how to wake up from a reoccuring nightmare

a rhizzone community article by — published
in a few hours americans will go to polls to vote on the next president. it will be alumnus of the illinois public-private partnership, the neoliberal barack obama, or financial heir and actual living lie mitt romney. even though this is dumb, it has totally consumed peoples imaginations. im shocked at the number of people who were long critical of obama who have suddenly fallen in lockstep and have become his campaign proxies. not much to say here though.

do yall think maybe the world is ending. ive been wrapped up in apocalyptic thoughts since i was a lot younger, and from what ive read and heard from ppl i talk to im not alone in this. it seems like people have been fantasizing about the world ending since we first emerged, so maybe i am fooling myself like i used to do with religion or those crazy stories i used to make up with my friends.

i feel like maybe this isnt just in my imagination this time. our environment is collapsing. none of our institutions respond to change or process new ideas. everything is subsumed in market logic. the complexities of climate change are reduced to another imaginary market of carbon credits. garbage swirls throughout our oceans and festers all over the land.

the revolutionary solutions that might depose these structures and replace them with environmentally survivable alternatives seem impossibly distant.

peacefully constructing an alternative society is problematic because alternative economies will always be at the mercy of the larger systems in which they are embedded. there is not much to feel accomplished about when your dignified egalitarian agrarian state has been shredded to ribbons by the arms of psychopath civilizations.

there is a strong ethical argument to be made in favor of oppressed peoples liberating themselves through violent revolution, and historical examples where this was clearly appropriate. however, the global peoples war required to depose the unprecedentedly powerful and deterritorialized might of the NATO armies, or whatever, would obliterate our remaining environmental support structures even if it had a snowballs chance of succeeding and lasting. the naxalites can secure territorial victories, but will their economic ambitions ever be realized if the indian state will always be there to sabotage them even if the formal war subsides?

seizing the state by peaceful means and instituting the truly radical political program required to deal with this apparently intractable crisis... sounds nice, and it would be amazing to construct a sustainable planned economy with the incredibly powerful bureaucratic and research tools that modern technology has afforded us (and all without bloodshed!), but the obvious problem here is that it has never been done. the promise is dangled in front of oppressed people and contributes to keeping them docile--after all, gradual change is inevitable, right? in this case, though, theres no hope of adaptation/accomodation because the dynamics of capital have already determined our collective behavior for the entirety of the limited window of time we've had to begin addressing this crisis complex. effective mass collective action needed to influence things would require a sea change in public consciousness that is unlikely to occur within this window.

at what point can we say we "know" something for sure? ive been toying with this notion that our species is doomed in the medium term for a while now, but ive always been able to avoid committing myself to it by reckoning that it is 'unproductive' and 'unprovable'. is it really unprovable though? if we know that these powerful and highly unstable institutions are on the verge of collapse, if we know that all of our options cannot work,

if ive established that we know the world is going to end, this opens up a whole horrible host of byproduct assumptions. like, if we're going to die having poisoned our planets life support systems, what does that say about all of human history leading up to it? all of our pretenses of progress were for nothing. everyone who struggled and suffered and died to liberate humanity from human oppression and the cruel vicissitudes of nature, everyone who was tortured or killed believing that a future, better society would be their vindication was just wrong. not even a little bit of romance is left. nothing left after that but for time to erode away our stupid remnants and eradicate all traces of our presence. no stateless proletariat society. no participatory social democracy, global civil society, or emergent society of anarchist voluntary collectives.

and what would it say about the nature of creation, if we humans were to all die out? all of our religious pretenses of future utopia would seem embarrassingly hollow at that point, or even our secular carl sagany narratives of humanity being birthed by the cosmos in order to know it and reconnect with it. and our assessment of the universe as a construct would have to be called into question. the universe would be a thing that comes into existence for no reason, creates a bunch of helpless, confused, frightened beings who behave monstrously in response to the abuses foisted upon them by their environment and their fellow humans, and kills them off after they accomplish absolutely nothing.

it would also cause us to turn our view of life on its head. instead of a process of growth in complexity/growth in elegance, life becomes a burden of pain, aging, sickness, and death, a hideous bloody struggle unto nothing. the notion that the universe can naturally generate living, suffering things, and that this happens frequently leading to no conclusion and bearing no purpose, is nightmarish. life is not a miracle or a blessing but an endlessly reoccuring nightmare.

i think about committing suicide a lot. im very scared when i think about life in the future. i dont think my old dreams or ambitions mean anything anymore, and without them i lose my source of comfort and inspiration. i sure dont think im going to have the money or infrastructural support needed to transition in an age of austerity and accelerating permanent decline. this persistent dread sucks the joy out of everything, and its only going to get worse as the situation continues to degrade worldwide. when i hear or see anything about politics, especially the insane savior myths offered by the election discourses, it reminds me of how life is pointless, and that everything i believe in and like is stupid, and my struggle to understand my own identity is meaningless, and therefore i am a stupid deluded piece of shit whose entire self is built on stupid pretenses. i want to die because i hate myself and i have no future.

dont forget to vote!

Also by bonclay on tHE r H i z z o n E:

Proof of Atlantis to be released in Quest to End world Tyranny
Spiritual warfare is being fought every day under the veneer of a sane human everyday existence.
coup in mali
There is a lot more to this struggle than meets the eye.
A Broem
"Plenty of Communists do drugs!" you whine with dismay.
More articles by bonclay.

Discussion of how to wake up from a reoccuring nightmare on tHE r H i z z o n E:

#1
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I'm sorry to hear that you have contemplated suicide a lot, not because of any moral objections but because that's not a fun way to live.

Here are two ways to rationalize the terrible things happening to the planet at the moment

a) Find a religion, submit to God, and await eternal paradise

b) If you are a materialist: just be humbled and calmed by the fact that whatever happens to us humans, the animals, plants, this planet, this cosmos, will still be here! The Grand Canyon will still be here! The stars and planets will revolve and expand and collide, meteors will soar through the vaccum of space, and i dare say other civilizations and beings will rise and fall.........a scale of events and reactions that is simply unknowable to us.....i find a lot of peace in that....ashes to ashes, dust to dust, these are the days of our lives

when i hear or see anything about politics, especially the insane savior myths offered by the election discourses, it reminds me of how life is pointless, and that everything i believe in and like is stupid, and my struggle to understand my own identity is meaningless, and therefore i am a stupid deluded piece of shit whose entire self is built on stupid pretenses.



do not build your identity on politics, especially this silly little contest going on now

#2
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#3
mt.real
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I started out laughing but for some odd reason I am in a sincere posting mood of late and I completely relate to everything in the op.

the part I laughed at was "do y'all think the world in ending" because not only do I kind of feel like that, I have extended conversations with close friends where we share the fact that we all pretty much do, and isn't that unbelievably fucked? so I laugh because it is absurd that intelligent people can even pose this question as a valid topic

of course the world is not ending, it just feels that way because all of our assumptions about how the world should work have been shown to be so much smoke and mirrors, and as pressure builds along the fault lines of society our acceptable public discourse will necessarily be further and further from the actual most pressing issues in reality. I am quite sure that the physical sense of alienation that arises from the internet, the sand of choice in the 21st c for pro head burying, compounds this surreal discursive disconnect. everything that is wrong is largely ignored and ignorable.

in theory I think one should embrace sustainable autonomy as much as possible. in practice I am just as useless as everyone else.

maybe there's something to the idea of partying while you still can as the empire you never played a part in begins to fall apart around you. it does feel better than contemplating the complete brokenness of things.
#4
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when i hear or see anything about politics, especially the insane savior myths offered by the election discourses, it reminds me of how life is pointless, and that everything i believe in and like is stupid, and my struggle to understand my own identity is meaningless, and therefore i am a stupid deluded piece of shit whose entire self is built on stupid pretenses



re-reading this it sounds like some of these things may be about your own health rather than that of the world. Perhaps you should see someone?

#5
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XII


We need history, but not the way a spoiled loafer in the garden of knowledge needs it.
-Nietzsche, Of the Use and Abuse of History

Not man or men but the struggling, oppressed class itself is the depository of historical knowledge. In Marx it appears as the last enslaved class, as the avenger that completes the task of liberation in the name of generations of the downtrodden. This conviction, which had a brief resurgence in the Spartacist group, has always been objectionable to Social Democrats. Within three decades they managed virtually to erase the name of Blanqui, though it had been the rallying sound that had reverberated through the preceding century. Social Democracy thought fit to assign to the working class the role of the redeemer of future generations, in this way cutting the sinews of its greatest strength. This training made the working class forget both its hatred and its spirit of sacrifice, for both are nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than that of liberated grandchildren.

...


XVIII

‘In relation to the history of organic life on earth,’ writes a modem biologist, ‘the paltry fifty millennia of homo sapiens constitute something like two seconds at the close of a twenty-four-hour day. On this scale, the history of civilized mankind would fill one-fifth of the last second of the last hour.’ The present, which, as a model of Messianic time, comprises the entire history of mankind in an enormous abridgment, coincides exactly with the stature which the history of mankind has in the universe.

...

B

The soothsayers who found out from time what it had in store certainly did not experience time as either homogeneous or empty. Anyone who keeps this in mind will perhaps get an idea of how past times were experienced in remembrance--namely, in just the same way. We know that the Jews were prohibited from investigating the future. The Torah and the prayers instruct them in remembrance, however. This stripped the future of its magic, to which all those succumb who turn to the soothsayers for enlightenment. This does not imply, however, that for the Jews the future turned into homogeneous, empty time. For every second of time was the strait gate through which Messiah might enter.
#6
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bonclay i am extremely sympathetic to everything you discuss - i've felt it myself. i think that's how mr benjamin above was feeling. that's why i've taken his advice and stopped thinking about the future.
#7
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bonclay posted:

if ive established that we know the world is going to end, this opens up a whole horrible host of byproduct assumptions. like, if we're going to die having poisoned our planets life support systems, what does that say about all of human history leading up to it? all of our pretenses of progress were for nothing. everyone who struggled and suffered and died to liberate humanity from human oppression and the cruel vicissitudes of nature, everyone who was tortured or killed believing that a future, better society would be their vindication was just wrong. not even a little bit of romance is left. nothing left after that but for time to erode away our stupid remnants and eradicate all traces of our presence. no stateless proletariat society. no participatory social democracy, global civil society, or emergent society of anarchist voluntary collectives.



A philosopher-mathematician loaded with explosives, lucid and reckless, resolute without optimism. If that's not a hero, what is a hero?

#8
Nippon
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we know the world is ending, OP. just a reminder that the sun will render this planet uninhabitable within just about 100 million years. then in a hundred billion years or so, all the stars will die and all that exists will be cold and dead, and a few trillion years after that matter will finish atomic decay so what we are left with is a thin bath of invisible sluggish protons drifting aimlessly through an infinite nothingness forever.
#9
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#10
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one billion years actually. we're right about in the middle of life on earth.
#11
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tpaine posted:

"Daddy, is the world going to end?"

"Not soon enough for me, pumpkin." - Al Bundy



when i was 5 or 6 i asked my dad about that and because hes a physicist he spent half an hour explaining how and why the sun would engulf the earth and then i wouldnt stop crying.

#12
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#13
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Goethestein posted:

then in a hundred billion years or so, all the stars will die and all that exists will be cold and dead, and a few trillion years after that matter will finish atomic decay so what we are left with is a thin bath of invisible sluggish protons drifting aimlessly through an infinite nothingness forever.



we can only hope that before this happens we'll be exploiting the indigenous populations of parallel universes and stripping their resources

#14
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#15
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go be with your family. if you don't have a family go make one and treat them well! hope this helps.
#16
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is this goth thread
#17
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for my gothic wedding
#18
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i don't think climate change will kill all of us off, though in a very worse case scenario it's possible. currently and in future things are shitty tho, but you sound a bit too affected by it. live in the present!
#19
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NoFreeWill posted:

live in the present!


also, live north of 40° lat.

#20
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NoFreeWill posted:

i don't think climate change will kill all of us off, though in a very worse case scenario it's possible. currently and in future things are shitty tho, but you sound a bit too affected by it. live in the present!



This the curse of consciousness or w/ever

Imagine a heron getting all stressed out about some other heron getting eaten by dogs on the other side of the world or something, what a ludicrous concept

#21
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jools posted:

bonclay i am extremely sympathetic to everything you discuss - i've felt it myself. i think that's how mr benjamin above was feeling. that's why i've taken his advice and stopped thinking about the future.



yeah, same

#22
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besides, its not so much likely that the world will end, but that our values will continue to decay and we'll find ourselves living in a looperesque dystopia. HOWWWWWW EXCITING!
#23
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i have to wear shades b'cuz the future's looking so bright
#24
Mike Nelson here.
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i've never wanted to kill myself because i'm too afraid of death. my everyday reason is more though that i just like reading about news and jokes and shit so i can tolerate most of my minor life problems. one day a few years ago though i got so depressed that i just sort of collapsed and really truly didn't care much about life.
#25
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AmericanNazbro posted:

i have to wear shades b'cuz the future's looking so bright


same

#26
Post rating: +++++
everything ends, bonclay, death is the ultimate master. Or God i guess but that's not the master that's the Truth <<jools hitler>>. like, what do you think long term success is? it's all transient, even if we, as a species, were wildly successful by some futurist measure, what is that? we'll be humans for 500 million years? we'll explore the universe or something? well, what happens when it all ends?

we create meaning every day, not everything is horrible, though it sometimes may seem that way. but ultimately it is beyond us, we just have to do what we can, there will always be problems and what is a life without complications?

I mean, like the others, that's how I used to think as well. i think this all relates to a state of mind as much as any ideological neurosis or what have you. basically i stopped caring, if my cause is just then it'll triumph. anyone can die, a gamma burst can pierce the earth and kill off life any moment, why obsess over it? the solution is to focus on your self and the people around you, the big questions will resolve how they must, all you must do is remain just and good. If you follow that path, you'll never be alone, and you'll rise to the great challenges ahead
#27
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at the risk of sounding like Dad yeah this kinda sounds like me a few years ago. the issue was mostly material i think, and it's funny how skillfully you can turn that shit into an intellectual critique of life. it's good though, in a way, dis depression, but it needs to be disappeared after a while. maybe you need to make some changes in your life, maybe move to a new city, get a new job or leave school or go back to school, maybe try to find new friends or new girls to date. work on your skills, napoleon. find some gay ass shit to occupy your mind and get after it.
#28
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you are clearly a god damn idiot lol
#29
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imagine my avatar said that and, now, die
#30
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#31
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even when i'm in a good mood i usually think about suicide about 10-20 times a day lol
#32
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Edited by animedad ()

#33
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suicide is painless

it brings on many changes
#34
Dont Mess With Sucess
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i dont get all the worrying about the future of humanity and the planet since i already know that i'm going to die
#35
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#36
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#37
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tpaine posted:

boncles



let's have one for obama

#38
Zinovievist-Trotskyist gang
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bonclay,

i enjoyed reading your post and others you've made through the years. i'm sure a lot of us here think about many of the same things you're addressing so honestly. i have a few thoughts on them i'll share, but first: if you have recurring thoughts of actually committing suicide, you should talk to someone outside of the internet about it. it would be awful to lose someone as thoughtful as yourself to a bout of depression.

there are just 2 points i'd like to share my perspective on: the question of a "meaning" of life, and dealing with the environmental situation.

mr. crow is right to point out that meaning is something that is socially constructed, actively being created/modified by ourselves and those around us in our concrete situations. there is no point outside of it that it could be measured from. so in one sense, i think you're right: "life" is "meaningless" - i.e., life considered abstractly has causes and effects, but no intrinsic meaning. but concrete lives, you and i, our lives are filled with meaning. we don't get to decide what that meaning is 100%, but we are certainly active in the process.

(also life isn't either simply "growth" and "progress" or "pain" -- it's always both, for everyone, and it always has been)

for this reason, I think it's quite wrong to say that any conscious being's life is meaningless.

but at the same time I think we can make judgements about what it is to live a more or less meaningful life. those dead revolutionaries, though their ultimate dreams for a future society haven't been, and may never be, realized, may have lived more meaningful lives than we pampered creatures of the internet can fathom. if they died fighting for a cause it certainly was because it meant a
great deal to them.

not that being a "revolutionary" - whatever that means at our current conjuncture - is necessary for living a meaningful life. no single one of us is going to save the world. but you seem to care about what happens in it, so doing something with your life that you think is actively contributing in your own small way to making it better might be worth a try. the key, i think, is doing it in a social way. over the years i've managed to convince myself I was helping by volunteering at various organizations, fixing my friends' bikes, DJing (haha) and now through academia. (don't discount the joy of having a hobby!)

whether or not any of these activities improved anyone's lives, they were meaningful for me.

i think your assessment of our environmental predicament is more accurate than most people would like to think. the world won't end, but "civilization" as we know it is clearly in jeopardy. this gets me down all the time. i grew up with star trek: the next generation as my model for the future! i love modernism and technology and have gone through most of my life thinking that sometime in the future we'd achieve post-scarcity, explore the universe, etc.

I cope by remembering that 1) I can't fix it on my own, 2) talking with people and spending part of my life trying to do my own part to make things better actually makes my life more meaningful, 3) remembering that not achieving full "success," a social utopia of some kind, will not be the measure of meaning of my life, and 4) a minor part, but: remembering that history isn't pre-determined. it's full of contingencies that can throw things wildly off course. shit seems awful right now and i don't have a super clear view of how we might reduce our emissions before we pass some tipping points that make it too late, but you never know. humans have accomplished a lot of amazing things through history that would have seemed impossible shortly before.

hope this was helpful in some way!

Edited by toy ()

#39
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with John Christ as Humungus

#40
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It is not at all clear if the biological form of consciousness, as so far brought about by evolution on our planet, is a desirable form of experience, an actual good in itself...

The theoretical blind spot of current philosophy of mind is the issue of conscious suffering: thousands of pages are being written about color qualia or the contents of thought, but almost no theoretical work is devoted to ubiquitous phenomenal states like physical pain or simple everyday sadness (“subclinical depression”), or to the phenomenal content associated with panic, despair and melancholy — let alone to the conscious experience of mortality or of losing one’s dignity...

The ethical/normative issue is of greater relevance. If one dares to take a closer look at the actual phenomenology of biological systems on our planet, the many different kinds of conscious suffering are at least as dominant a feature as are color vision or conscious thought, both of which appeared only very recently. Evolution is not something to be glorified. One way — out of countless others — to look at biological evolution on our planet is as a process that has created an expanding ocean of suffering and confusion where there previously was none. As not only the simple number of individual conscious subjects, but also the dimensionality of their phenomenal state-spaces is continuously increasing, this ocean is also deepening.
-Metzinger
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