Each month I create these Journal episodes and posts exclusively for paying members of The Kettle Community. They’re like little care packages full of seasonal observations, reflections, and resources. Enjoy, and thank you for supporting my work!
A few years ago I stumbled across a Substack post that discussed, in a matter-of-fact way, the author’s certainty that we are facing civilizational collapse.
At the time, I thought, “Wow, a well-respected writer who is neither a conspiracy theorist nor a cult leader is copping publicly to a belief that our world is on the brink of catastrophe?”
Now, of course, it seems you can’t swing a dead chicken without encountering a thoroughly mainstream take on imminent doom. Predictions of collapse - democracy, food systems, civilization itself - are everywhere, and you almost can’t help but absorb a “collapse-aware” posture even if you don’t put absolute faith in it.
The thing is, I believe a lot of these predictions could likely come true. I agree that we can’t continue consuming and extracting and polluting at the rate we have been for, like, ever, and expect there to be anything left for our children and grandchildren to preserve. I agree that our food systems are strained and vulnerable, that our environment is fragile, that AI and its insatiable hunger for data is potentially catastrophic, and that humans are struggling with social isolation and emotional and mental burnout. I admire writers like Rosie Spinks, Adam Wilson and appleturnover who urge us to honestly confront our most harmful and self-harming tendencies and work toward a new way of living together on this earth.
But recently I also realized a curious thing: becoming “collapse aware”, as it’s called, has begun to subtly dampen my ability to dream. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, some of my long-held desires about how I hope to spend my remaining years on earth have begun to feel so uncertain as to be unrealistic. The shift was subtle and quiet, but I realized at one point that when I was picturing our future, I wasn’t assuming anything: the existence of jobs, for example, or that I might have any money at all.
To be clear, I have never desired a ton of material wealth or a flashy retirement lifestyle. We’re not talking yachts and oceanfront mansions, here; just normal, everyday dreams, like being able to spend more time on creative pursuits as I age instead of just working to survive; having the freedom to travel a bit, getting to raise grandkids.
When I look to the future now, it’s become marred with a sort of muddy black blur. It’s gotten harder to visualize the most basic things, let alone dream for anything more ambitious. It makes sense: when everything is so uncertain, it can start to seem safer not to desire anything at all than to work toward something that might get yanked away by a collapsing economy or culture or democracy.
But that’s not a particularly healthy place to sit - for us individually, or for the world we’re trying to create - and ultimately, I also think emotionally accepting certain doom is no more realistic than assuming everything will go up, up, up forever.
The thing is, none of us know exactly how this earthly story will play out. If you’re a person of a certain faith you can see the ending - but not, with precision, all the twists and turns and timelines that get us there. If you are a person of uncertain faith you see even less of the picture. But for every one of us, most of the plot is a mystery, and I tend to think that’s by design.
Sure, we can make some guesses about what’s to come based on looking back: life has been hard for all living beings, catastrophic at times, and marred with crises since the very beginning. And yet, over the next twenty, thirty, fifty years, it is just as likely that things will turn out better than we hoped than that they’ll turn out as bad or worse.
I’d argue, in fact, that relegating ourselves to a belief that certain things are absolutely to get steadily worse is just as much an effort to control an uncontrollable future as speculating on un-ending progress.
Which isn’t to say we should all bumble merrily along worrying about nothing but shopping trips and promotions and 401ks and our next tropical vacation. (We probably never should have been worrying about those things so much in the first place: even if the endless pursuit of possessions and convenience hadn’t harmed our human home, I don’t think it was very good for our souls.)
But I’m not talking about that, anyway. I’m talking about having the audacity to hope and even dream and desire things - good, community-building, humanity-enriching things - instead of letting those dreams and desires be permanently dampened by doom, gloom, and pessimism.
Is it possible to balance realism, preparedness, and even a conviction to change course, with hope for the future and the willingness to dream? I hope so. Because I, for one, am ready to reclaim desire in this stage of my life, even if it turns out my dreams require a gentle redefinition.
I chat a little more about how I’ve been feeling about this (especially now that I’m standing on the precipice of the empty nest) in this month’s Journal episode. Plus I share details of our Upper Peninsula trip, behind-the-scenes glimpses of running our family’s bookstore and public market, some photos of life in our 2003 RV, and what I expect to find in my garden in Southwest Michigan when I return next week. It’s all below the paywall below - and, pssst, I’m running a 70% off sale on annual memberships through the end of July, so now is an excellent time to subscribe ahead of some exciting things I have planned for fall. (Emptier-nest pantry planning! Tea! Updates on my novel-in-progress! And more details on how Eric and I are planning to spend the next phase of our lives.)
Journal episodes come out at the beginning of each month, and are a benefit for paying members of The Kettle Community. To hear the full episode, see more photos, resources, and links, and find links to community events like our weekly Co-Create sessions on Zoom, our private Discord chat, and more, join us today - at 70% off annual memberships through July!
