It’s interesting that – more often than not – whenever I talk about what seems to happen in the realm of collapse, the conversation inevitably turns to the apocalyptic. When I talk collapse, people seem to hear “the end of the world.”
Andrew Harvey says it’s rooted in a deep shadow of fear of death that comes up for people. However, collapse is not necessarily the end of the world, although depending on which of several possibilities in this perfect storm of economics, ecology, and energy, it is one possibility. But rather than talk about what we can do about it, the conversations seem to usually go to the “end of the world scenario. It’s much easier for people to deny it when they frame it in that context.
My background with the Apocalypse was Roman Catholic, so I’m no stranger to the co-opted term used by mythic Christianity to scare the bejesus into us and to control us. I say co-opted because the original meaning is from the Greek (ironic, ain’t it? See the next paragraph) meaning “lifting of the veil” or “revelation:” a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and perception, i.e., the veil is to be lifted. This term has come to mean, in common usage, the end of the world, but originally meant the end of an age.
The lifting of the veil is happening all around us. As I said before, everything is transparent: The patriarchal powers that want to dominate us, the greed of Wall Street and consumerism, the politics of the right and the left who are becoming indistinguishable because we’ve opened our eyes, the idea that what’s important can be measured by GNP instead of happiness ratios, the loss of our indigenous souls who once loved the planet…. the veil is lifting.
I agree there’s no way to tell if an impending collapse will happen suddenly or over a long period of time, and, whether it’s slow or fast, it appears to largely depend on who you’re talking to. Ask the people of Greece whether their “collapse” was sudden and unexpected or a slow decline that everyone could see coming. Another irony is that even the people who caused it and could see it coming were powerless to stop it in their greed and quest for power and control as they run out of ways to keep the system afloat and resort to pure theft.
Hence, we once again see the lifting of the veil. While everyone can see the problems that caused the economy to crash in late 2008, nothing has been changed except to further exacerbate the problem by not fixing the obvious problems, the continuing loss of jobs, record foreclosures, and the continuation of the greatest transfer of wealth ever to the very people who caused it, and who are now losing control. The veil is lifting.
Those of us who see behind the curtain threaten the infinite growth monetary paradigm money machine at all levels and are morphing into what looks like one of the leading edges of consciousness. But we’re not just sitting around talking about it. We have far too many Caesars who are willing to fiddle while Rome burns. The thing about collapse is that it can no longer be talked about in the future tense. It’s happening all around us: government, politics, nations, economics, populations, climate change, weather, earthquakes, water shortages, peak everything, health care, employment… you name it…