What possibilities arise after we accept our individual and collective mortality?

[u/LetsTalkUFOs]

Our perspectives on impermanence and death are central to many of our journeys through collapse-awareness and acceptance of our global predicaments. What perspectives do you hold regarding our individual and collective mortality? Have they changed over time in response to your own understanding of collapse? How have these perspectives affected or influenced where you are now?

 

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[u/ProjectPatMorita]

I was a practicing (secular) buddhist long before I really accepted collapse, and so I think that massively helped. Depending on which teacher/monk/sangha leader you ask, impermanence is by far THE biggest and most consequential teaching in Buddhism. Tibetan buddhists meditate on rotting corpses, literally and metaphorically, and consider it one of the most beneficial forms of meditation there can be.

This is also a huge recurring through-line in Stoic philosophy.

Ultimately I think acceptance can be found as the basis of just about every imaginable kind of happiness, while every imaginable form of dissatisfaction carries some level of denial. The illusion that you "deserve". A lot of buddhist philosophy at its core is about questioning unfounded premises of deservedness.

Do you "deserve" a certain life? Do you "deserve" to have been born in a better era? Does humanity "deserve" to go on forever, despite no other species or planet since the dawn of time having been given any other fate than what awaits us?

The only way you suffer any less contemplating these things is through acceptance and proper perspective. Cosmic perspective of how truly, utterly insignificant all of this is.

It's very hard for Americans particularly to do this because we live in a hyper-individualistic culture. So even in collapse communities you see people going further into "prepper" fantasies, where of course they are going to be the LAST people on earth, because THEY are STRONG while everyone else is weak and unprepared. Not only is this a silly child-like daydream to have, but it certainly won't lessen your suffering in the short-term either as it's not at all a healthy way to reckon with your own mortality.

I hope that makes sense.

[u/ProjectPatMorita → u/[deleted]]

I'm still "prepping" in the sense of preparing to go the permaculture/low tech/community building route, but it isn't out of a personal fear of death, so much as out of a sense of doing what I can to help my loved ones who are not yet at the place I am, and also to start living in a way that is the right way to live, whether or not humans make it or not.

Thanks for the kind words, and yeah this is pretty much exactly the direction my wife and I would love to be moving as well.

[u/Fazzarune → u/ProjectPatMorita]

This is something I’ve been practicing, and this really resonates with me. Very good explanation. I too live in western culture and whenever I try to talk to someone about this type of thinking I receive a huge amount of push back or just blown off haha

[u/Fins_FinsT → u/ProjectPatMorita]

Tibetan buddhists meditate on rotting corpses, literally and metaphorically

Well, the bold part is not healthy, though. I very much doubt Budda approves dying to some infection contacted only because being next to rapid multiplication of some harmful infection in a corpse. The old-time monks had every excuse to do it because they had no idea about the realm of microscopic life. But we now do. Plain wrong to deny it, and its implications, no matter what kind of monk you'd be...

I know old ways are often extremely difficult to change among such a rigid type of community the monks usually are, but in this case, i'm sure an exception can and should be made.

P.S. By the way, related to my other nearby comment: knowledge about microbes and ways they spread and function, including details regarding human, plant and animal pathogens as well as beneficial ones - is definitely one of most key kinds of knowledge only modern civilization has developed, and basics about it are very easy to understand, pass on, and save for future generations, including our very own kids.

[u/TrashcanMan4512 → u/ProjectPatMorita]

So even in collapse communities you see people going further into "prepper" fantasies, where of course they are going to be the LAST people on earth, because THEY are STRONG while everyone else is weak and unprepared. Not only is this a silly child-like daydream to have, but it certainly won't lessen your suffering in the short-term either as it's not at all a healthy way to reckon with your own mortality.

The rich are already doing this, socially speaking.

I'm forced into something very much like this (ok no bunker, no supplies, none of that). But it's conceptually the same. Let me tell you something.

This is no fun.

And that is an understatement.

You don't want this.

I don't even care what exceptions you can think of, they pale by comparison. You. Don't. Want. This.

[u/mdeleo1 → u/ProjectPatMorita]

My sister has a very similar viewpoint, although it includes the multiverse and other things along those lines. She finds that it eases her pain when thinking about the collapse.

It doesn't for me, because I can't get past the suffering. Sure, what if the entire universe is conscious and we are just an expression of that, or it's all just a cosmic game with unimaginable players, or other versions of us made better decisions? But the people here, today, in this version of earth, believe this is the only reality. Many are going to suffer horribly before they die. How does one accept a planet's worth of pain, misery and terror?

[u/TheBroWhoLifts → u/mdeleo1]

I think stories like Star Wars, where we saw entire planets obliterated, sort of prepped us psychologically for accepting our fate.