I have been reading Re-inventing Collapse by Dmitry Orlov along with his talk - the 5 stages of Collapse - a grueling experience. To dig into what he says demands that you surrender many of your long-established truths about daily existence and indeed about humanity. It split me in two - one part was saying - this is great, yes he’s really seeing clearly into the way we are living - the other part was saying - oh, so you mean we’re fucked, really, really fucked.

As I really took this stuff on, I felt cold fear in the pit of my stomach - something I have experienced in a car crash - but never from a book.

So I recommend that you open a bottle of red wine (or whatever works for you) when you start to read. You’ll need it when the implications of what you read get too horrendous.

Usually I find that a book’s contents are kind of integrated with the rest of my thinking - the ideas are a closer examination or an extension of my known landscape. This book is different and much harder to deal with - the landscape is revealed to be other - almost nothing is what it seemed.

After four days I’m still coming to terms with it. The Life Beyond Capitalism website now seems out-moded - it looks like we’ll get that anyway from the first 2 of the 5 stages - Financial and Commercial Collapse.

But I’m also moving away from the fear of what could happen to a more hopeful view. As Dmitry puts it - we can “Find ways to live happy, fulfilling lives as this doomed system crumbles around us”. If you know what’s likely to happen, it’s easier to deal with.

Where to now? I’m starting to work on what to do next. Do let me know if you’d like to discuss this. Email me at mike[at]lifebeyondcapitalism.com

The 5 stages of Collapse talk is at http://www.energybulletin.net/node/47157