this country who are doing their damndest to help the Third World.
Guess what? None of their efforts have produced squat, because all of them would require the “general public” to see what’s going on, and they just shut their ears tighter.
Criticism is meant to point out a problem, like pointing out the weeds in a garden, so that the weeds can be removed and the work can be better.
So, Wester, what would you do in our place? If you lived in a culture full of people with NO EARS? Where every institution from psychology to school to religion etc. was dedicated to teaching people NOT to think for themselves?
What course of action would you take, what would you say to people, that would change the way your fellows were behaving? You want us to hold us accountable for our fellows’ actions? Then what would you have us do instead?
“I agree 100% with Wester. We don’t have to look too far to see what we’ve done to so many innocent life forms. I disgust myself for having participated so long…
I’m ashamed that the best I can do is to just do as little as possible.”
And we’ll probably stand by and let effing Obama send those 50,000 children back south of the border to death, destitution, destruction, where the war on drugs fires on and the weapons trade booms and vicious rackets abound. What can we do about any of it? What about the 6 million slaughtered in Congo since the nineties, for minerals to run this computer? We are left only with our thoughts. The whole thing is bullshit, and it matters in some mysterious way if we are very very clear that the whole thing is bullshit, and if we give it not the slightest smidgen of mental approval. It works better if we are not angry, and only coldly contemptuous.
@Raquel
Daniel wrote:
So just as a previous understanding of realpolitik aides one in coming to terms with 9/11 most likely being some kind of an inside job, possessing ecological values aides one in fully being able to internalizing the conundrum of NTHE.
You wrote:
…do you really believe jet fuel and a plane crash would cause a high-rise building to collapse (not to mention Building 7), pulverizing it leaving nothing but steel girders and inches of dust all over lower Manhattan…
Maybe nobody else here reads/interprets what Daniel wrote the same way that I do, but it seems pretty clear to me that he is of the opinion that it was “some kind of inside job”.
Just curious…Why did you have such a low opinion of “Crossing the Rubicon”?
“..busted Fords, rusted Plymouths, burned-out Chevrolets…”
Witness & prophecy from 1970…fat lot of good it did us, eh?
From today’s Huffington Post:
>>>
TGI Fridays is so hungry for new customers that it’s giving food away.
The chain restaurant launched an all-you-can-eat deal on Monday, offering endless helpings of any one appetizer — potato skins, mozzarella sticks, spinach dip and other options — for $10 per person. The promotion is meant to draw new customers, and it’s getting heaps of press coverage of the sort not seen since the chain’s 1990s heyday.
Yet analysts say the endless apps deal is basically Fridays’ swan song, a last-ditch move that ultimately cheapens the company’s brand. The apps may be endless, but Americans’ desire to visit a so-called “casual dining” chain restaurant is just about over.
“In the short term, [Fridays] will definitely have more traffic, but in the long term it damages their plan and will really destroy them,” said Aaron Allen, founder of Aaron Allen & Associates, a restaurant industry consulting firm. “It’s the signal of a desperate brand.”
>>>
An appetizing metaphor for where we are and how we got here, actually.
Which begs that existential question: What’s it gonna be? The potato skins? Or the mozzarella sticks?
Or, we can go strawberry:
>>>
The story, originally told by the Buddha in a sutra, concerns a Zen Master who, while out walking one day, is confronted by a ferocious, man-eating tiger. He slowly backs away from the animal, only to find that he is trapped at the edge of a high cliff; the tiger snarls with hunger, and pursues the Master.
His only hope of escape is to suspend himself over the abyss by holding onto a vine that grows at its edge.
As the Master dangles from the cliff, two mice – one white and one black – begin to gnaw on the vine he is clutching on. If he climbs back up, the tiger will surely devour him, if he stays then there is the certain death of a long fall onto the jagged rocks.
The slender vine begins to give way, and death is imminent. Just then the precariously suspended Zen Master notices a lovely ripe wild strawberry growing along the cliff’s edge. He plucks the succulent berry and pops it into his mouth. He is heard to say: “This lovely strawberry, how sweet it tastes.”
Or…we can just sit frozen in place, like a deer caught in the headlights, not knowing whether to shit or go blind.
Or…we can ponder what philosophers sometimes call “the hard question”: Is consciousness just a by-product of brain function, or does it exist outside of and apart from it? Said in quantum language: “Does consciousness actually CREATE reality, or is it a creation of it?”.
Because IF it does create reality (and yes, that is a very big IF) then Nature doesn’t bat last at all.
IF it does, then this existence we are mourning is but a very, very small part of a much bigger picture…like in a Chuck Close portrait:
http://www.cs.washington.edu/public_files/big-emma.jpg
***
Diane Gee writes: Here’s my thinking on a lot of the NBL NTE people, at least this author and perhaps J.G. because I knew her best. While obsessed with death, they haven’t spent any actual time around it. Because every person’s death is just as personal as their life was. If they had been around as many deaths as some (myself included) they would realize that the last thing life should be is obsessing about death. Its there. Its coming. Its always right over your left shoulder at any second.
So, you grin at it, say “Yep, I see you,” and LIVE fully, and beautifully. Its Because that is all you had in the end… moments. No one here gets out alive, whether or not the planet survives us. The planet won’t notice our passing, nor in our passing will we recognize what is left after us.
While reaching for some more “peaceful and accepting” death, all they really have done is become a cult of depression. And anger, I might add, for those who don’t want to spend their life obsessing about death.
I accept NTE as inevitable. That doesn’t mean I want to spend my precious moments talking it to death. (figuratively or literally)
***
Yes, this strikes me as an astute observation.
One of the things that distinguishes us from other sentient beings on our planet (with a few possible exceptions) is the self awareness that causes us to contemplate our own individual and corporate extinction.
Anyone who knows even a smidgen of history knows that there have been many times and places where people were 100% convinced that life on this planet was coming to a swift and immediate end. The idea that we’re the first to confront this thought, and have to figure out how to deal with it, is ludicrous.
It is a peculiar romantic notion, based on exceptionalism (once again!) that would cause us to think that somehow we are “special” in that regard.
We’re not special at all – not in that way, at least.
A goodly sized fraction of the world’s religious are living in apocalyptic certainty, expecting the shit to hit the fan at any moment. How, exactly, are NTE folks different from them?
All of us are attached to those people, places and things that we love. All of us crave that they would continue to exist. All of us are averse to the idea that they would cease to exist in a form that is recognizable to us.
And all of us must live, somehow, some way, with the truth that everyone and everything we love is marked by impermanence.
As Diane says, spending enough time around death helps us to begin to understand that difficult truth more deeply.
The experience of the unexpected death of one’s child destroys a parent’s entire universe. It doesn’t matter that the world still turns, or that birds still sing. Trust me on this one: It doesn’t matter at all. Everything has burned to a crisp. The world is simply GONE.
And the truth is, some parents never come back from that experience. For such people, ending one’s own life becomes a way to cope with the endless, black weight of the loss of EVERYTHING.
But some do come back – finding something else to live for. No one can say for another what that something else might be. But for many, it is out there, waiting to be found. Viktor Frankl was not wrong about that.
One of the most foolish things we can do is indulge our egoic penchant for specialism. The truth is, you’re unique and special – just like everyone else. As a sentient being you have to confront the impermanence of all phenomena – just like everyone else. It is a struggle to do so – just like it is for everyone else. You will no doubt waver between denial and acceptance – and everything in between – just like everyone else.
To romanticize and specialize and exceptionalize your struggle based on your views – and correspondingly denigrate and/or trivialize everyone else’s – well, that’s just not a wise move, IMO. In the end, that perspective will hurt you rather than help you. In the end, that’s WRONG VIEW, to use a basic Buddhist term. In the end, that view will give you lots of reasons to die, and none to live.
Ed writes: “A goodly sized fraction of the world’s religious are living in apocalyptic certainty, expecting the shit to hit the fan at any moment. How, exactly, are NTE folks different from them?”
How does religion differ from science? For starters, one of these endeavors relies on faith, the other on reason. I’ll let you figure it out from there.
I’m not attached to anything.
Ed writes: “A goodly sized fraction of the world’s religious are living in apocalyptic certainty, expecting the shit to hit the fan at any moment. How, exactly, are NTE folks different from them?”
Guy writes: How does religion differ from science? For starters, one of these endeavors relies on faith, the other on reason. I’ll let you figure it out from there.
>>>
Guy, with all due respect, you’re missing the basic point of Daniel’s blog. It’s not about the basis for one’s conclusion that we’re facing NTE or Apocalypse Now. It’s about our coping with it.
And that’s where his statements are wrong. Folks here are certainly NOT unique at all in having to struggle with coping with their belief that the end of the world is upon us. The REASON for the belief may be different than (say) the evangelical Christian’s reasons…but the belief is essentially the same, and the contemplation of total loss of this world, and everything and everyone in it is essentially the same.
Thinking that you and others here are unique in that regard is simply a delusion…and like all delusions, it doesn’t really help to hold onto it.
Ed, words matter. There is a huge difference between believing and thinking.
As a result of your inability to understand the importance of language, you’re wrong about a key issue. Religious acolytes believe, based on faith (i.e., lack of evidence). Rationalists think, and reach conclusions based on evidence.
Long before NTHE there will be an extended period of societal collapse, triggered by declining availability of liquid fuels, unravelling of fractional reserve banking systems and all the phony derivatives associated with the various Ponzi schemes currently in operation, increasing duress due to pounding of infrastructure and food systems by severe weather events associated with increasing climate chaos, attempts by the haves to keep what they have (and acquire even more) and push have-nots off the cliff before them, and attempts by those with access to fiat money to secure land and property in desirable locations to cushion themselves from ever-worsening global economic and environmental conditions. And attempts by the mainstream media to keep a lid on reality and pretend that everyone is headed for a ‘better, brighter future’.
Although outnumbered by approximately 40:1, 25,000 Normans succeeded in subduing the English and the Welsh, and even had a go at subduing the Irish. It is truly amazing what a small gang of well-organised thugs can achieve.
There is much evidence that the period 2015 to 2020 will be the most ‘interesting’ in all of history, as gangs of well-organised thugs and thieves attempt to impose their rules on everyone else (as indicated by Wester).
Meanwhile, millions of Americans, British, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders etc. are committing slow suicide via ingestion of large amounts of non-nutritious food, smoking, dinking excess amounts of alcohol, and taking little or no exercise etc., as required by ‘the system’. And then looking to ‘the system’ to rectify their health ‘issues’.
If there is anything to live for surely it is the ‘Mussolini moments’ that will occur throughout the world when large numbers of people finally wake up to the litany of lies delivered by so-called leaders they have been subjected to for decades. For the moment the liars are still ascendancy in many places but with so much unravelling coming soon it is hard to imagine societies based on systematic manipulation and fraud continuing for much longer. Around here the brown stuff is starting to hit the rotating device (job losses, reduced hours, declining prices)….. and this is supposedly a booming province. (Of course, if you measure economic activity by how much gas flows through a pipe, you can make it look rosy in the short term.)
Guy writes: Ed, words matter. There is a huge difference between believing and thinking.
As a result of your inability to understand the importance of language, you’re wrong about a key issue. Religious acolytes believe, based on faith (i.e., lack of evidence). Rationalists think, and reach conclusions based on evidence.
>>>
I’m going to violate the two post rule because you’re addressing me, and then I’m done for the day.
Of course I understand the difference between the religious and the rationalist perspective. But – ONCE AGAIN – that is not the point here.
The point – ONCE AGAIN – is that Daniel’s assertion that we rationalists who happen to think that NTE is our fate ultimately have to struggle with the exact same FEELINGS that others have to struggle with – even though the basis for their conclusion is different.
So ultimately, when it comes to this struggle, what matters is the difficult process we are confronted with. And in that regard, we are little different – or rather not different at all – than anyone else who expects total collapse.
This point is so obvious that I am wondering why you cannot see it. The only thing I can think of is that you have some sort of personal need NOT to see it.
My suggestion is that you take it up with Carolyn Baker and Andrew Harvey, and see what they have to say. Feel free to include my comments if you decide to write to them.
Your inability to comprehend the written word is duly noted, Ed. Likewise your ability to condescend. I suspect you’re so enamored with your own perspective that you really believe I don’t understand this essay, which I edited and posted.
The only gracious endeavor left for humanity,..Indeed!
Thanks for the essay Daniel.
In the end, i’m disappointed that we were too stupid to see this coming. Once I actually thought we could do it differently and live sustainably, but that was back in the 1960’s, and we know how that turned out. I’ve been disappointed in humanity – especially myself – ever since. It’s all a big con game and we’re the pawns, a sick comi-tragedy with clowns running the show, nobody seems to be paying attention (present company excepted) and everyone is constantly distracted.
Meaning of life? What are you talking about? It’s blatantly obvious, just look! This was supposed to be the “miracle of life”!
Not to get all gooey and cloying about it, but it’s an illusion we bought into. Once you figure it out – all of it, from the language to the complete indoctrination, peer pressure and reward and punishment systems set up to “guide” you in “your choices” (i’m choking here) along the way – well, before you know it you’re old and full of regret, anger, and disappointment.
No wonderment, no awe of the mystery – overwhelmed by anger, depression, disappointment. But it passes and I go do stuff to keep busy so I don’t bother anyone with my broken thoughts, smiling when I return to family, playing the game, knowing one of these days it’ll end badly and people will be so surprised (not to mention unprepared).
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/deadliest-rarest-form-plague-contracted-150904227.html
A Colorado man is infected with the rarest and most fatal form of plague, an airborne version that can be spread through coughing and sneezing.
It is the first case of pneumonic plague seen in the state since 2004, said Jennifer House, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The man, who hasn’t been identified, may have been exposed in Adams County near Denver, health officials said in a statement. While House said the man has been hospitalized and treated, she wouldn’t release other details about his situation.
“He’s on treatment long enough to not be transmissible,” House said in a telephone interview. He may have contracted the illness from his dog, she said, which died suddenly and has also been found to carry the disease.
“We don’t think it’s out in our air,” House said. “We think it’s in our dead animal populations and dead rodent populations.”
[read the rest]
“The message we’re trying to get out is that the plague bacteria is present here in Colorado, and to take necessary precautions to avoid getting infected,” House said.
In the previous thread, lark says: Hope is at odds with Reality
Nietzsche says: it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man’s torment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora#Difficulties_of_interpretation
==
Daniel says: He could have thrown his own memorial ceremony….
==
Invitation, c. 2018
You’re cordially invited to see
My suicide, scheduled to be
This Friday at eight:
Don’t get here too late!
Oh yes. And R.S.V.P.
Artleads, Two weeks ago I was in the Arizona desert on other ecological matters and ended up with a 16 yr old lost mexican immigrant in my camp. I took him at great personal risk to his brother in Tucson. Hundreds of self-sacrificing ways to help others while awaiting the death of us all. Like we were really ever not doing that anyway. The heartbreaking tragedy is the death of our beautiful earth. Not our pathetic excuse for existence. I intend on making my last stand with a big fucking gun in my hand pointed at that monster empire!!!!
Interesting essay but I have to agree with those who question why NTE thinkers spend so much time 1) pondering death; 2) debating the merits of suicide and 3) seeming somewhat infatuate with their awareness of reality as if it makes them special and perhaps imbues them with additional responsibility.
Having spent more than a decade in this thought journey, I think preoccupation with death/fear of death and suicide ideations is not the final stop on the acceptance path of reality. Such thinking is actually very self involved –still viewing reality through the prism of ego and the inevitable wrangling with the drive of self preservation, self importance, etc. Its not really all that different than a survivalist reaction. Just a bit more of a downer cast to the train of thought.
I also want to cast a nod to Ed’s thinking concerning the ‘specialness’ tendency of those who have arrived at the NTE thought path. There is nothing special about this experience aside from scale. The history of humanity on this planet seems to be nothing more than a series of one collapse of civilization/culture/ecosystem after the other–the most recent collapse that all here may be familiar with is the collapse of the indigenous peoples in North America. They experienced complete death of their world…including the ecosystems that supported their way of life. They experienced that grief, that anger and that resignation. Some fought, some checked out early, some did what was necessary to survive. Those who survived carry that grief tangibly in every cell of their bodies.
So are NTE types special? Is their awareness all that important in the end? Granted the scale is grander this time, but I believe the journey is the same emotionally. And awareness of what is coming does not grant you an special insight of how to proceed. As for what we can expect, I suspect if you look to those that survived the genocide of North American indigenous peoples you will probably have a good sense of what the other side is ahead if this is merely a bottle neck type of collapse.
When you reach acceptance, I suspect its more like the Zen Buddhist description what happens when you experience enlightenment.”Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water.” Everything changed, but outwardly it appears nothing changes. Because whats actually changed is your own relationship to it all.
Thank you, Daniel, for stepping up and so eloquently speaking out.
“Each and every one of us, now has the evidence to shed virtually every thought we’ve ever had if we so choose.”
“There is absolutely no reason to fear death.”
I once did voluntarily and briefly shed all thought; it confirmed my prior awareness that there is nothing to fear about death.
Tradition has it that the agglomeration of tendencies through which the Buddha was manifest, in a prior embodiment was a human who came upon a starving tigress and her cubs on a ledge below, and then plunged to his end to feed that family.
Tradition also has it that upon realisation, the person if still in an embodiment, has to voluntary decide when and under what circumstances that embodiment should end (including of natural causes), with an option to continue in that embodiment until the end of the cosmic cycle, should that one choose to do so – a member of the true Last Persons Standing. For the realised person – one whose individual existence has ended – if still embodied, there is no need for actively attempting to end the embodiment.
With regard to Thailand – and for that matter all places – the tsunami will not be uniform everywhere on the beach of doom. Do what you can for those within your reach – if you care to do so. Even if that means getting a laptop or fixing a car for someone in the den of IC.
For those acquainted with being as manifest in them, the reality of being is not mistaken for the myriad appearances.
Regarding what Ed has stated and Guy’s reply, I believe ulvfugl and I have also tangled on this point, which, as I see it, boils down to it mattering to Guy and ulvfugl how you get to NTHE. But, I think there are many paths to the conclusion that is upon us all which is basically that we are killing most, if not all, life on this planet and are not going to stop doing so until we have ‘succeeded’. I understand the fight for the integrity of the scientific evidence against baseless attacks, but my question, for you Guy, is, is that fight so much the purpose of this site that, given your druthers, you would prefer anyone whose process is not based purely upon that approach to cease to contribute here? I’m not looking for a fight and won’t be offended by your answer. I’ve assumed to a degree that ulvfugl does not speak for you when strenuously policing commentary to remain on a vigorously scientific course and the enchange here with Ed has given me an opportunity to ask you personally. In my view, there is a convergence of material from many different places in our world today, such that ‘all roads lead to Rome’, but you have the right to wish to keep this road, as represented by your site, to the science, more strictly.
ugotstahwonder, I’m not interested in policing comments in this space
get a grip. pop music circa 1968.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocmBA1OEn20En2o
I will try again…wait for it
Re Michael Ruppert, I don’t think it’s realistic, even under the circumstances of NTHE, to expect others to join in (and party with you) around your act of suicide. People will always feel an obligation to talk you out of it, or else imagine they might be guilty of being an accomplice to murder. The exception being Kevorkian’s work. But, if the party wishing to take his or her life has no obviously better reason to do so than you yourself do, it would be socially awkward, to say the least, to celebrate that decision. I realize Daniel is calling for a change to this ‘status quo’ but it’s damned difficult not to want to stop someone. I know because my father was drinking himself to death at the end of his life and calling upon his children to bring him alcohol.
Getting There…
My father drank himself to death. I considerate it a slow suicide.
Mike Rupert ate his gun, but that’s how most cops and ex-cops kill themselves. He was well aware, from his cop experience, that it was the surest way. That man probably saw and was haunted by things most of us are lucky enough never to witness. At least not yet.
I have seen death many times, first when I was about 12 I was alone with my grandfather when he died, I’ve worked in hospitals & nursing homes & saw death in many forms, I’ve seen taped suicides, I have killed animals for food, put injured animals out of their misery.
I have some familiarity with death.
I knew in the 60’s we were overpopulated & supported ZPG, later came peak oil & now runaway greenhouse & still the ignorant religious fundamentalist that are our “leaders” continue to fight against everything that should have been done a long time ago.
But now I see it’s too late, we have baited our trap with fossil fuels & now can’t survive without them. No matter what we do now, we will still be toast.
I morn most for all of the other living things we will take out with us, 4.5 billion years of evolution with 500 million years left to go cut short by one stupid, greedy, believing in myths animal who named itself homo “sapiens” that has proven to be far from “wise”.
All that’s left now is to appreciate what’s still alive to admire, to be amazed at the myriad life forms that existed hundreds of millions of years before we evolved.
Once we had weapons & fire, we trod all over this planet, causing extinctions everywhere we went & it’s only now that we have realized why all those animals are no longer with us & yet the killing continues.
I intend to stick around just to see how we wind down, how long will it take before the BS, infotainment & sports take a back seat to what’s been happening & how fucked up we are as a species.
How will the “sheeple” react when they finally realize that their prayers will not be answered, that there is no escape, no place to run to as they bake & starve in a ever warming environment.
More frightening is how the worlds governments will react as they realize that BS, infotainment & sports will no longer keep the sheeple happy, quiet & content?
There are many ways to die & I know what will work with the least mess & suffering.
Thanks Guy for your brave ability to tell us the truth & yet your still able to smile & crack jokes even as you lay out what our future will be & why.
It’s the why that angers me, we could have prevented this but didn’t, we preferred fables to reality.
I have always been a person who preferred reality to pretty fables. I’ve been called a pessimist many times but I consider myself a realist because to me reality is far more interesting than the fables we make up about ourselves & our world.
Let’s enjoy what time we have left even as we watch all that we love burn.
“do you really believe jet fuel and a plane crash would cause a high-rise building to collapse (not to mention Building 7), pulverizing it leaving nothing but steel girders and inches of dust all over lower Manhattan; ”
i absolutely believe it. its a fact that fire causes steel to loose structural integrity. its incredibly ignorant to think steel has to actually melt to cause deformation /eventual collapse. what part of that is so hard to understand. i studied architecture at post grad level, and its just basic structures stuff. we pretty much had it hammered in what happens to a streel frame in a fire. ie BAD SHIT happens. but a building cannot be totally fire resistant or it would be too expensive or impractical. we had a structural engineer lecturer who enjoyed giving nasty examples of building failures. the WTC is a classic example of what happens in fire. from a building design and structural engineering perspective there is nothing ‘odd’ about 9/11. and nothing odd from any other. so some terrorists got hold of some planes. they had a private plan incomprehensibly viscous in mind that nobody outside could have foreseen, or taken measures against… in the time available. anyone could kill hundreds of people if we wanted. just get a car and unexpectedly drive it into a massive crowd without warning. the 9/11 thing was exactly like that, but with planes. the fallible HUMANS in charge of US defense didnt have long. they dithered. had a failure of communication. didnt have proceedure ready for that scenario. planes got through. a top floor in the building got terminally damaged by impact and then fire. the rest is pure physics. nothing odd about it. it happened as physics would predict. end of story.
the 9/11 conspiracy crap really drags down NBL. its main hypothesis is credible enough. up to the bit about NTE. i dont think its possible to say humans will become extinct entirely though. don’t get me wrong. i think its curtains for IC mid century, and possibly humans by end of century. however i imagine ghia has some pretty significant negative feedbacks cards to play to protect ‘herself’, and i dont believe climate change will ‘destroy all life’ or even the majority of it. there are just too many cold blooded thermophiles out there, (apart from politicians). reptiles, fish, insects etc, that will thrive in the geological time frame if it gets too ‘Jurassic’ and toasty for large mammals here on earth.
Diana Gee and Sheila Chambers… thank you! Been there, done that – and I so agree… it’s always there, over your shoulder… and I will help those on their way out, including my own, before I go. Til then, I have shit to do.
andyuk
We’ve heard all your crackpot ideas time and time again and it really is utterly tiresome hearing them yet again. (Being paid by the corporate empire to churn out drivel, by any chance?)
Okay, so you believe that titanium alloy aircraft engines evaporate on impact with grass, and that it was pure coincidence that aircraft were flying around in the most heavily defended airspace on Earth for up to an hour-and-a-half without being challenged. So what!
okay. so you believe a twin-engine aircraft can collide with a concrete structure and leave a single hole as a consequence of the most easily crumpled part (the nose) impacting. So what!
Okay, so you believe that a short-lived, low temperature fire can cause classic demolition crimping in a building (7) and cause it to fall at free-fall acceleration. So what. Meanwhile, much higher temperature fires in similar buildings elsewhere in the world do not cause collapse.
Okay, so you believe that steel girders can be cut through at 45o angles as a consequence of fires hundreds of metres away. So what!
You believe that traces of nanothemrite and steel being projected outwards mean nothing. So what. And you believe that witness testimony relating to numerous explosions means nothing. So what!
You believe that confiscation-destruction of security camera footage was pure coincidence. So what!
You are still trapped in ‘The Matrix’. So what! You and hundred of millions of other uninformed ‘fools’.
We really do not care what you believe.
This site is for people firmly grounded in reality and examine evidence, and it is abundantly clear for your persistent ranting here and elsewhere that you are not prepared to examine evidence and that you are not firmly grounded in reality.
Take your denialism elsewhere, such as to ‘Collapse of Industrial Civilisation’, where denialism is welcomed and encouraged.
Kevin,
What gives you the right to be the resident dictator regarding 9/11. You are so certain of your views and are certain that everyone who disagrees is an idiot.Andyuk is allowed to express his views,as you are allowed to express your view.I have done some reading on the issue and I think there is abetter than even chance that Andyuk is correct,but I am not going to put up a comment demanding that you leave this site because you disagree.You have the right to leave a site if you wish,as you did on Collapse of Industrial Civilisation,but no right to demand that others
who express views different to your own leave this site.Guy runs this site,and it is up to him.I f he wants to request that only people who think 9/11 was a conspiracy post comments,let him do so.
You also believe that the moon land ing was a fake.I have done some reading on that and think that you are incorrect.A re you going to post a comment now demanding that I no longer post comments and leave this site?
@ andyuk,
i absolutely believe it. its a fact that fire causes steel to loose structural integrity…etc
You appear to have severely impaired critical faculties. Many highly qualified structural engineers, construction experts, demolition experts, fire experts, have explained how the official version that you are sticking to is impossible.
However, even if you were correct, you’d have to be a complete idiot to ignore the rest of the picture surrounding the event, wouldn’t you ?
Like the collapse of Building 7 which was not hit by planes at all, and the destruction of Building 6, likewise, and all the other events that kevin mentions, including the censorship of the report, and the fact that 8 of the guys supposed to be in the planes are still alive.
Etcetera.
You know, just how many clues does it take for someone to actually begin to get a clue and start to think for themselves, instead of ‘believing’ what they have been told to believe ? Your naive faith and trust in the BBC is very sweet and touching, I’m sure TPTB appreciate it, but your ability to evaluate information is fucking dismal.
@ Robin Datta
I once did voluntarily and briefly shed all thought; it confirmed my prior awareness that there is nothing to fear about death.
Great heavens above, and you’ve been preaching here for years about the ‘I’ and the ‘Not-I’ and basically you have no idea what you are talking about, telling people about the Diamond Sutra and so forth, because all you are doing is repeating dogma that someone else has told you. You should be able to maintain a thought-free state for at least a day, before teaching others about dharma in the way that you do here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_in_Buddhism
Hi Daniel Drumright ! Nice to see you here again :-)
Ed,
There could well be a difference between a religious belief in near term human extinction and a “rational” conclusion of near term human extinction, in that each could very well induce a different response from the other. With the former, one might be concerned with how one is judged on the other side. With the latter, at least for those not of a religious disposition (as, no doubt, there could be many religious people who would come to the conclusion rationally), there are a range of responses and those responses could change as the date approaches.
@david higham
As a trained chemist who has studied structural chemistry I believe I have the right to treat 9/11 denialists as ‘idiots’, particularly when they make pests of themselves and make derogatory remarks, as andyuk has done.
Or perhaps we should allow people who believe that carbon dioxide does not absorb and re-radiate in the infra-red range and has no effect on the Earth’s temperature free rein to express ‘their opinions’ on NBL, all in the name of free speech. Perhaps we should allow people who think that ice has a higher density than water free rein to express their opinions, even though their opinions are absurd.
I am personally thoroughly sick of incompetent fools who do not bother to do any proper research, yet make proposals and propositions that defy the laws of mathematics, physics and chemistry, and tell me how it and how it’s going to be. Such people are the very reason we are in the shocking mess we are in now.
Sorry, my tolerance level for bullshit is now lower than George Carlin’s was.
http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2014/07/12/ebola-cases-explode-44-new-cases-539-deaths-doctors-send-out-desperate-pleas-for-help-whole-villages-infected/
Ebola cases explode: 44 new cases, 539 deaths, doctors send out desperate pleas for help – whole villages infected
July 2014 – DISEASE – Ebola continues to spread in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, with a combined 44 new cases and 21 deaths between July 6 and 8, the World Health Organization has said. This brought the total in West Africa’s first outbreak of the deadly disease to 888 cases, including 539 deaths since February. It is the largest and deadliest so far, the UN agency said. “The epidemic trend in Liberia and Sierra Leone remains precarious with high numbers of new cases and deaths being reported,” the WHO said on Friday. Just one confirmed new case had been reported during the past week in Guinea. The Economic Community of West African States set up an Ebola solidarity fund at a summit in the capital of Ghana on Thursday in a bid to back a regional approach to the epidemic. Nigeria committed $3.5m to affected states. “We must do everything within our means and power to defeat this deadly disease. We must exercise vigilance and caution and avoid any panic or misinformation,” Ghanaian President John Mahama, the group’s chairman, said in a speech in Accra. Ebola causes fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea and kills up to 90 percent of those infected. It is highly contagious and is transmitted through contact with blood and other fluids. The WHO has flagged three main factors driving its spread: the burial of victims in accordance with tradition, the dense populations around the capital cities of Guinea and Liberia and the bustling cross-border trade across the region. –Al Jazeera
Oh, hey – if we’re going to re-visit 9-11 again:
http://journal-neo.org/2014/07/07/so-you-want-to-know-the-truth-about-9-11/
07.07.2014 Author: Gordon Duff
So, You Want to Know the Truth About 9/11?
In recent weeks, intelligence agencies of France, Russia and Britain along with key members of the UN’s nuclear non-proliferation organization, the IAEA, have leaked critical documents outlining not only that 9/11 was a nuclear event but the science and specifics of the event itself. From a Press TV article last week:
“A virtual stream of leaks is a clear sign that, in the light of events in the Ukraine, Syria and Iraq, the “rule book” is being thrown out. From a discussion of the real 9/11 report, citing the use of nuclear weapons, the official finding of the United States Department of Energy:
‘Again the original Sandia report that I read stated that it was a salted or enhanced radiation device, not just a standard low level nuke. The report only identified the type of primary used being in the W-54 series of primary boosters made at Hanford. The secondary radiation enhancement part of the weapons used was eradicated from the text.’”
The last paragraph from a vetted source with access at the highest levels is a powerful statement, not just because it sits atop an article loaded with details the public has never seen but that it is also framed with hard science no one but a few nuclear weapons insiders have ever gotten close to.
The article goes on to describe, in detail, how a “thermometric” nuclear weapon was used, the specifics of design and how the money to fund the project was allocated without knowledge of congress or the president.
We are now prepared to go further. This piece of the puzzle will cover where the weapons were placed and what we could find out about who knew. The basis for the information below is the 2003 United States Department of Energy/Sandia Labs report on the nuclear events surrounding 9/11.
What you will read below has never been made public. However it is known and has been for many years. This, in itself, is a key concern and one we find as damning as the other revelations you will soon learn.
The following questions were submitted to a group of investigators that were at Ground Zero, some dressed as first responders, some as utility workers. They are in photos seen on the internet, some of which they took themselves.
The team includes nuclear physicists, intelligence personnel specializing in nuclear proliferation threats and federal law enforcement.
The answers are theirs, the questions are mine.
[here’s the first one, please read the rest]
Q: Can you describe the investigation process trying to figure out where the “devices” were planted to bring down the towers?
A: Buildings 4, 5 & 6 were place in white moving vans with monthly parking passes strategically located in the correct parking spots in the lower parking garages of buildings 4, 5&6. About 1 nuke per 16 floors for the smaller buildings with a 150 foot fire ball radius for gutting the inside floors.
The nuclear weapons for buildings 1 & 2 were placed in the lower sub-basement elevator shafts and another set at or above floor 45 in the elevator shaft machine room on that floor. The higher nuke produced the really big dust cloud around the 45th floor.
The WTC 1 & 2 nukes were boosted and salted for needed enhanced of thermal and EMP effects ETC.
To clarify this answer, language from the Department of Energy study describing Thermometric weapons is needed:
“It is called a “Nuclear Thermobaric bomb”. This is what the 10,000lb bomb is that the B-2 was modified for. It uses a 1 kiloton primary surrounded by over 5,000 lbs. of iron oxide in powdered form. The devices are placed into a thick steel case, similar in looks to the Fat Man Bomb used on Hiroshima in 1945. The iron oxide or thermite is used as a secondary to make a very large heat wave blast.
It converts neutrons into infrared thermal heat energy, reducing fallout. It is an “infrared neutron bomb”. If you place several tons of iron oxide around a small nuke it will turn it into a massive enhanced radiation weapon. The neutron bomb is not the only enhanced weapon. There is an entire series of these devices such as the X-ray bomb and the EMP bomb. All primaries are nuclear. The secondaries vary depending on need or use.”
Suicide, if I did it, would mean to me a refusal, or failure to Self-realise.
As for others, that is for them to decide and self-moralise about.
Mike Ruppert did what he wanted to do.
My feeling is that because of his strident whistleblower approach in mid career, he was never allowed to be included in what he felt was his sociological cohort- who he later railed against, and desperately appealed to to stand up and reject the Industrial Culture, ‘as one voice’, knowing that unless many did, there would be no effective move away from destructive ways.
I know he was a self confessed Alcoholic, and that is a well of despair I have not traversed, but something of a more personal nature may have been at work there.
I gotta say that with the bits and pieces I know of Mike’s public offerings, it is consistent with a passionate man trying to make a real difference- and perhaps, I say perhaps, he took his own life because he may have accepted there was no longer any chance at stopping the Juggenaught.
He seems to have taken American Indian Shamanic healing, and life cleansing rituals, in preparation for his own passing in order to just be at peace. Mike also would have know some of the statistics of what form of self endings were prone to failure, and I suspect he chose the method he thought was fool proof- and would not land him in a hospital ward, just when the electricity started to fail.
I personally don’t see that NTHE make a lot of difference to how one lives one’s life.
You are going to die some day anyway- right?
Well now you know for absolute sure you won’t get another vehicle to dude around in and waste the opportunity again and a gain and again, so that is the only difference- you get no more reinCARnations, just this one you have now to do your work.
In fact that is how it has always been, because this idea of a personal soul(subtle vehicle) that gets to reacquire a new arrangement of atoms,(energy illusion)in the form of a body-mind is a cultural construct from the Eastern schools to convince and console, just as in the West churchgoing is lukewarm sacred service for the self-indulgent, and passes for getting a closer seat to the throne when departed.
so we are in the exact same situation as we were really in before we knew about NTHE, so what is the big deal?
Return the Prannahs to the Heart, withdraw the schizoid cosmic projections and just move beyond this rock.
As I said if it were me, killing myself would be a failure.
Try living first. It might be fun.
:)
Post script:
Of course I ‘feel’ the loss, and visceral dimensions of what is playing out. However, on this journey, mad as looking into NTHE is, I have seen something of value in taking responsibility for my actions, and the relations I have with all lifeforms. Never going to perfect motion from the get-go, but it seems to be the only ‘honourable’ way I have ever lived, and much of it came from after Guy’s essay ‘Letting Go’. So let go as one lives, and remarkably, life gets simpler, but not more difficult.
PapaDick and BabyDick Cheney are at it again. They’ve got a piece in the Weekly Standard trying to renew the magic power of terrorterrorterror.
The intelligence claims they make are so batshit crazy they’re even being debunked in the WSJ (by a 9/11 Commission staffer).
But as with the other PapaDick/BabyDick interventions, I’m interested in certain of their detailed plans, which they hide after all their batshit intelligence lies.
http://www.emptywheel.net/2014/07/11/papadick-and-babydick-try-to-sustain-the-terror-industry
See also the character of the fellow who tells you the story re 9/11
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/07/links-71114.html#comment-2267458
And some people BELIEVE this man ????????
The article Tom puts up about modified Nukes, Iron Oxide casings and whatnot are all interesting to contemplate. However, how the heck would any of us know if this explanation was at all feasible, of just techno-bable? Anyone here studied nuclear physics in their spare time? You know, even a community college certificate? A diploma of Nuclear Therapy perhaps from Dupdale Springs Cesspool Academy of Homespun Remedies.
This might be a kinda dumbass question, but if this was true, some modified nuke, aren’t we going to pick up some radiation readings slightly above normal at ground zero?
I like to think of near Earth orbiting whiz-bang weapons did it, but I am yet to get my certificate in the mail for that, (I’ve paid for it already), so I may be mistaken on that.
Just sayin…
Thanks Hiruit, I believe it would be nice if we could all enjoy that option. Seemed perfectly lovely to me, as deaths go.
So much to learn, so little time. A very good post this one above, and the comment section equally as illuminating, what possible words could I even come up with to add? Never one to shrink from a challenge most days I thought of this…Extinction, bringing humanity closer together one suicide at a time…
peace love and hugs from Canada.
Anyone who has looked at both sides of 911 and do not, at least, conclude more answers are needed, is a fool. Personally, I’m quite sure that it was NOT as presented by our wonderful government and MSM. How did it happen. I don’t know.
I have no more to say about that event. Believe what you want.
Just this past week i have begun to notice that the cost of living has increased dramatically. The grain we purchase to feed our animals, almost all the food in the grocery store, and of course gasoline. It woke me up to the possible scenario of near term scarcity of what is needed to live. I have this gnawing feeling that is going to get worse not better. We are overpopulated and we have lost all vision of building a future that will continue for very long. The arctic ice is melting faster than anyone expected. The jet stream is so distorted that just this week we are going to have record low temperatures throughout the Midwest region ( 20 degree drop in temp ), while California and Alaska are hotter than ever. I had a vision of there being shortages of food soon. That delivery of food and supplies are going to slow way down, a kind of slow motion depravity is starting to begin. All the while the wealthy are acting as though nothing is happening, but that too is going to change. Walmart is selling flat. The climate change is going to change farming no matter what Monsanto does. The clock is winding down, and there is nothing we can do now to create a new clock that makes everything ok.
America is swiftly becoming a third world country. We had better adjust our expectations and soon. I wouldn’t miss this demise for anything. For 40 years I have known this was coming. So no suicide for me until there is no more food and water, or there is mass nuclear melt down. Then I will probably both shot and hang myself so as to avert a slow disintegration.
Guy
I pre-visited the site where you will be interviewed today. It states you are an: “advocate for drastic action to save human civilization.”
Really?
If anyone has any interest, I posted this comment at Fractal Planet:
@ mikeroberts2013, in response to your recent questions:
A person who thinks in Cartesian/Newtonian terms might reasonably ask, “How can you predict near term human extinction or near extinction based on scientific evidence while emphasizing the weaknesses of science in making climate change and related predictions? How and why, do you consider NTHE predictable based on science?” A way too short, way too simple answer to this question (per Einstein’s “not too simple” test) looks something like this:
When trying to understand high speed processes viewed from a Cartesian/Newtonian perspective unresolvable paradoxes occur, which Einstein’s relativity theory resolves. Similarly, viewing the global warming, ecological and nuclear collapse self-annihilation trap through the Cartesian/Newtonian lens produces the paradox inherent in the questions above related to prediction. Just as Relativity Theory resolves many Cartesian/Newtonian paradoxes, so also, it seems to me, complexity theory and non-equilibrium thermodynamics resolve the Cartesian/Newtonian science prediction paradox while also pointing to the near certainty of a fatal outcome for us soon.
As I describe more fully in my forthcoming essay for publication at NBL on around the 23rd of July titled “What ‘purpose’ do I have?”, life takes maximum advantage of the energy that gets dissipated in all energy conversion processes (entropy). On the other hand, civilization—especially fossil fuel-based, capitalist industrial civilization—violates this most fundamental life principle, instead maximizing wasted energy for an immediate gratification “payoff” by taking the shortest routes to gradient reduction. Just as evolution made the emergence of multi-drug-resistant (MDR) bacteria inevitable, so also civilization’s anti-life agenda, paired with complexity theory and non-equilibrium thermodynamics, makes global warming, ecological, and nuclear collapse with human extinction or near extinction coming soon an extremely high probability. As complexity theory makes clear, unpredictable and irreversible tipping points, accompanied by very rapid change, occur in complex systems.
In order to understand this in any depth, one really needs to have some background knowledge of complexity theory and non-equilibrium thermodynamics as they relate to life. Meanwhile, most commenters here at FP seem strongly resistant to learning about these things, much less discussing their relevance to this conversation. This makes about as much sense to me as a person’s avoiding relativity theory and quantum mechanics because they feel more comfortable with, and prefer, the world as interpreted by Descartes and Newton.
Of course not, mt. I have no control over the description people use for the show. The middle-aged, city-dwelling white man conducting the interview is late to the party.
For me, having been raised in the funeral industry– it’s of keen interest to observe these conversations– thanks! One thing I think might be omitted from the conversation at hand is the recognition of the ubiquitous nature of violence as a strategy– in this case it’s self violence, of course– but it can take many other forms as well. As I see it, violence is an inevitable result of a cultural valueset, which I call the ME FIRST/RIGHT NOW paradigm, which instructs us to chose for the most expedient and convenient answer or action. . .climate change and looming NTE are obvious results of such a value set but so is suicide, denialism, apathy, and many other behaviors. I wonder if it’s worth questioning the validity of a solution or strategy– in this case suicide– that stems from the same value set that created the crisis that makes suicide attractive as an option– in this case NTE. To be clear, I completely acknowledge the validity of the NTE scenario. I personally simply advocate for “right living” in spite of that reality. . .I offer some thoughts on that because I’ve found this perspective has proven useful to some. Thanks for the opportunity to participate in the conversation.
I always thought it would be nice to watch the sunset from the top of Everest as my last day on the planet.But right now am enjoying life more than ever do to the fact that all the noise that made life seem difficult before is just a whisper now.I only wish the rest of world could find the peace to go out gracefully,but probably not going to happen.
There was a guy
An under water guy who controlled the sea
Got killed by ten million pounds of sludge
From New York and New Jersey
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
The creature in the sky
Got sucked in a hole
Now there’s a hole in the sky
And the ground’s not cold
And if the ground’s not cold
Everything is gonna burn
We’ll all take turns, I’ll get mine too
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
If Man is five, if Man is five, if Man is five
Then the Devil is six, then the Devil is six
The Devil is six, the Devil is six and if the Devil is six
Then God is seven , then God is seven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
This monkey’s gone to Heaven
Does this mean I don’t have to remodel the upstairs bathroom?!? Whoopieeeee!
Daniel, quite some essay. I don’t come here anymore because I don’t see what else needs to be said, but someone sent me your essay.
You are eloquent but it is really pretty simple. As far as we know anything that becomes alive dies. The word “survival” has in itself become a way of denial. People always forget to put qualifiers on it. Living things don’t survive. They survive for x number of years, past some event, longer than some other living thing. But they never just survive. That’s what being mortal is all about.
So here it is. Everything now alive on this planet it going to die. The death of humans and other living things on this planet is and has always been assured. The question with extinction is not whether what is alive now dies, but rather whether replacements are issued. Extinction means no more replacements for the species in question. But any living members of the species now alive will die with or without extinction.
So what is a big deal about extinction is our desire to pass on our genes. What is also a big deal is how we die and when we die. Since any of us could die tomorrow or even today extinction is not a death sentence-life is the death sentence, for nothing unborn ever dies. How we die is a big deal but there is no guarantee that death in the current circumstances would be any easier or less painful than death in an extinction event. Long before starving what bullets are around will be used up. A bullet in the head, while scary, might be far quicker and less painful than a multiple year battle with cancer. So the continuance of civilization is just as scary as extinction.
So to me, although at first the idea of extinction SEEMS hard to deal with, in fact it really isn’t. In fact once humans and many or all species on this planet are extinct, well death ends, pain ends. If you look at it that way it begins to look damn good. I can’t remember the number right off hand – at least 200,000 new people born each day. Every week that extinction is delayed means almost 1 1/2 million new humans are born who have to die. If we think dying is bad, then extinction is good.
But Daniel, you really have to give up moralizing. I was with you for pages until you got to going on about how Mike Ruppert committed suicide. WHO CARES. Is that what is left to us – gotta do suicide right. EXTINCTION means it just doesn’t matter. I think if you can ever let up moralizing you will have time to enjoy some life before its gone. Live and die as you choose
11th July 2014, Mauna Loa CO2 400.12ppm, up slightly over the past week.
@Kathy C
Well said.
Humans alive today are the first in history to wittingly destroy their own progeny’s future, along with everything else, for the sake of convenience, comfort, acquiring computer digits, and alleviating boredom.
” The jet stream is so distorted that just this week we are going to have record low temperatures throughout the Midwest region ( 20 degree drop in temp ), while California and Alaska are hotter than ever. I had a vision of there being shortages of food soon. That delivery of food and supplies are going to slow way down, a kind of slow motion depravity is starting to begin. All the while the wealthy are acting as though nothing is happening, but that too is going to change. Walmart is selling flat. The climate change is going to change farming no matter what Monsanto does. The clock is winding down, and there is nothing we can do now to create a new clock that makes everything ok.”
Knarf,
Yep. It’s what’s happening right now that tends to be overlooked.
WOW!!!
I only hope I did this cut and paste job right..
Posted by: amybtravelling
« on: Today at 01:39:33 PM »
Insert Quote
I have a lot to ponder about this essay and the many responses it engendered before I go into a detailed response to it myself, but there is something I want to immediately address, and that is this quote specifically:
“let us revel in the peace that Ruppert has now found and truly respect the choice that he made. He was an incredibly inspiring fucked-up human being who had profoundly touched more than his share of lives in any one lifetime. He strove to make this world a better place. Yes, he failed, but then again, so did we.”
You are wrong. Michael C. Ruppert was NOT a failure. He was a man who cared deeply about the truth, and about living according to his conscience, and that is a rare and beautiful thing in this world, so for all his faults that so many want to focus on instead of the message he carried in his lifelong evolutionary path tracking the truth, he was a SUCCESS to me, and he will be remembered as such, as long as I am living in this world to remember him anyway. And if he made ONE PERSON awake, he made a difference in the world, and he woke up many people, so YES, he DID make the world a better place, he just committed suicide before he realized it, and THAT is the tragedy to me, the biggest tragedy is that he didn’t realize how much of an impact he did have on others, and yes, how much of an impact he had on me, although we never met.
I have been in that dark place in my life before, although I have never made half the difference (nor half the enemies) as he did, but I have been there, and yes, I could see that pain, although I didn’t realize until too late how deep it ran. The pain from seeing a cold and callous world, the pain in feeling the suffering that just seems to encompass everyone and everything..and then knowing how grim things will get and what lies ahead..yes, that is a heavy burden to carry. So I cannot speak for the lessons his death holds for others, but for me PERSONALLY it holds the lesson of needing to SPEAK UP AND CARE MORE WHEN WE SEE OTHERS IN PAIN, AND NOT CARE ABOUT IMAGE MORE THAN WHAT IS REAL.
Others may think only about how meaningless it all is, others may take the lesson that suicide it the best option, but for me personally, life is just too fucking precious, and it makes me angry, because I will rage against the dying of the light myself before I ever snuff out that flame, and to know someone else felt such despair that they couldn’t climb out of it, and that there are those that still want to put blame and fault on the person for feeling that way, and then want to prescribe whether or not he committed suicide in the “RIGHT” way..all I can say is, what the fuck??? In one part of the essay, the writer talks about not putting blame on a suicide, then later on in the same essay, that just seems to me that that is EXACTLY what is being done by saying how he should have been able to kill himself if society only didn’t frown on it. How about if we just had a society that gave enough of a shit about other human beings in pain to want to comfort them into their not WANTING to die?
Why is WANTING to die so acceptable when we are facing so much of it, and yet so little effort expended it seems into seeing what it would take to get someone to want to live??? I see a difference between accepting the reality of our impending doom, I just see it personally as a call to LOVE EACH OTHER MORE WHILE WE HAVE TIME.
that’s just my take on it, anyway.
Posted by: ulvfugl
« on: Today at 02:05:35 PM »
Insert Quote
@ amybtravelling
Good comment. Just want to mention, if you don’t realise, the threads in this section duplicate what’s on the Blog, but if you comment here, it doesn’t appear on the Blog.
You might want to re-post your comment there ?
I wasn’t sure how that worked, thanks for the info, and will post it there too. I am still going over in my head not just the essay but all the very thought provoking responses, and I am glad that the essay was posted if for no other reason than that we are able to have this discussion here because of it. I do know that when I left the Army, I could have continued with very little retraining or education in the medical field, but decided not to do so because I saw first hand how being in that environment caused even the best and most caring of people to have to out of necessity I suppose..or what they perceive as necessity, which isn’t quite the same thing, to develop a hard and tough shell and become callous, and I just didn’t want to do that. I would rather feel, even if it meant feeling pain and being too “sensitive” , than ever deliberately shut that part of me off just to cope with life, or at least not voluntarily, so I left the medical field entirely, and choose another path, a rather convoluted one down some dark roads at times, but that is another matter. The point is that for me, the path I am on today is about learning as much as I can every single day how to tear my own walls down instead of keeping that shell and those walls up, and am about finding friends to be with at the end of the world..not so much figuring out how long I can survive it until it comes..or even how I can take myself out. And I’m going to stop here because I just realized I need to double post this too, lol.
I wasn’t sure how that worked, thanks for the info, and will post it there too. I am still going over in my head not just the essay but all the very thought provoking responses, and I am glad that the essay was posted if for no other reason than that we are able to have this discussion here because of it. I do know that when I left the Army, I could have continued with very little retraining or education in the medical field, but decided not to do so because I saw first hand how being in that environment caused even the best and most caring of people to have to out of necessity I suppose..or what they perceive as necessity, which isn’t quite the same thing, to develop a hard and tough shell and become callous, and I just didn’t want to do that. I would rather feel, even if it meant feeling pain and being too “sensitive” , than ever deliberately shut that part of me off just to cope with life, or at least not voluntarily, so I left the medical field entirely, and choose another path, a rather convoluted one down some dark roads at times, but that is another matter. The point is that for me, the path I am on today is about learning as much as I can every single day how to tear my own walls down instead of keeping that shell and those walls up, and am about finding friends to be with at the end of the world..not so much figuring out how long I can survive it until it comes..or even how I can take myself out.
not sure how to edit posts here, and am sorry I double copied/posted that last paragraph in my last comment, and need to also clarify something and edit but don’t see that I can do that so will do it in this post:
” I see a difference between accepting the reality of our impending doom, I just see it personally as a call to LOVE EACH OTHER MORE WHILE WE HAVE TIME.”
what I meant to say but didn’t get all out was this: “I see a difference between accepting the reality of our impending doom and dealing with that and making arrangements to deal with it, and that could include suicide, and just becoming hard and cold and selfish as a response to it. I see it personally as a call to love each other more while we have the time, and that is the most important thing left, and in the end, the only thing that matters.”
bad editing on my part and deleted a section I didn’t mean too besides doubleposting a paragraph.
The Zen Master was confronted by a fierce warrior. The warrior shouted menacingly ” I can cut off your head as if it were nothing”. The Master responded “before you is a man who could care less if you cut off his head”. The warrior dropped his sword.
What I get out of this story, is by confronting death the warrior ( the fear of death ) loses it’s’ power.
From depth psychology we learn that human psychology / behaviour is rooted in the fear of death.
As we know love is the opposite of fear.
What Should I Do Now?
Don’t follow what anyone said:
Find your own best way instead;
Above all, don’t heed
Every word that you read,
Including these words you just read.
@ Daniel
Thanks for the essay; you tackled difficult and taboo topics. I don’t spend any time thinking about how I might die, just about how difficult life will be in the ensuing years. I always assumed that I would just kill myself when the suffering became to great, but it was still good to think practically about what methods I would use.
Mike Ruppert’s suicide was difficult to accept, even though I was not at all surprised by it because I could see and relate to the pain and hurt in his eyes. The pain came from knowing the truth about so much. But his suicide was still abrupt, disturbing and hurtful. He was one of the few of us in-the-know, an intellectual brother; as you said in your essay:
“Aside from all the human behavior that has repeated generation after generation to no avail in preventing this phenomenal moment from arriving, here “we” few stand, now being forced to accept something no living human being has ever had to before … as if our idiosyncratic stew wasn’t spiced enough.”
I hesitate to offer a mild criticism of your writing, but I think humility is one of your qualities, so with this in mind I just want to say that it was a bit verbose (sorry) and would be improved with a tighter focus on the main topic of suicide/death.
Apart from this minor criticism I enjoyed thinking about the topics you raised and your stance on 9/11.
Nothing is more difficult and earthshaking than the realization that NTHE is inevitable. But when I think of it, coming to terms with the realization that members of the USgov were involved in 9/11, and the implications this has, also was a hard kick in the gut, difficult to accept. Those of us who have done so, have done so at least in part because, as you said, [we] “value “truth” at all personal cost.”
Your statement about NTHE can also be applied to the difficulty of accepting that the USgov was involved in 9/11:
“The unprecedented evidence has forced me to finally accept a truth which I have resisted all my life. It is time to take a serious look at what past behavior is still habitually keeping me from truly being present with this tragic reality, given that the vast majority of my identity has been married to the principle of resisting the very thing I can no longer deny.”
Thanks again for your contribution!
@YT
‘Nothing is more difficult and earthshaking than the realization that NTHE is inevitable.’
I spent many years fighting the insanity of it all, and even now sometimes fall into the trap if thinking ‘if only ….’
However, all I need to do is look at the way the vast majority of people around me are behaving -buying energy-consuming devices to blow leaves around or heat patios- and recognise the totally corrupt and grossly inefficient nature of ‘the system’ and how it is structured tor resist change to realise there is no hope. ‘Thou shalt waste. And thou shalt keep wasting until thou cannot waste any longer because there is nothing left.’
We have yet another farcical election soon, and the billboards are already starting to appear, encouraging voters to vote for people whom I have had personal dealings with and have discovered to be completely useless twats who have no credibility and who lie continuously.
Getting to the point of not caring still looks like a lightly traveled path… that’s sure to become a deeply rutted route, wide as a stampede. Most people still care a bit… at least about themselves, to some lesser extent about their intimate cohorts, less about their tribe, and not much at all about anything else. The further it is, the less they care. Some are extraordinary and extend compassion throughout the universe. Extraordinary.
What extirpates care? Powerlessness engenders despondency, in some cases first panic, but despondency follows. Strength enables love. Strength is undermined by unhealthy conditions in individuals and society. And so is love. Social unrest shall ensue, but the overwhelming pacification of sickness and starvation follows. As Earthlings get sicker and weaker, fewer and fewer enduring in a sicker environment, lacking purposeful and rewarding engagements, lacking solutions for accelerating stresses, lacking properly nourishing foods… ability to care will necessarily slack off. The physical and emotional energy for caring will surely peter out in the blight. Humanity will be too sick, too exhausted, too powerless to care as famines gut and slay millions and then billions. Withered and wasted, H. sapiens approaches extinction. Meanwhile, lack of caring – apathetic numbness – sets prominently into the milieu. Compassion is an endangered phenomenon.
While I can’t muster admiration of annihilation, perhaps numb indifference will be a personal gift of grace to those who linger on a little longer. Much like a mouse – bludgeoned, ‘played with’ by a cat, who enters a state of shock and natural narcosis where it feels and responds but little – is spared some pain. Somewhat comforted by numbness, ready to give up the ghost, but lazily. Numbness may even forestall rash acts. Suicide? Effort and passion required. Too weak to act or care.
Numb … from the pain.
Steve,
Thanks for your merciful behavior.
Daniel,
So nice to see you back.
Guy,
I’d submit again my little ‘poem’–”Life and Death is a Package Deal” that was posted already on a previous essay thread-but what, here, I want to do is post an image (that I may send to you for your art collection if you still have room). How do you post a jpg image as a “comment” here? – Oh, a good and needed discussion; we still have lots of work to do.
(Needn’t post this-maybe answer by email when you’ve time…I’m obviously confused in how to communicate with you and use this and the alternative site)
I keep hearing over and over “there’s nothing more difficult to accept than NTE is inevitable.”
Baloney. It’s a LOT harder to accept that it’s just 99% likely, rather than 100%– because that means there’s a good case still to be made to attempt to work for a better future even against the worst odds. And that’s much less convenient.
Guy
I never assumed you had a part in that description—SORRY.
J-fitz … you’re on to something here. I think it’s something to do w/ stages or sequences of acceptance, maybe (?). What’s hidden beyond the horizon differs based on someone’s current position.
For another clumsier analogy: when the GPS goes down, a person handy w/ a sextant won’t be in the 1st wave or two of resignation, anyway.
Your video handiwork is quite fascinating , by the way! Thanks for grinding it out . Learned a lot, there.
I’m still new to all this and still wonder whether this idea of NTHE is real. Ideally, I would need to educate myself on all this climate science to decide whether I agree. I surely believe in the reality of human-induced global warming based upon the well-publicized scientific consensus. In this, I thought I was ahead of so many people. This NTHE, however, has caught me off guard. If true, this changes everything (many thanks to Captain Obvious).
What I have thought about for a long time, however, is death. I have seen four people die so far in my life and many people dying. My grandmother and aunt killed themselves. I suspect when things get bad enough you just naturally kill yourself. Once the quality of your life falls below a certain threshold it becomes the logical thing to do. How you do it is a personal matter and one should not be overly anxious about it. My choice would probably be a hollow point to the skull. Seems quick and painless, and the avoidance of pain seems to be the whole point of it all. But that’s just me. Others may want to do an elaborate ritual. That’s ok too.
Death was always inevitable, even before we learned about NTHE (assuming it’s really real). Someday – astronomers tell us – the sun will expand and vaporize the earth. That will be LTHE, I guess. When we personally die, it’s the same as if the entire universe dies and it will make no difference whether we will be succeeded by millions of generations or zero. The imperative to live in the moment is still operative. We might as well go on living as if we were immortals. It’s the illusion every person who has ever lived lives by.
On the other hand, there’s something really depressing about the idea that we are going to go extinct real soon. For me, it’s the love of human history. Say what you want about human beings. You can’t deny that we make great history and all that history makes for great reading when historians put it all down in history books. The thought that history will end sometime before A.D. 2100 IS depressing to me. Maybe I really don’t know my own mind. Therefore, I will own that this website has real value, for it has provoked me to think and I’m sure it has similarly provoked others. That, to me, seems all to the good.
Then again, I could be wrong. It has happened many times before.
Joslin-D
“Your video handiwork is quite fascinating , by the way! Thanks for grinding it out . Learned a lot, there.”
I missed this. Where can it be found?
Jayfitz,
I, too, don’t see a reason not to do everything I can in pursuit of a living planet. I like that people are thinking through the issues of suicide. As you say, 99% likelihood and probably higher can be inconvenient to try and buck. It’s not for everybody. So people making contingencies around suicide seems fine to me. My only hope is that they continue to tolerate (or even welcome)those of us they don’t agree with. We should not all be doing the same thing (but we all should be together).
“The problem is just that you’re not dead,
she said to me.
The answer is easy if you take it logically.
I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free,
There must be fifty ways to leave forever.”
“Just lay on the tracks, Jack
Take all the pills, Jill
A blast to the brain, Jane
Just set yourself free.
Dive under the bus, Gus
No need to discuss much
Just jump off the bridge, Midge
And set yourself free.”
~
I have the security of my mother’s old .38 S&W Model 926. My plan at present is to suffer through my last breath like most of the other animals, including humans, that have gone before. But, if I do reach the point where I can’t stand it any longer, I will at least have the option.
I encourage all my friends here to obtain a pistol of at least a .38 caliber. Don’t get it through a gun shop, or the government may take it some day. There are so many pistols out there that it’s actually very easy to purchase an unregistered one. Just start asking around. You’ll find one for under $100. Unless you’re experienced, get a revolver. They are so simple to use that a three year old can fire one without prior instruction. Be sure to take it to a firing range to get handy with. MOST IMPORTANTLY, do not leave it where it can be found by a child AND purchase a lock for it AND store the ammunition separately!
THE FICKLE TRIGGER FINGER OF FATE POINTED AT MY FATHER! Here’s the story. He was a Captain in the US ARMY fighting the Japanese. Things got real personal and my dad was flattened by a kick to the solar plexus. As the Japanese soldier attempted to shoot him with his Nambu, dad was able to raise his .45 and kill his opponent first.
Dad almost never spoke of the war. He told that story and one other. Anyway, after dad passed, I was looking through his things and discovered the four bullets that were left in the Nambu. Three were normal, right out of the magazine. The fourth, dad had obviously removed from the chamber. It has the mark of the firing pin in the center of the primer!
So goes the Fickle Trigger Finger Of Fate! Without that misfire, my dad would have died. I wouldn’t be here, neither would my son or grandson.
So, should I thank the fates for how things turned out? I don’t think so. Not with what we have to look forward to, Hell no!
Here’ a little video on the Nambu pistol. Nambu bullets are shown also:
When I was young, I hung out with a few guys. We got high, had lots of great conversations and laughed a lot, laughed ourselves sick; life was a cosmic joke to us. We used to say, it’s all so futile. We were a bit like the Merry Pranksters, making a bit of a spectacle of ourselves. And then it was over. Egos started getting in the way, the looming spectre of doing something with our lives drove us (me reluctantly) into careers and family situations. I’d like nothing better than to face the end with some of those guys, high and laughing again, having a grave digging ceremony, fiddling while the sky burned. It would be fun and a final fuck you to the world, not the natural world, but the human one with its share of alienation, hypocrisy, failed relationships, worries and mundane responsibilities. I’m tired anyway, having seen all this coming for a long time. I could use a break. Soon enough I’ll be dead and laughing my ass off with the boys is the way I’d like to go out.
Hello Kathy,
Finally, some reasonable criticism not originating from scientific illiteracy or mutilating language to make an absurd point. Sorry for the delayed response, this essay coincided with the Oregon Country Fair which has consumed my weekend.
You state:
“But Daniel, you really have to give up moralizing. I was with you for pages until you got to going on about how Mike Ruppert committed suicide. WHO CARES. Is that what is left to us – gotta do suicide right. EXTINCTION means it just doesn’t matter. I think if you can ever let up moralizing you will have time to enjoy some life before its gone. Live and die as you choose.”
While my response is more or less directed towards you, please don’t feel obligated to respond, I as well have come to see little point in arguing about anything concerning NTE, and understand not wanting to get dragged into what we both know to be a futile discussion. We’re all just rummaging through the garbage to find a little morsel of meaning at this point.
While putting aside that by telling someone to stop moralizing (applying value judgment) is in itself a value judgment, let’s look at your question of ‘who cares’?
Honestly, I don’t know. I can’t even say I do with any sense of consistency anymore. But apparently I still have enough fumes in the tank, where if given enough time, it can still combust into lengthy diatribes.
Personally, I had long stopped paying much attention to Ruppert, though I kept up with him from time to time because I once found him to be such an incredible voice. But it at least seemed to me that he never quite recovered from the weirdness surrounding his having left the country around 2006(?)
But here is the critical distinction regarding his particular death that I found/find to be noteworthy. First of all, it is to date, clearly the most poignant suicide within a certain “community of like minds”. It is also the first popularized suicide on this side of acceptance of NTE. As well, Ruppert chose to be in the public spotlight, he took it upon himself to be that “voice in the wilderness”. “Many” people followed him and put a high value on his opinions, as I once did myself.
Ruppert just wasn’t some guy who killed himself. By choosing to be a public figure advocating for a descending set of social reforms, he consequently chose a level of social responsibility to those he knew he had influenced and who would be terribly upset and seriously shaken to hear of his death. I know I was. And for what little it’s worth, I broke down and cried over it, which was much less about his death and just……..the same quite desperation.
If you put all this energy into “building community” and reaching out to people as he did, especially with the certain connective language he used, only to one day just say “fuck it” and eat a gun, well, I’m not going to think that’s cool in the least, in fact, I’m going to morally consider that to be rather cowardly. Again, not because he ended his life, but just how he went about it.
As we all know, death is the easy part, it’s the living that kills you. And since “we” are attempting to discuss how we might come to live with unprecedented mass death, his suicide speaks volumes, or just pamphlets, or maybe just a few pages on a blog before the lights go out.
I believe anyone who has the freedom to kill themselves has the “right” to do so. However, I am morally opposed to suicide for those who have a responsibly to others, such as parents, especially young parents. I am morally opposed to those who have committed themselves to being responsible for others, to suddenly decide they’re no longer interested. And doing so, in my moral opinion, is consciously choosing to do harm. And often times, emotional harm runs far deeper than anything physical.
And in a way–and yes it’s a bit of a stretch–but I consider Ruppert to have had many in which to be mindful of, given the dire circumstances he both intellectually and emotionally dwelled and thus attempted to communicate. In my opinion, it’s easy to argue that Ruppert’s actions did much psychic harm, and given the fact that he was clearly conscientious enough to know this, constitutes grounds to be morally opinionated on the subject.
I know there is a price to pay regarding criticism when one’s argument shifts from being ‘descriptive’ (the science behind the probability that we’re all going to die), to being ‘prescriptive’ (ergo, suicide is the most likely option for many of us).
It’s on par with subtly moving from discussing objective reality to subjective relativity. But what each of us personally considers to be “self-evident” is the movable boundary we imagine separates the two. Similar to those who have come to accept the evidence of NTE, we naturally see our discussions about it as simply being ‘descriptive’, just sharing the obvious facts. But to those who haven’t accepted it, they still see everything that at least Guy says, as being ‘prescriptive’, just one man’s opinion and a ludicrous one at that.
The same spectrum of opinion regarding descriptive vs. prescriptive goes for any discussion about suicide in context to NTE. While many may see “my opinion” about suicide as being “prescriptive”, I don’t at all, given that in a “post NTE acceptance paradigm” (that’s a mouthful), we’ve already either consciously or unconsciously accepted we’re going to die in one of only three ways: predation, starvation or suicide in the very near future…….that is if you’re young enough to live through it, and I just so happen to be.
But maybe there is a another deeply held opinion/perspective that far more divides our ‘take on things’, which I might interpret as being the difference between those who look at NTE and conclude little in their life will change because of it, and those who see it as utterly life changing.
Badland’s once prophetically wrote something along the lines: “NTE changes everything all the while changing nothing”.
And while I would agree with her to some extent, the truth is, that is far more a truth for her–being a young mother of three–than it is for a comparatively privileged, childless, middle aged American man. If I am now of the opinion that all of life is going to be extinct in the very near future, yes, I going to pretty much change my opinion about………..everything, simply because I can, and which apparently now includes moralizing about the merits of suicide.
Hell, for all we know, maybe the only possible ‘Hail Mary pass’ that has a ‘snowballs chance in hell’ of ever making it ‘out of cave’, in ‘becoming the change’, can only come after a certain portion of society fully realizes they truly have nothing to live for and instigate a level of self-sacrifice unimaginable to us today. And maybe that can only possibly occur after “we” get over our collective fear of death, where Ruppert’s last act only served in the opposite direction, even though his strange suicide letter implied otherwise.
IMO, we first have to get through the “acceptance stage”, before we can even begin to see all the other questions and divisions that come after, which our particular age, living arrangements, attachments, wealth, health and god knows what else come to significantly affect our outlook as to how “we” come to internalize it.
Someone in their twenties/thirties is clearly going to see the concept of resignation differently than those in their sixties/seventies. Naturally being not all that far from deaths door, where a certain vitality has already left us, can’t possibly not influence our perception of NTE along with everything else in life.
But if all discussions repeatedly deduce down to “who gives a shit”, that doesn’t really address the point that obviously many here apparently do, given the amount of time we’ve committed to thinking about it up to this point, and for some of us, that line of thinking stretches back decades.
I’m hesitant to admit it, but for many, NTE was destined to consume “our” outlook to the bitter end, since it is but the logical conclusion of long held ecologically minded identities.
Heaven knows I sure wish there was just some switch I could turn off, but since I haven’t found it yet, I can’t imagine I’m going to.
But ultimately, we both fully well know it doesn’t fucking matter what anybody does, ‘we all goin to die anyhow’, some of us, just have the privileged opportunity to look at life and death in a most phenomenal way that no living human being has before.
Is it perverse/surreal to see this “opportunity” as a unique moment in time? Sure, but is that any more or less perverse than how “we” already live?
All moralizing aside, if only for our morbid curiosity at this late stage, I am interested in exploring a phenomenal dire reality that has NEVER had so much evidence to support it until this very day.
Selfishly, I’m tired of grieving for what’s already lost and that’s all Ruppert’s death left in its wake.
Ruppert looked too long into the abyss and it finally consumed him, as I’m sure it will for many of us. Many who were aware of his work have been staring into that same abyss for as long, if not longer, and while it’s debatable as to whether or not “I” have any moral right to sit in judgment of his last act, it’s no less debatable as to whether anyone else has the moral right to say I don’t.
Other than that, I’m selfishly happy to see your name again in the comment thread, I personally feel you along with many here, have helped us come to terms with NTE, and your voice will always be of great value……at least here. Take care Kathy.
Well, Judas, he just winked and said
“All right, I’ll leave you here
But you’d better hurry up and choose which of those bills you want
Before they all disappear”
“I’m gonna start my pickin’ right now
Just tell me where you’ll be”
Judas pointed down the road
And said, “Eternity!”
“Eternity?” said Frankie Lee
With a voice as cold as ice
“That’s right,” said Judas Priest, “Eternity
Though you might call it ‘Paradise’”
“I don’t call it anything”
Said Frankie Lee with a smile
“All right,” said Judas Priest
“I’ll see you after a while”
…
For sixteen nights and days he raved
But on the seventeenth he burst
Into the arms of Judas Priest
Which is where he died of thirst
No one tried to say a thing
When they took him out in jest
Except, of course, the little neighbor boy
Who carried him to rest
And he just walked along, alone
With his guilt so well concealed
And muttered underneath his breath
“Nothing is revealed”
Well, the moral of the story
The moral of this song
Is simply that one should never be
Where one does not belong
So when you see your neighbor carryin’ somethin’
Help him with his load
And don’t go mistaking Paradise
For that home across the road.
— Dylan, 1967
I’ve been smoking cigarettes for 33 years. I’m on day four of quitting and I feel like jumping off a bridge every 20 mins Arrrrrgggggg!! More nic gum.
Ain’t this just lovely? Yeah, we are so screwed more than any pretzel.
99 Percent Of Ocean Trash is Missing; Scientists Worry the Plastic Has Reached the Food Chain
https://weather.com/news/science/environment/study-finds-99-percent-ocean-trash-missing-20140702
“Yeah, we are so screwed more than any pretzel.”
From SNAFU to FUBAR. Onward with infinite growth on a finite planet. And still they say “DILLIGAS?”
The Walrus and the Carpenter
And NTE
“The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright —
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.
The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done —
“It’s very rude of him,” she said,
“To come and spoil the fun.”
The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead —
There were no birds to fly.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
If this were only cleared away,’
They said, it would be grand!’
If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said,
That they could get it clear?’
I doubt it,’ said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.
O Oysters, come and walk with us!’
The Walrus did beseech.
A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.’
The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head —
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.
But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat —
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn’t any feet.
Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more —
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.
The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings.’
But wait a bit,’ the Oysters cried,
Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!’
No hurry!’ said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.
A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said,
Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed —
Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.’
But not on us!’ the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!’
The night is fine,’ the Walrus said.
Do you admire the view?
It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!’
The Carpenter said nothing but
Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf —
I’ve had to ask you twice!’
It seems a shame,’ the Walrus said,
To play them such a trick,
After we’ve brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!’
The Carpenter said nothing but
The butter’s spread too thick!’
I weep for you,’ the Walrus said:
I deeply sympathize.’
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
O Oysters,’ said the Carpenter,
You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none —
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.”
Lewis Carroll
Life not turning out for you? Can’t seem to conjure in your mind that future of endless generations of happy hominids sitting around the campfire enjoying well-roasted leg of kangaroo while picking nits from each others matted coifs? Has your slow-release dopamine dried up? What about heaven? That’s a time tested internal dopamine dispenser that keeps on giving right up to the end. So what are we going to miss when humans go extinct? Are we going to miss the genius innovative cancer that created the variety of tools to eat or enslave every tranch on the pyramid of life and turn it into cheap, insipid crap for cheap, insipid humans? Where’s your Kardashian spirit?
Most of us are stuck in a cancer cell on some little arteriole branching from the main lines of energy and resource distribution. Our leaders call for more growth, more growth, while preparing for the ischemic necrosis that will come from energy and resource deprivation, a necrosis that will spread eventually beyond the tumors and result in a dismantling of surrounding ecosystem. Imagine that, a giant meltdown of all that complexity, probably before we have a chance to denature our proteins on the methane grill. Commit suicide? What for? Don’t you want to be a part of the scramble for what’s left, the scramble that never ends brought to you by a clueless population of violent, narcissistic apes? Don’t you want to see the blank stare in your child’s eyes as they expire in the planetary gas chamber that you helped build? Come on now, live forever, grow forever, that’s our mantra. Suicidal apoptosis is rarely in a cancer’s behavioral repertoire. I suppose we’re all being subjected to Round-Up and high fructose chemo right now with a little Fukushima radiation therapy, but it’s not enough, not yet, to impede our “progress.” I guess the hardest part is knowing that your not a part of that nature where all things thrive in balance, but are an aggressive vector of terminal disease
Excellent essay! THANKS.
This is not an improvement on Daniel Drumright words.
Reading past the relationship between a couple,the lyrics might say more than intended.
I’ve forgiven myself for this FUBAR of NTHE.
Link to listen live to Carolyn Baker Lifeboat Hour (in less than an hour from now):
http://www.prn.fm/radio-player.php
Drivel – post and comments. Step away from the computer. Go outside and have some fun . Or , bet me that nte is real — not!!!!
Thanks those of you who have sent feedback on the vids– they’re a bit of a fishing expedition. Having been very involved in teaching resilient living for a long time now I’ve really had to ask myself hard and personally whether or not I’d like to just give it up. . .as it’s an awfully thankless thing to do. Fortunately through the years one does get compensated for the effort–I’ve been lucky enough to acquire a pretty formidable skill-set and the rigors of the lifestyle have kept me in better shape than most of my peers. . .and that’s not nothing. Now here in Whistler BC with the new wife(my 3rd, the others decided kids were more important than environment) we’re trying like many here to figure out the next step. Having made the commitment to remaining a positive influence to the best of our ability as long as we’re able– it’s kinda a question of where to make the last stand, and that’s not a easy question. My backgrounds now are on the Big Island with the 9 acres of food forest there, or to get back into my boats. I’m leaning towards the latter, as I see violence as a much greater risk in the short term than food sustainability(although that’s also a very pressing concern). I have some time without work as we’re dealing with immigrations– so I thought I’d put some content together. I’m unlikely to write any more books as it’s too time intensive and things are moving so fast its hard to keep the content current. . .but still feel a bit obligated to reach out and try to provide either guidance or camaraderie to those who plan to stick it out as long as we’re able in spite of how unlikely success might be.
@ ss squirell-
Yes. Your post brought back memories:
While riding on a train goin’ west
I fell asleep for to take my rest
I dreamed a dream that made me sad
Concerning myself and the first few friends I had.
With half-damp eyes I stared to the room
Where my friends and I spent many an afternoon
Where we together weathered many a storm
Laughin’ and singin’ till the early hours of the morn.
By the old wooden stove where our hats was hung
Our words were told, our songs were sung
Where we longed for nothin’ and were quite satisfied
Talkin’ and a-jokin’ about the world outside.
With haunted hearts through the heat and cold
We never thought we could ever get old
We thought we could sit forever in fun
But our chances really was a million to one.
As easy it was to tell black from white
It was all that easy to tell wrong from right
And our choices were few and the thought never hit
That the one road we traveled would ever shatter and split.
How many a year has passed and gone
And many a gamble has been lost and won
And many a road taken by many a friend
And each one I’ve never seen again.
I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
That we could sit simply in that room again
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat
I’d give it all gladly if our lives could be like that.
~
Daniel says: Let’s start talking about how we’re all going to die….
SSquirrel says: When I was young….we were a bit like the Merry Pranksters….
In his final months, thousands of visitors, well-wishers and old friends visited him in his California home. Until his last weeks, he gave many interviews discussing his new philosophy of embracing death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Leary
==
Since You’ve Got To Go Anyway…
A good death is nice, and in theory,
Deathbed scenes could be more cheery:
So part of your preps
Might be taking steps
To go out like Timothy Leary.
Yes, Timothy Leary, it’s so good that he was up front about his “exit as art” approach.
Sasha Shulgin died just last month, at home, from liver cancer.
He was the first to synthesize MDMA – ectasy, along with hundreds of other compounds, all of which he personally assayed by ingesting, chemicals to bring on and control almost every mood and emotion. (I had the honor of basking in his presence for a few days at a conference once.)
Having access to anything his heart desired, so many of which he had designed himself, I wonder what cocktail he picked….
Whatever it was, bartender, I’ll take one of those. :)