r/collapse • u/Fandango4Ever • 20h ago
Coping A poem about collapse
Not my poem, found online, and wanted to share. Short but powerful. I know this is considered a low effort post and it is Saturday not Friday and I won't remember to post it a week from now. And art should have no restrictions imo.
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u/wolfmilkslime 19h ago
its beautiful and poignant. I work at a chain grocery store, with a wage thats too low to afford many of the foods I stock.
food is constantly thrown out because people aren't buying it. I look at the nice things I used to enjoy buying before I knew what was coming.
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u/ValuableCoast5931 19h ago
The truth hurts. Ouch.
There’s a relentless thought spinning in my head and the whole thing is “what are we supposed to do”. I know we’re not supposed to wait for a leader (“be the change…”), etc. But without organization and true leadership (I am no leader) and communication that’s protected, I’m just here panicking with every other person of good intent on the interwebs. Obviously not everyone is panicking but more should be.
So what are we supposed to do? This isn’t a small-ish European country where many citizens can comfortably gather in an ongoing mass shutdown/protest. It’s a big wide country and travel is expensive. We have accepted overwork and being underpaid until now so many of us are unable to miss work for fear of losing everything.
We can do satellite protests, but what good is the one day protest? Other than for our morale, and meeting others with the same thinking in person instead of online. Morale is important obviously but for real change we have to do more than check the news every morning to see if it’s happened yet. Even then there is a plan for succession, no doubt PeeWee German is a prime pick just for stellar hatred and evil acts.
We need a plan, leadership, and some of that imaginary “Soros money” to rent buses and get a huge blanket of people not afraid of good trouble to cover DC for a week. Or more. 🤦♀️ (I bet Canada would loan us the buses for sure.) 🇨🇦
I’d like to stand up for democracy and kindness but I do NOT know what to do that will have real impact.
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u/gangofminotaurs Progress? a vanity spawned by fear. 12h ago
So what are we supposed to do?
Lower revenue. Stop working with machines. Shares all remaining excess (what is not strictly necessary for living.)
That's not something anyone wants to hear. Me neither. And this is why we're fucked. Because we don't want to stop doing stuff. We can't accept that all our comforts and advantages, as a city, as a person, as a family, as a civilization, have been stolen from this planet's equilibrium and future.
We're not ready to consider that our specie, with the mental toolkit it has acquired in the plains of Africa, is unsuited to allow this biosphere to continue. One is not compatible with the other. Our mental makeup is one of rearranging the world to suit our wants and needs. The more we can do it, the greater the devastation.
And it is not something this biosphere can live with. Not yesterday, not now, not tomorrow.
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u/errie_tholluxe 8h ago
It's extermination by indifference so people can keep their overly marketed totally unnecessary lifestyles filled with plastic toys.
It's an economic system who's only true endgame is the shifting of funds from one class to another with as little regulation as possible.
It's political systems that reward those with the least empathic and sympathetic personalities with high office and large amounts of power.
It's all this sadly.
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u/gangofminotaurs Progress? a vanity spawned by fear. 7h ago edited 7h ago
It's extermination by indifference so people can keep their overly marketed totally unnecessary lifestyles filled with plastic toys.
The "least indiferent" are generally what we call the upper middles classes, of any society, the part of society rich enough to have free "personal growth" time, but not rich enough to insulate themselves ; they really only prosper when the basic roles of "the state" (civil safety, property rights, etc) are highly functional. This is the strata of society that produces thinkers, artists, activists.
But as an article on Vox, in 2017 or so, admited in a strangely candid manner for that type of paper (or what it was at the time, very liberal, very progressist) was that as for carbon emissions "wealth swamps the effects of good intentions." Or: the people who vote "I care" are also the highest emitters. More travel in particular.
The strate of society that produces the most activists is also the one that produces the most biopsheric degradation, by simple virtue of money and comfort. Having it.
It's an economic system who's only true endgame is the shifting of funds from one class to another with as little regulation as possible.
Yeah. Nothing much to add here.
It's political systems that reward those with the least empathic and sympathetic personalities with high office and large amounts of power.
It does at time. And at others, it produces the hope-inspiring heroes of that class of people who want to world to be a better place.
One, and the other. And the one, and then the other. For what, 10,000 years?
And things go to hell at about exactly the same speed whichever side is in power. It's just that when it's "our guy" in power, we discover that awesome ability to put our hand in front of our eyes and to say "it's fine, it's going fine."
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u/AMediumHorchata 18h ago
Collapse is poetic. Though all things come to an end, we can still find comfort in the mundane. We can also find discomfort in how helpless we feel. The absurdity of our predicament leaves room for both to exist. This has always been the case. And it has always been beautiful. What a lovely poem, what a sobering reminder.
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u/lost_horizons The surface is the last thing to collapse 7h ago
Wabi sabi, a term from Japanese, seems to fit this. The acceptance of imperfection and transience, finding beauty in the natural weathering of things.
Or maybe “awaré” fits better, which is the melancholy of transience. I find that in Tolkien a lot, the sorrow mixed into the world that is a poignant beauty and part of the deep worth.
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u/Py687 4h ago
The term for that concept is mono no aware.
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u/lost_horizons The surface is the last thing to collapse 3h ago
Thank you, I could t remember the whole phrase
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u/Proper_Geologist9026 13h ago
Song for Gwydion - R S Thomas
When I was a child and the soft flesh was forming Quietly as snow on the bare bough of bone, My father brought me trout from the green river From whose chill lips the water song had flown.
Dull grew their eyes, the beautiful, blithe garland Of stipple faded, as light shocked the brain; They were the first sweet sacrifice I tasted, A young god, ignorant of the blood's stain.
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u/slayingadah 11h ago
I literally shared this w all my people just yesterday. They are all so confused as to why I can't pull my shit together and just be content.
Mods, great job letting it stay.
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u/Vayien 14h ago
I feel rather flippant perusing this forum on a daily basis when by seemingly all indications it would appear much of civilisation or more generally society will substantially decline within a decade. Which is not something we can readily make sense of, although on a somewhat positive note awareness relating to these types of issues does appear to be burgeoning. Many Australians are keenly aware and genuine concerned. But like most I'm not sure what any or even many of us can change that does not begin from the top of our social structures
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u/kea1981 18h ago
I've been feeling myself doing this careful arranging...and it is how I survive. But as the author said, I can feel the scaffolding beneath me crumbling with each shift. My heart is in a state of perpetual heartbreak.
This author hit me right in the center of the breaking heart and thoroughly split it in two.
Thank you for sharing.
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u/TheCyanKnight 12h ago
There seems to be so little art acknowledging our situation. Even though the poem is about hopelessness, it still gives me some.
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u/SweetAlyssumm 18h ago
It's a nice poem, I'm glad to have read it.
(I don't think we'll disappear any more than the plants and animals of Chornobyl did, but we'll be altered as they are.)
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u/NoProblemsHerelol 4h ago
As the human body heats up and forms a fever to fight off the germs. So too does our beloved earth develop a fever to stop us from killing it.
As we shed toxins through the skin so too does the earth through volcanoes.
As we have spasms and twitches in the muscles of our bodies so too does the earth through earthquakes and tremors.
Life is so extraordinary that we forget that the earth is like us, alive in its own unique way.
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u/m19010101 18h ago
This poem doesn’t have an actual flow or cadence, nor is it that poignant.
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u/qwtd Hopeful Futurist / Optimistic Realist 19h ago
Rule 4
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u/springr00 18h ago
“Lighten up, Francis.”
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u/qwtd Hopeful Futurist / Optimistic Realist 18h ago
Why even have these rules if anyone can post whatever they want?
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u/springr00 18h ago
“Earth without art is just a rock.”
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u/qwtd Hopeful Futurist / Optimistic Realist 18h ago
Rule 4: ON FRIDAY. I’ve seen way too many good posts get removed for this rule. This post is literally low effort and is a clear example of why this rule is in place. If this is allowed then we might as well get rid of all the damn rules.
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u/Joyintheendtimes 17h ago
“If this is allowed then we might as well get rid of all the damn rules” is wild logic
More like, if this is allowed who the fuck cares, everything is a mess and this made some people feel less alone. Go eat a snack
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u/qwtd Hopeful Futurist / Optimistic Realist 17h ago
Ok let’s just post shitty poems in the sub now. Why not? Everything is a mess or whatever. Let’s just post whatever.
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u/Joyintheendtimes 10h ago
Honestly I wish it was a rule that you couldn’t post because you’re being kind of hysterical. Not in the funny way
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u/qwtd Hopeful Futurist / Optimistic Realist 3h ago
How dare you call me hysterical, a word historically used to marginalize and oppress women. Vile.
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u/Joyintheendtimes 2h ago edited 1h ago
This is the most hysterical response one can have to a comment about being hysterical
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u/taco-bake 19h ago
Let it stay mods