Not for the faint of heart...This was posted on
the posthumous FB page of Michael C. Ruppert.
Such a great man. <3
I can't say I share the Doom and Gloom perspective of this article or the people who commented on the FB page...I did believe we would die in the 80's due to Nuclear war...but we didn't...and I didn't want to bring kids in this world..well I DID, but I was afraid...so I didn't...and came to regret it...then I was sure Peak Oil would kill us..no, START to disintegrate society by 2008..but by then I was well on my way to resonating with the New Agers...but I was carrying so much F.E.A.R. that I naively contemplated moving to Alaska with a group of people and starting a commune...but when the unlikelihood and unrealistic hopes dissipated, I turned to the things I most resonated with..like the desire for love, living in the light and striving towards unlimited potential. It was then I reconnected with Buddhism, and mixed it with my not so new New Age perspectives...and realized, we only have today. No, correction, we only have RIGHT NOW. This moment. OOPS! it's gone! NOW then...I prefer being a New Ager but it is NOT all Love & Light~! We are up against the most evil, uninformed, dark cabal that SO misunderstands the very nature of Life..precious, inter-connected Life...
We who are alive today have a most unique opportunity...to witness and help SHIFT the paradigm...as Quantum Physics proves, and to quote Gregg Braden..."expectation alters outcome". Wow! So, in essence, if we can get all the suicidal doomsdayers to join us in imagining "what if...?" then we really COULD harness that intention and make the shift easier. -PB
~~~
Fri, July 11, 2014 - 11:36 PM
Fri, Jul 11, 2014
by Daniel Drumright, a lifelong radical environmentalist who has
followed climate science for the last 25 years, and has been a feral
“collapse theorist” for the past 13 years
Once again, the following has been written for an extremely limited
audience. This essay is ONLY for those who have come to accept the
probability of our near term extinction and the emotional anguish it
obviously generates.
For those who haven’t accepted this, or those who have long term
dependents in their care or have a particular survivalist imperative,
there is no reason to read any further, and I honestly hope you won’t.
This is a commiserative thought experiment written ONLY for those whose
lived experiences have afforded them the intellectual/emotional freedom
to fully explore the dismal implications that virtually no one will
survive near term global starvation.
But more importantly, this was written for an audience that has come
to comprehend the principal concept of ‘hopium’ more than anything
else, even the climate science behind NTHE. Once one is able to see
beyond the palliative effects of hope, or rather our inherent fear of
hopelessness, much of the smoke of our cultural predicament begins to
clear.
While I originally sought to write this homily in essay form, due to
the mystifying density of the subject matter where most days I find
myself utterly dumbstruck by the sheer scale of the cataclysm, I can at
best only string together a series of meditative vignettes that further
explores an uncomfortable taboo, and which is but a continuation of an
essay I posted in this space over a year ago.
For those seeking concision on the murkiness of mass death, you’ll
need to look elsewhere. Lest we forget, at this moment in time, in spite
of NTHE being empirically based on overwhelming physical evidence, for
those on the radical fringe who have come to ‘accepted it’ today, it
still exists almost solely as a philosophical concept. In my opinion,
all conversations concerning NTHE, can only seriously arise after having
long contemplated the implication within Guy’s climate-change summary
and update.
As well, the following is also not written for those who still
consider “resistance” to be an arguable moral imperative, even in a
Pascalian sense. Acceptance of NTHE obviously renders ALL forms of
resistance but an article of faith after the fact, compared to the last
half century where the ethical imperative of resistance was primarily
rooted in the ecological necessity of safeguarding against the very
outcome “we” have now come to accept. If nothing makes it out alive,
then nothing can be saved. On this side of acceptance, every act is just
a coping mechanism.
While I have dedicated my entire adult life to ecological anarchism,
in light of the overwhelming unprecedented empirical evidence now
before us, resistance is no longer an imperative I can honestly possess
nor defend. I am beyond heartbroken, the tragedy of the human condition
will never cease being anything but an endless cause of sorrow and
grief. For me, the continued destruction of the natural world for the
sole purpose of sustaining a doomed civilization has been nothing but
agony my whole life. However, the conflict created by acceptance of NTHE
has not prevented me from vainly questioning what is left to be
experienced in the phenomenal time that still remains.
*
There probably isn’t a single aspect concerning NTHE that isn’t a
cognitive dissonant trigger. All of us are of at least two minds: how we
intellectually process information and how we emotionally respond to
such information — the phenomena that exist to be observed and our
ability to observe it. And our emotional capacity to observe a thing
often dictates what we imagine exists to be observed. While NTHE is
rationally and empirically based, acceptance of such dire evidence
however, is wholly an emotional endeavor … and that’s where everything
flies off the tracks.
So acceptance of NTHE not only demands “we” first put the highest
intellectual value on observable empirical evidence that we innately
comprehend undermines our sense of self-preservation, but then, “we”
must completely shift to an entirely different emotional state of
‘being’ with such evidence. There are very few individuals in the world
who are even capable of attempting this, not alone, maintaining their
sense of bearing once they have.
*
“We have great difficulty dealing with philosophy in context of real events” (John Ralston Saul)
Yet, here “we” are, attempting to do exactly that, not only in
context to an event that has yet to gravely impact the affluent western
world, but presuming that when it does, most of life on earth will cease
to exist. Like I said, most days I find myself utterly dumbstruck.
Selfishly seeking illumination in the dark light of NTHE is either
profoundly absurd or absurdly profound, but then again, so is most of
humanity. As to whether “we” agents of demise have any “right” to even
seek peace in the wake of our ongoing collective annihilation, is but
one of countless questions made irrelevant by the acceptance of NTHE.
Never before, has the forced acceptance of thing, so completely erased
that which came before it. And where on this side of acceptance, we’ve
only the cold vacuum of truth to keep us warm, while virtually every
past attempt to define the meaning of life is but now suspended in a
state of erasure. There isn’t a single story or event within all of
human history that can even remotely serve as a comparative example or
an analogy to what the human race is now experiencing.
*
At this late or last stage of collective awareness, I find myself
only interested in commiserating with those who have come to share a
similar dire perspective, given such commiseration is attempting to
wrestle with the greatest cognitive break in human history. Needless to
say, I spend a lot of time talking to myself.
From here on out, the entire conversation of NTHE will probably
never move past several central themes and points of predictable
contention: Denial vs. acceptance; observable evidence vs. peer review
science; truth vs. hope; survivalism vs. resignation; resistance vs.
acquiescence; service vs. self-interest; cognitive dissonance vs.
commiseration; suicide vs. starvation, and so on. But it is impossible
for humanity to resolve any social disparity, there is no such thing as
consensus at this scale, nor is there any such thing as “we”.
Endlessly arguing with those who don’t accept NTHE does little but
keep “us” emotionally and intellectually trapped in past paradigmatic
behavior that I believe many here at Nature Bats last (NBL) are now
attempting to get beyond. While I have spent decades cataloging,
referencing and debating the mounting evidence, this was done with
intentional purpose during a time when I believed it mattered, but on
this side of acceptance, I can no longer see the point, given that the
point is, is that there is no point. For why would I seek to prove I am
right, when all I wish for is to be wrong?
The unprecedented evidence has forced me to finally accept a truth
which I have resisted all my life. It is time to take a serious look at
what past behavior is still habitually keeping me from truly being
present with this tragic reality, given that the vast majority of my
identity has been married to the principle of resisting the very thing I
can no longer deny.
*
We are a hopelessly divided species. Our divisions are incessant
even among those who share a common culture, so I have no idea as to
what personal character trait or individual background affords someone
the ability to seriously consider something as emotionally ruinous of
NTHE. But whatever it is, aside from obviously valuing “truth” at all
personal cost, and the privileged opportunity to seriously contemplate
such truth, an intimate relationship with humility seems to be required
in navigating the desolate labyrinthine of remorse that all is most
likely lost.
One could argue that the whole of our collective ecological
awareness over the last half century has been nothing but an exponential
humbling experience, where the human race now finds itself on the wrong
end of a growth curve, rounding the final corner of a Copernican Turn
that apparently never stopped turning. The same humility required in
objectively accepting the sheer scale of the known universe, as well
that we evolved from lower life forms seems to be the same requisite
values for comprehending the dire implications of non-linear climate
change.
And I would go so far as to say that ‘acceptance of NTHE’ is
probably only a current “moral dilemma” for those who have long
possessed ecological values and the intrinsic culpability those values
naturally entail. One simply must have within them the capacity to
comprehend the hypocrisy behind all that has already been lost, before
we are able to see all that will continue to be lost.
Similar to all the evidence proving there was clearly more involved
with 9/11 than just the dominant narrative, when one finds themselves
having to explain that which is otherwise self-evident, it doesn’t
usually have much to do with any amount of evidence, and usually has
everything to do with what personal biases are creating certain blind
spots within our worldview. So just as a previous understanding of
realpolitik aides one in coming to terms with 9/11 most likely being
some kind of an inside job, possessing ecological values aides one in
fully being able to internalizing the conundrum of NTHE.
It seems the longer one has been divorced from the subjective
trappings of a consumer culture, the clearer objective reality can be
perceived in all its belittling splendor. But as anyone who has spent
even a modest amount of time engaged in ecological conscious raising,
inevitably discover for themselves a myriad of competing cultural vested
interests, which makes bearing ecological values little more than a
tragic burden within an utterly indifferent economic reality, where our
species biological imperative trumps all else regardless of the culture
we were reared.
The evidence of NTHE will obviously resonate more with those who
have been “psychologically primed” by decades of lost battles, compared
to those who have never really given the entrenched cultural and
economic factors of our ecological dilemma any serious thought.
*
Environmentalism has always been a game of chance, where the odds
have always been stacked against any significant societal change ever
occurring. The cultural impediments have never been anything other than
stupefying; capitalism has been as immovable as our competing
self-interests. And while resistance has never seemed like anything
other than a losing battle, there was at least the perceived opportunity
for a major sea change of consciousness to at least start to take root,
or least “we” imagined there was still enough time for such a
transformation to manifest. No matter how slim or distant that prospect
has always been, the environmental movement of the last five decades
could at least hold the high moral ground, as well as logically out
debate any counter argument to maintaining the self-evident destructive
trajectory of the status-quo.
However, while environmentalism has always been a game of chance, it
has also always been a race against time. And not a race where we get
to continually move the finish line as every new generation of vanguards
is handed off the baton, but a race that mother nature eventually
decides she is just tired of watching, or rather, the laws of
thermodynamics eventually shift to a new equilibrium.
The major blind spot of environmentalism has been the moral
imperative itself, for it has blinded us to the fact that humanity’s
biological imperative has always superseded any subcultures concept of
ethical behavior. In light of NTHE, only certain eastern religious
branches and western nihilism can now in hindsight claim to have always
known the greater “truth,” while we western radicals now find ourselves
twisting in the wind at the end of a rope that was only ever attached
to a castle in the sky.
It is not by accident that over the last fifty years, most
environmental protest movements have been overwhelmingly generational
youth movements as well, and in the same inverse vein, it is not by
accident the adherents of NTHE are now overwhelmingly near or beyond
retirement age. Relatively the same imperative and cultural obstacles
still exist as they always have, the only difference is how long one has
honestly lived with these cultural impediments; the number of years one
has repeatedly banged their head against the epitaph of immovable human
nature (growth). All that is eventually lost over the years is just our
open-minded naivety and the illusion of human agency where there
apparently never was any (i.e., the essence of hopium).
*
It is far too easy for us humans to project our private values unto
the world at large, it’s debatable as to whether it’s impossible not to.
And not unlike birds of a feather, moral imperatives tend to gravitate
towards sympathetic in-groups, where a crusade mentality quickly becomes
a self-identifying Hallmark against perceived otherness. (I am less
pointing the finger at other’s fringe behavior, rather I’m just looking
back over my own life.)
There has probably been very few “in-groups” who believed they knew
something to be self-evident, where they didn’t endlessly decry why
“others” just don’t “get it”. Whether it is Rightwing Christian
Fundamentalists or leftwing radicals, the patterned behavior so overlaps
it almost doesn’t matter what “we” believe. Whether it’s a particular
faith in divine intervention or private illusions of collective human
agency, we have always found ourselves in exactly the same position when
it comes to the endless fracturing of society as a whole, as well as
our collective penchant for myth making. (There are at least 21,000
different denominations within Christianity alone, I wonder how many
environmental groups there has been over the last half century.)
And yet, in spite of all our cultural divisions and self-delusion,
the fact remains, that at no other time in human history has a certain
extreme minority ecological subculture (NBL) been faced with such an
inconsolable dilemma as having to accept the empirical evidence of NTHE,
i.e. non-linear climatic positive feedback loops. Aside from all the
human behavior that has repeated generation after generation to no avail
in preventing this phenomenal moment from arriving, here “we” few
stand, now being forced to accept something no living human being has
ever had to before … as if our idiosyncratic stew wasn’t spiced enough.
*
In my opinion, the only thing that is open for debate regarding our
near term future, is our imaginations and the ever present probability
that we are wrong about everything (read the mindboggling 5% of UFO
phenomena for example). But as far as our tribal brains can deduce,
thermodynamics doesn’t care what we think, or that “we” even exist at
all. Regardless of how the future plays out, it will most likely be
nothing other than what has come before, just endless horrific
suffering, until most of life on earth is snuffed out. All that’s
changed, is it’s just now happening at an incredible rate coalescing
during many of our lifetimes.
Consequently, all NTHE amounts to is just all the dire warnings of
the last five decades coming to fruition. A half century of yelling
“FIRE!” has now passed, and in both the throes and on the cusp of mass
extinction, on which side of acceptance does the burden of proof fall?
Whether all of life, or just most of it will be driven into extinction
is an irrelevant distinction, because the outcome remains the same for
most of life on earth, including any definition of “us”.
*
Many who might be reading this have been thinking about mass
die-off/back for probably way too long. But most of that time has been
in context to the ongoing collapse of IC, not on this side of having to
accept the evidence of our NTHE. We’re now talking about an entirely
different reality that has simply never existed, but we’re often still
speaking in a past parlance that is no longer germane to the
unprecedented phenomena that has only just been discovered. By the time
an individual has jumped through enough mental hoops to eventually shed a
degree of their inculcation, to where they finally come to comprehend
the meaning of hopium, language itself has long been deconstructing into
useless symbolism. The word play involved in NTHE is terribly easy for
“us” to continue to conflate, connote and resignify given we’ve been
watching the same storm approach for most of our lives. There isn’t a
soul here who isn’t in some way still blinded by our past vested
interests and using outmoded language to specify a reality that is sadly
no longer there, especially given we are still at a loss as how to
describe what is. And as with every dilemma concerning NTHE, this will
never be resolved.
*
The dawn of NTHE awareness/acceptance has a surreal limbo period,
where our internal dialog exists in a near schizophrenic state of
competing loyalty to both the “truth” we have long sought, and the
identity of the seeker that has driven us to such dire awareness. Again,
NTHE represents the greatest cognitive break in the history of our
species, and it will never cease in being anything other than that, but
though it has long been in the making, it still takes some time for this
new awareness to level everything once we’ve accepted it has finally
arrived.
So as the irrefutable evidence mounts that our race against time has
ended, a multitude of unprecedented dilemmas present themselves,
leaving us to decide whether we can truly internalize them without going
completely mad, or whether going completely mad might not be so bad
given that the long term consequences of madness/addiction have recently
ceased to exist as well.
So, those of us who have the queer emotional wherewithal, to attempt
to crack the utterly dismal enigma as how this irreconcilable knowledge
will alter our lives during the twilight of our existence, the entire
concept of ‘suicide’ eventually comes to be shown in a totally different
light than it has ever been before. Again, lest we forget that every
thought pertaining to NTHE has never existed before! We are in
completely uncharted territory, there are no landmarks out here.
*
Regardless of where we see ourselves on this side of acceptance, our
sentiments surrounding both the meaning of life and death has been
completely turned inside out. There is now within each of us, a newly
exposed part of ourselves that has never existed before this moment.
This new wrinkle in our consciousness has left quite the rub. Each and
every one of us, now has the evidence to shed virtually every thought
we’ve ever had if we so choose.
As a highly informed community (NBL), where many of us have long
been critical of “others” cognitive bias/dissonance, we are ourselves
still coming to realize that NTHE has presented us with a unique mirror
in which to see everything in a completely different light, if but only
for a very limited amount of time. We are finally being confronted by a
degree of irrefutable truth we’ve long seen approaching, but have never
actually directly experienced … until now.
*
I have come to accept NTHE for the same reason why I don’t fight to
preserve grizzly habitat in my home state — though they once ruled these
parts — because there is a significant difference between threatened,
endangered and extinct. The very basic cause and effect of ecological
degradation that we have observed all our lives has done nothing but
slowly move the entire world through all three.
Personally, as time passes, moments throughout the day are becoming
more acute as my estranged terrestrial perspective is being forced to
become ever more cosmological and transient. On my better days, I can
see it as if falling in love with the ephemerality of time itself. The
very thing I once took for granted has become the most sacred, while the
very biota I once held above all else, has become the very thing I must
learn to let go of. The guilt, shame, outrage and sadness of what could
have been never fades, it’s just the lens through which I have
perceived the meaning of life is broadening to encompass the meaningless
erasure of all of life as if we never even existed.
The web of life was hopelessly broken before any of us were born,
time to stop holding onto to the dream that there is no difference
between ‘falling scales’ and ‘life still hanging in the balance’. Even
conservation work now seems little more than just another
anthropocentric coping mechanism, though I see it as the only gracious
endeavor that remains for humanity.
*
The specter of death is now all too intimately looking over all of
our shoulders. There is a definite look in our own eyes now that we have
never seen; a certain knowing that we can’t yet describe out of fear
that by naming it, we might conjure up something we’re yet prepared to
face and/or let go.
Acceptance of NTHE equates to no one survives, period. And where
only those who fight to the bitter end, only survive for a little longer
as a result of either dumb luck, or the horrors they are/were willing
to commit.
While the mantra “cut wood and carry water” is poetic, it’s a little
saccharine to assume we’re all just going to drop dead in a field once
we can no longer do either.
I may be mistaken, but I see those here at NBL aren’t all too
concerned anymore about how we are going to survive what we now accept
can’t be. I like to imagine “we” are a little more interested in how we
resign ourselves to live with the full acceptance of the near timing
aspect of extinction, which is literally a degree of philosophical
inquiry that again has never emerged until now! “Cutting wood and
carrying water” helps get us through these days, but days like these
aren’t going to last much longer.
*
So, since we aren’t talking about surviving nor resisting anymore,
what are we attempting to talk about? Or more to the point, what are we
NOT talking about, while imagining we are?
Most here know the answer to that rhetorical question. What we’re
all talking around is the same thing humanity has always talked around,
death. But it’s one thing to speak about death in future abstract terms
or even in context of hospice care, but it’s an entirely different
dilemma to see it fast approaching and understand it can’t be avoided
regardless of what we do, while still having much life left in us.
Just one of the many problems those of us who seek to commiserate
about NTHE experience is that there aren’t any social mores that allow
for such a discussion in any culture. But given we’re now living on the
wrong side of non-linear rates of climatic change, and NBL is the only
public space this reality is being openly discussed, how about we take a
stab at creating a few new mores for ourselves.
Let’s start talking about how we’re all going to die, not vaguely,
halfheartedly or sarcastically, but specifically so that we can actually
begin to get beyond that specter, and start being creative in figuring
out how we’re going to live through extinction until that fateful day
comes for each of us. Because if we’re talking about acceptance, it’s
probably time we get around to actually talking about what IT is we’ve
come to accept, beyond endlessly lamenting the loss of all the rest of
life, and incessantly debating our legacy of agency which has
nevertheless led us to where we are today irrespective of our personal
opinions.
This is what I imagine to be that ever present dark side of the
spectrum we’ve yet to openly explore, that unknown that reveals the
essence of all acceptance to be but ephemeral; that space from which
every next dot to be connected inevitably emerges. Our foreboding next
step where we realize the proverbial “the dark night of the soul” we
like to envisage we’ve somehow passed through in just getting to this
unbearable stage of acceptance, actually starts all over again in how we
attempt to live with “it” over the coming decade(s).
Many of us have already stumbled into this unfathomable abyss many
times, but just haven’t been able to “breakthrough,” because … well …
look at what in the fuck we’re actually discussing. It’s not like the
subject of en masse starvation readily lends itself to public
deliberation. But not because we are actually talking about starvation,
but because there just aren’t that many of us who are comfortable
talking about what we’re going to do in lieu of it, which is most likely
suicide, or maybe some creative passive version of it.
Probably very few of those who are fully aware of what is coming,
will actually end up needlessly putting themselves through the painful
act of starving to death. Why would we put ourselves though such
intractable suffering when we won’t be able to argue against the fact
that any number of remedies would do the trick in but an instant? That
is ultimately the whole point of discussing suicide now. Not because we
are some ecological Thanatos cult who share an unconscious death wish,
but because “we” want to be able to honestly live in the time we do have
left, without living in fear of some unspeakable truth that our culture
doesn’t allow us to openly discuss.
The knowledge that we will not survive, supported by the
comprehension we most likely wouldn’t want to survive even if we could,
along with a little pathos that we might not even deserve to survive,
does make one’s acceptance of our near term death a little easier to,
well … accept.
No one consciously wants to be miserable, and there is no comforting
way to talk about suicide while we’re still attempting to cling to the
last vestiges of life. Lord knows we can go round and round this subject
until the very last Brussels sprout ceases to sprout. But we have
already inadvertently planted our last figurative seed, and it’s time we
get around to smelling its strange fruit.
*
Before I am accused of any number of abominations, let me state that
I have no plans on killing myself anytime soon. I still have much life
to live and I can still find much to live for, and I plan on living for
as long as I see fit. I’m not speaking of ‘altruistic suicide’ here,
though I can see much nobility it such acts. No, this is just your
ordinary quiet resignation, peace of mind, end-of-suffering variety of
self death.
After having seriously contemplated the empirical reality of NTHE
probably longer than anyone other than maybe a few here, I have come to
realize that having an exit strategy makes living with our NTHE far
more bearable after one has come to truly internalize it.
For those who have emotionally come to accept NTHE and the fate it
naturally entails, inevitably come recognize that suicide is most likely
the only way this ends well for anyone. But today, that is not our
fate. Today, those few here at NBL are faced with having to learn how to
live with the time we have left until a very perceptible fate arrives,
whether it be throwing ourselves into conservation work, throwing our
sabots into the gears of industry, checking off our bucket list or
throwing ourselves off a bridge, it doesn’t really matter what we decide
to do on this side of acceptance. It is as horrific as it is
astonishing.
*
So let’s use Michael Ruppert as a recognizable case study. (While I
was very familiar with his work, I did not personally know Mike, nor do I
have any knowledge as to what was specifically going through his mind
in the moments that led up to his last decision, other than what has
been revealed since his death. This is pure speculation on my part.)
While I have no issue with Ruppert’s choice to take his life, my
only qualm with his suicide is how he went about it. Because while many
of us, out of both respect for his life, along with our own discomforts
with the definiteness of death, will want to treat his passing as
somehow being just a personal choice one man made, and while that is
true, it is far from the whole truth based on what we all know to have
most likely been a major driving force behind his decision.
Our cultural scapegoat of “depression” being the driving force is
way too easy of an out this time around, even though that clearly played
a huge part. However, there is a far greater narrative at play than
just one man taking his life. Framing Ruppert’s suicide in any remotely
familiar past impression of emotional instability, is a bit of a farce
at this late stage of planetary ecocide. Many of us are all too
painfully aware of the same soul devouring information that helped guide
his hand.
Maybe he wrote more than we are aware of that better explains the
timing of his decision, but nonetheless, given how everyone was taken
aback, yet not surprised, it seems like an incredibly profound
opportunity was lost, because it seems like his choice was made in a
state of duress and desperation when it didn’t have to be so. It just
doesn’t appear that he left this life in peace — putting aside the moral
debate as to whether any of us deserve to leave this life in peace.
He had obviously reached a state of mind where he no longer wanted
to carry on. The issue I have with Ruppert’s suicide is that he could
have come to the same conclusion, where instead of deceptively
concealing it in a seemingly ignominious act, he could have chosen to
embrace his death in an entirely new way, which could have been
surreally aided by the dire knowledge which has only recently broken
through our collective consciousness. He obviously took time to plan his
last days, so why not just take a little while longer, and plan a
little more.
If there is one silver lining concerning NTHE, it is how readily we’re going to be able to approach death differently.
Had he been able to discover a way to move pass the loneliness,
grief and despair so commonly associated with the choice to end one’s
life, and recognized that it’s impossible for our NTHE to completely
alter the meaning of our life, without equally altering the meaning of
our death, he could have allowed those he cared about the ability to be
present with him. He could have just said “I’m tired of fighting and
it’s time to take my dirt nap, and anyone who has a problem with that …
well tough shit.” His death could have avoided being a shocking violent
bloody shot to the head, and been far more an act of peaceful
resignation, which I’m sure at one time he must have at least
considered. Haven’t most of us, at one time or another?
So why not a serene letting go that would have helped pave the way
for all those who are surely going take a similar path when our time
comes?
There is absolutely no reason to fear death. It’s just our selfish
egos that can’t let go of the anticipation of a life yet lived. However,
once one truly accepts NTHE, they have already involuntarily accepted
the death of not only their ego, but all of life which renders the
actual end of our individual lives even less significant. There is
absolutely no reason why the decision for someone to take their life —
for whatever reason — can’t actually be considered a commemorate act,
especially now. Especially now!
So let’s use Ruppert’s life and death as a keen teachable experience
for us to explore an entirely new reality, which yet again is clearly
on all of our minds to a degree it has never been before.
Let’s look at how Ruppert could have still ended up just as dead as
he is now, but rather than having pulled the trigger alone most likely
consumed in doubt and despair, he could have chosen to take a different
path, whereby continuing to be a medium and gone out in a far more
exceptional way. Because I’ll be direct, while I completely support
Mike’s decision to take his life, his suicide was a total waste of
everyone’s time and energy, not because it was a betrayal to the rest of
us, but because he betrayed himself by how we went about it … and yes,
that’s painful to admit.
*
Let’s imagine Mike had finally decided enough was enough, and just
no longer wanted to be alive, which was obviously the case. He wouldn’t
have needed to explain his reason to anyone, unless he wanted to. It’s
not like he was short of reasons. It’s not like he really had to even
explain these reasons to probably anyone close to him. I’m sure most
everyone he knew, was/is fully aware of why someone would choose to end
their life, even if the whole concept of suicide was difficult for those
close to him to accept, or was something they just ethically disagreed
with.
He had already more than laid out the equation for everyone to add
up for themselves. All that was left, if he wanted, was to explain why
he had finally decided to let go at this particular moment. And that
reason could have been nothing more than just not caring to care
anymore, or that his health had faded, or that he was financially
destitute and was sick of the futility of having to make a living, or
his past had finally caught up to him, or he didn’t want to live with
the growing despair anymore. The reason(s) could have been anything. The
choice was his and his alone to make. And if it wasn’t a rational
decision at the time, then it may have been avoided if he was able to
openly talk himself through it. Who knows?
All he had to do was own it. That’s it.
The entire concept of shame is wholly subjective and is easily
dispelled. We would think no less of him, but it would have given those
closest to him the chance to say goodbye and speak their peace, and
avoid the bitter lasting regret that suicide almost always leaves
behind. He could have removed all doubt and set an amazing precedent.
The reasons behind his decision would still be the same, but the major
difference would be having confronted a useless taboo that has yet to be
reexamined in light of the unprecedented reality now upon us all.
He could have chosen to communicate his thinking on the subject in
varying degrees depending on who was sitting across from him. He could
have given those he loved the opportunity to be present with his death
while he was still alive, and possibly achieve a level of serenity he
himself may have never thought possible. The very end of his life could
have been the greatest cathartic moment of his entire life, as well as
those close to him.
However, his mental state prevented him from making any of those
choices, wherein he only perpetuated the stigma of suicide being a
desperate act, made only by those in a distressed state of mind, which
is sadly what it was, and that is truly a shame because it didn’t have
to be that way.
He could have thrown his own memorial ceremony and invited all his
friends to come celebrate being alive, and challenged those to look at
life from a perspective that can only be achieved when faced with our
own mortality. Because what else is acceptance of NTHE, other than
having to face the near-term mortality of all of life? He could have
told everyone who chose to come, that the time for arguing and
despairing about the meaning of life and death was now behind him, and
it was time to seriously ponder what we are now living for, given the
absence of precedence we are all now aware of. He could have challenged
us to the very end, and allowed his death to continue to serve those
still living awhile longer.
He and some close friends could have gotten high as hell and laughed
their asses off while taking turns literally digging his own grave. He
could have built a pyre, passed out a bunch of peyote and McKenna
quotes, played the drums and danced until he could no longer stand and
then drink a cup of hemlock tea and have everyone pass around the torch.
He could have gone for a long swim or just an epic walk into the desert
after a tearful round of long hugs and even longer kisses. There are
many peaceful ways one can end their life, if they allow themselves to
consider it.
But he did none of these things. Instead he stained his life’s work
with the knowledge and lasting memory that he left this life in the same
quiet desperation that he lived, and that is truly tragic because it
stole from him the very higher consciousness in which he sought to
aspire later in life.
*
While it is hard for us to accept, nonetheless, a horrific death is
coming for us all my friends. We can continue to avoid talking about it
in any detail out of fear of the depression and despondency it naturally
provokes, or we can look it straight in the eye and somberly plan today
on how we might have a good last laugh whenever we decide that fateful
day has finally arrived.
I have spent most of my life stuck somewhere between anger and grief
for all that has been lost and what might have been if only … I have
never not fought against the system, but I can no longer argue against
myself, in spite of myself out of guilt and shame for having to accept
all has been lost. I can’t honestly allow a once-revered moral
imperative to continue to dictate what I can’t accept.
This is the tragic chapter we now find ourselves, not still lost in
all the past dismal chapters that led us here. There is nothing I would
wish for more than to continue to believe as I always have that my
little actions somehow make a difference. But I full well know that the
best thing for the rest of life on earth, including the human race,
would have never to have been born in the first place.
I have deliberately chosen not to have children, and that reason
honestly isn’t all that different from my opinion on the merits of
suicide. The two stem from the same basic understanding. To have
accepted that humanity can’t ecologically continue to bring more souls
into existence isn’t all that different from accepting those already
born probably shouldn’t have been. The ethical choice not to create life
isn’t all that different from ending our own.
I would be utterly out of my mind, which I most likely am, to
suggest that suicide could somehow be considered life-affirming, but in
context to our NTHE, in my opinion, that is exactly what it is.
Once we let go of the fear of death, everything else we know we must
eventually let go of, simply starts to fall away on its own. We can go
out with a bang or a whimper. We can be left as nothing but a pile of
ashes, or we can make sure our body is never found. We can be holding
hands as we draw our last breath together, or we can watch the sun set
quietly sitting alone knowing it’s our last.
The choice is only ours to make. There are so many other fulfilling
ways of looking at our last days on earth than just mourning what we now
consider to be inevitable. The life we have now is limited, let us be
done with the stigma of suicide and see it as the most likely solution
for avoiding needless suffering and start to see it as the sacred act
it’s always been.
With that said, let us revel in the peace that Ruppert has now found
and truly respect the choice that he made. He was an incredibly
inspiring fucked-up human being who had profoundly touched more than his
share of lives in any one lifetime. He strove to make this world a
better place. Yes, he failed, but then again, so did we.
Let others hold onto the bitter end for whatever reason they feel
they must, it makes no difference either way. We’re all just living with
different stories in our heads as we circle eternity, where some of us
just gravitate towards those here, who share a common unbearable insight
and take what solace can be found in the digital commiseration that
remains.
We few here, the stragglers on the beach of doom have been washed up
like the sand and plastic itself, these days aren’t the headwaters of
past generations, as with all things, they have long passed us by. We
can’t pretend to live as if the day matters, while living in fear of the
financial destitution and death that await. Exercise the stigma of
suicide so as to embrace the quietude of the resignation that comes to
fill the void, and get on with truly living in the phenomenal time left
us.
_______
Going Dark was reviewed recently by Anne Pyterek at Blue Bus Books. Check it out here.
_______
McPherson be interviewed Saturday, 12 July 2014 at noon Eastern time
in the United States (9:00 a.m. on the western coast). Catch in on your
digital device here.
_______
McPherson will be interviewed by Carolyn Baker on the Lifeboat Hour
Sunday, 13 July 2014 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time in the United States
(5:00 p.m. on the western coast). Read about it here.
_______
McPherson’s next book is co-authored by Carolyn Baker. Extinction
Dialogs: How to Live with Death in Mind has been submitted to the
publisher and is scheduled for release by 1 October 2014.
_______
Find and join the Near-Term Human Extinction Support Group on Facebook here
_______
If you have registered, or you intend to register, please send an
email message to guy.r.mcpherson@gmail.com. Include the online moniker
you’d like to use in this space. I’ll approve your registration as
quickly as possible. Thanks for your patience.
_______
Going Dark is available from the publisher here, from Amazon here,
from Amazon on Kindle here, from Barnes & Noble on Nook here, and as
a Google e-book here. Going Dark was reviewed by Carolyn Baker at
Speaking Truth to Power, Anne Pyterek at Blue Bus Books, and by more
than three dozen readers at Amazon.
44 Responses to “The Last of Everything: Reassessing the Meaning of Suicide through the Lens of Our Near-Term Extinction”
Fri, July 11, 2014 - 11:36 PM
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Lifeboat Hour – Honoring Michael C. Ruppert – 4/20/14
Posted on: April 20th, 2014 by Archivist Categories: Lifeboat Hour
prn.fm/lifeboat-hour-...-ruppert-42014/
A special tribute to Michael C. Ruppert who passed away after the
Lifeboat Hour on April 13. Carolyn Baker hosts the show. Callers include
former Congress Member Cynthia McKinney along with many other fans of
the Lifeboat Hour.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
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The Lifeboat Hour – Carolyn Bakerfor & Mimi German – 04/13/14
Posted on: April 13th, 2014 by Archivist Categories: Lifeboat Hour The Arts
prn.fm/lifeboat-hour-...-ruppert-42014/
We will be joined by Carolyn Baker for the full show and by Mimi
German of Radcast for about ten minutes. Then we want your calls.
Everywhere on this planet right now the warriors leading the way to a
new consciousness are feeling the heat. My trip to Seattle was an ass
kicker. Perhaps most of us who have been leading are feeling it most
intensely. But if it’s been that rough for us it must have been the same
for all of us. Let’s bring the tribe together and lift each other.
We’d love to hear the stalwarts from this page call in. Let’s get
tighter.
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That last one...
..was Mike's last show, immediately after which he killed himself. <3
The pain is too much for too many.
I am happy to embrace Cobra family at www.Portal2012.com ..there is a truth (deeper than the surface illusion) that resonates with me now.
Our Galactic family can help us heal and clean up the environment...there IS hope! ALL IS -not- LOST!
Gives new meaning to the old phrase, "waiting for my SHIP to come in" ! ;-)
We just need to wrestle power from the hands of the cabal, the dark,
the uninformed...it sounds a daunting task, but
..but...
...by its nature, the Light will consume the dark...and success is assured.
Victory of the Light!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Originally posted at my once grand and thriving community but now extinct archive location:
http://people.tribe.net/phoenix_fire_nectar/blog/6a086ca6-89ce-4eb3-bc8e-93468b226942 |
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Originally posted on 
I
