Doom and gloom... bring it on!

[kenneal - lagger]

I wasn't relating a flu pandemic to sun spots, I was relating an increase in flu transmission to the drop in temperature as this article from New Scientist confirms.

Scientists have finally confirmed what your mother knew all along - that flu spreads best in cold, dry weather.

Yes, indeed
No correlation with sunspots then, or even global cooling, if only it existed.

"No correlation with sunspots then" - is correct.

"or even global cooling," - compare that with "that flu spreads best in cold, dry weather." Biff, you're getting a bit myopic in your old age.

Sunspots, as you know, vary from virtually nothing to sometimes hundreds and back again over an approximately 11 year cycle. This variation in sunspots does not correlate to the weather in any way. What can correlate to the weather is the variation in the length of the cycle and the height of the peak in sunspot numbers. A longer cycle correlates with lower sunspot numbers and a minor lessening of output from the sun while a shorter cycle correlates with higher numbers of sunspots and usually higher output from the sun.

A number of very long sunspot cycles together causes a major lowering of the earth's temperature although the mechanism for this is not understood. Conversely, a number of very short cycles can cause a period of warming; mechanism similarly not understood. We are currently in a period of much longer sunspot cycles with lowering peak sunspot numbers.

We should be preparing for all likely eventualities and arguments over global warming because, while the mechanism of CO2 driven warming is well understood, the mechanisms that drive changes in solar output are not. You're going to look a right pratt if thirty years of global cooling does come about and you haven't warned people about it AND that the warming trend is continuing underneath. If people can be convinced that the cooling trend is only temporary they might be willing to do something about their fuel use over the thirty cooler years. If you've told everybody that global warming means ever increasing temperatures and they get cooling for a while they're going to think you're off your head.

I'm convinced that we're about to get a temporary period of cooling which could be of the Maunder Minimum severity - it's a cyclic thing, which I know you don't like, and it's not caused by sunspots; they are one of the symptoms - so I am warning people that, despite global warming, we may get a temporary cooling.

If I am right about the cooling people will listen to me about the warming trend. If I'm wrong about the cooling I can explain that there are a bunch of people who think that minor changes in the sun's output can cause major changes in the earth's climate and they were predicting cooling. If that cooling doesn't come about I can explain that they were also wrong about the sun causing all the earth's warming.

By being pragmatic I can win out either way. Meanwhile, I'm prepared for some bloody cold winters and cool summers which could cause a shortened growing season. If we don't get a cooling period I'm selling loads of organic tomatoes, cucumbers, melons and squashes from my polytunnels in the future.

[kenneal - lagger]

Off-topic, but on the subject of doom and gloom... I've had a break from PS for the last couple of weeks in an attempt to cheer myself up... And actually I felt (even ) worse.

I think it's worse sometimes to revert to "normal" life and persuade yourself you're forgetting PO, when really you know you're not and it's always on your mind under the surface. At least on PS I know I'm not the only one who's not living in a fantasy world.

God I actually no how you feel Ludwig. I've gone off into a terrible depression myself and now I know what your talking about. It's horrible. You can't see the positive in anything. I've never been like this before.

There's a total disconnect between how you feel and how you logically assess the state of things in the world / in your life. So like sometimes you can kind of rationally put it together and think 'well its not so bad' but you still feel like a hollowed out shell of a robot going through the motions of living. Conversly some days (rarely) I have a 'good day' and I feel just about ok but when I look rationally at whats gone wrong with my life I think 'well yeah everythings f*cked so why do I feel ok'. Then your suprised at yourself for feeling ok! Which is really weird.

It's that kind of double dissocation that shows you its a totally different state of mind I guess - whihc is what Ludwigs always been trying to explain - and not just a normal reaction to everything being totally f*cked.

Many years ago my wife and I got involved with selling Amway products. It's a multilevel marketing scheme, some call it pyramid selling, but we won't get into that argument now, and involves some high pressure sales techniques and training. We found that the whole scheme didn't suite what we wanted to do in life so we left, but not before doing some of the training. The training is basic motivational training and involves programming oneself to achieve targets that we set ourselves.

Having learned about the limits to growth and resource depletion in the early 1970s and set ourselves on a path to self sufficiency, the delights of growing one's sales team and sales jarred somewhat. We realised that we had already programmed ourselves for a target and that target was more important to us than the Amway high consumption lifestyle.

We now know where we are going in life and we also know that life will not be better in the conventional sense but it can be better for us as it will be a more simple way of life. Less will be more. We know that there will be challenges along the way, and by god, we've had some major ones already. We've gone backwards for a while on occasions but our goals have always been in our minds and we've plodded along and, by and large, we've been happy in our quest.

The Amway experience was a minor deviation but a useful one as it pointed out to us what we had done, set ourselves a goal, and that we were achieving our goal. It also taught us how to behave with people; smiling is very important. If you smile you feel happy and people around you feel happy. Smiling, at first, is a physical effort but after a while it comes naturally and it does make a difference to oneself as well as others. Before you pick up a ringing phone, smile then answer: the caller will hear your smile in your voice and be happy as well. Never call something that gets in your way a problem. It is a challenge which it will be fun to overcome. Never let yourself worry about anything as worrying never solved a challenge. By all means think about the way to overcome a challenge but worrying only ever gives you grey hairs and is a waste of time.

The motivational training teaches that our brains are computers that we program to certain ways of doing things. We can program ourselves to be negative thinking, worrying, gloomy people or we can reprogram ourselves to be happy, achieving people. We may need help to do that sometimes if we have let ourselves get into a deep rut, but reprogrammed and happy we can be, even in the most challenging circumstances. It is a step by step approach and by taking that approach we can all get there in the end. When I was personally shifting the 350 tonnes of earth to build my cob house I always kept in mind the saying "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!" It helps to realise that if you break your mammoth (groan) task down into small steps it becomes achievable.

If the future is bleak there is nothing we can do to affect the overall bleakness, so why worry about it: accept it. But we can work to ameliorate our part of it and the part others around us will occupy. So set yourself goals or targets and set to work to achieve them. That way lies happiness and contentment while all around my be wailing.

When I give talks to Greening, Transition and PO groups people ask me how I can talk about all the challenges that face us in the future and still smile. It's because I'm doing something about it and enjoying the doing. No point in crying and waiting for it to come. The reason why we are all happier here is because we are among people who are, in the main, doing something to make the future a better place. That makes us all feel better.

[kenneal - lagger]

Talk about coincidences! Having just written that bit about smiling on the phone a got one of those dreaded cold call sales pitches but it was a most pleasant experience because, Abby, the cold caller was so obviously smiling when speaking to me. I felt uplifted even if I didn't want to speak to her. I thanked her for her most cheerful call and explained that I wouldn't be buying anything from them and we both said goodbye in a pleasant frame of mind.

Most unusual.

[jonny2mad]

good posts ken

I just got back from clearing bestival Ive worked at various other festivals including spending about a month clearing up Glastonbury .
Ive collected hundreds of tins of food, tools, tents, clothes, boots, pretty much Ive had a summer of scavenging its been great fun and it means I haven't really had to buy that much and I've been paid .

If you get used to working out of doors growing your own food or scavenging living in a tent things aren't so bad, personally I would have children, people don't actually need that much and we waste so much at present .

if you don't have kids the politicians are just going to bring in people from abroad they will do that anyway, so any move on your part to cut the UK population is pointless in fact I'd say counterproductive .

Because if at some future date you get a government that wants to cut UK population I think they would find the job easier if the population is more heterogeneous speaks the same language and doesn't have strong religious cultural objections to it.

china has a one child policy, try having that in the Lebanon or the Balkans even .

Without immigration the uk would have had a declining population anyway

[mr brightside]

I've been living with it for over twenty years. You get used to it eventually, because you forget what it was like to be any other way.

I'm glad i'm not the only one. If people started trying to make me happy it would be a very threatening prospect; likewise if i was happy, then something would be very wrong somewhere. I use the emotion of valuing my own life as a tipping point- if i do then something isn't right. Like Billy Corgan, "i'm in love with my sadness".

[jonny2mad]

for a doomer apart from the fact I don't have a bunch of savage neo-barbarian children I'm pretty damn happy.

its funny how we can look at pretty much the same thing and come to so different conclusions.

your a strange lot thats for sure

[AutomaticEarth]

Well, this bloke can't seem to get enough of the gloom and doom!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC19fEqR5bA

[biffvernon]

Oh! Somebody actually telling it like it is. That was worth watching. This is the original source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15059135

[MrG]

Hmm well guys. The thing is that it isn't actually peak oil / the imminent collapse of civilisation etc. that has got me depressed... it's actually much more common or garden domestic issues - breakdown of a relationship

This has happened plenty of times before! It's never affected me like this before though. There's a number of reasons for that though..

- It's entirely my fault this time and I know it. So kicking myself for what could have been.
- My age and a feeling of 'running out of time'. So no UE, not having had children is not something which I draw cheer from
- Looking back at all the other train wrecks of the past and seeing the common pattern

Still I guess that attitudes to the structural problems of society were a factor. We did have pretty different lifestyles. My ex actually said to me a few times that I would "Be the perfect boyfriend if there was an apocalypse".. God! The implication being that I was a pretty shit partner in any non apocalypse BAU scenario!! Oh and also that apparantely I "live my life as if there has already been an apocalypse".

I really don't know where she got the apocalypse stuff from coz I was careful not to talk to her about PO (at least not from an apocalyptic point of view).. well I did get a bit twitchy before the saudi day of rage

Anyway these events are just the trigger. This is what I was saying. The depression is a state of mind which is divorced from the actual bad events.. this is what I've realised from what Ludwigs been saying all this time.

Neurochemistry-wise I think it's no coincidence that I've basically been completely drugs free for the first time since I was 15. It was my ex that helped me get to that point and the irony of being straight edge and alone is not lost on me. That's 18 years worth of serotonin crash I'm afraid. I think that has a lot to do with it.

Gotta stick to that though. Like I say I think excersise is the answer, running up mountains is the new way foward.. I think I'm actually shaking it off with natural endorphins

[ziggy12345]

I found that post more depressing than the ones about social collapse and end of the world stuff.

I think I can accept whole nations being destroyed but find the death of one child upsetting.

[UndercoverElephant]

Oh! Somebody actually telling it like it is. That was worth watching. This is the original source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15059135

As well as telling it like it is in terms of the depth of the problems, what he's saying is very interesting regarding the mechanics of making money from the crash. He's basically telling people they can make money by betting on a crash, and that means acting in ways that makes the crash worse. For example, a good way to make money if you think the "stock markets are toast" is to borrow shares and sell them. Then when they've melted down you buy them back for next to nothing and give them back to the person you borrowed them from. This makes traders money, but it forces the stock market down even lower than it would otherwise have gone.

The whole system is held together with nothing more than faith and confidence.

[emordnilap]

Gotta stick to that though.

Do. Keep us posted and try not to let us down!

Like I say I think excersise is the answer, running up mountains is the new way foward.. I think I'm actually shaking it off with natural endorphins

Exercise is good and can appear in several guises. Have you a dog? We just got a lurcher (abused/homeless) and he likes two things: five-mile hikes and sleeping. I quite like them too. Having a dog gives a purpose to going for a walk.

[biffvernon]

breakdown of a relationship

That's not gloomy - it's the opportunity to find the partner you should be with

The Alessio Rastani interview seems to have gone a bit viral, at least in my corner of the cyberverse.

And it's even made it to the Daily Mash so definitely mainstream: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/busi ... 109274352/

[SleeperService]

breakdown of a relationship

That's not gloomy - it's the opportunity to find the partner you should be with

The Alessio Rastani interview seems to have gone a bit viral, at least in my corner of the cyberverse.

And it's even made it to the Daily Mash so definitely mainstream: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/busi ... 109274352/

I'm 100% with you on that biff, MrG it's better to find out that you're not totally happy now rather than when a relationship breakdown could have catastrophic consequences. Like you been there, got the T shirt and the mental scars. It doesn't seem like it at the moment but it will get better, different possibly as well but better. I ate and drank my way up to 350lbs and was heading for a 'life challenging' event, now I'm on the way back down, virtually teetotal (I socially drink alcohol about once a month), and am clearing up the mess. It always takes longer than you think but you'll get there.

Some of my old school chums went into the stock market when they left university, despite what you may think the ones who prosper are really clever as well as well educated. It's a pity that the bosses aren't so bright. One guy I saw a few months ago had just refused promotion again as he wasn't going to take a wage cut. Apparently the guy who did take the job is a bit of a prat who has already cocked up a couple of times

I have respect for anybody who is good at their job even though I'm convinced the modern capitalist system is dying. Interestingly, some of the professionals seem to be preparing for a rather different economic enviroment now.

[Kieran]

Some stuff that's helped me at times:

Early in the morning filling 1 or 2 A4 pages with every random thought that comes into my head – real stream of consciousness stuff. Reading it afterwards is optional. Really good for getting stuff out of your system. Came across it in a book on creativity.

Using peripheral vision – helps stop mental chatter and has a calming effect.

Looking up towards the eyebrows can provide a quick breather if feeling desperately shit – it's difficult to access emotions while doing it. Be careful not to cause eye strain.

Caring for a pet is a big help if it's possible to have one.

Exercising.

Massaging the head also stimulates the production of endorphins.

Agree with Ken about the effectiveness of smiling but... can be difficult if you're a gloomy old goth like me. A dark sense of humour helps.

House plants and some full spectrum lighting to look at in winter.

Mindfulness meditation and breathing techniques like breath counting.

A good nights sleep is important, slowly winding down activity before going to bed and avoiding anything that's mentally stimulating – TV, computer games etc. Helps to stop excess dreaming which lessens the quality of sleep. Bad, interrupted sleep is a very good route to depression.

Worry can certainly suck all the joy out of the present moment but it usually has a positive purpose ie getting you to prepare for an uncertain future. If you've already done every possible bit of prepping then worrying is a waste of time. The future just doesn't exist yet. It can help to make a bargain with yourself: resolve to save all the worrying for a half hour period between, say, 7-7.30 pm. During the rest of the day if you find yourself starting to worry calmly but firmly say (sotto voce): “No. I'll worry when the half hour comes round” or similar. Repeat this until the urge to worry goes. Distraction helps.

Times when you just can't get into formerly enjoyable activities are the sure fire sign of depression. It's basically about living in your (often negative) thoughts not in your body. It can be quite hard to fully get back in touch with how it feels being in your body: feeling every sensation, from the brush of cloth on skin to the feel of teeth against the tongue. Become aware of all input from your other senses too. It can take quite a bit of practice overcoming that dissociated, numb feeling. Once you're “back in your body” it's much easier to start enjoying things again.


@Mr G

I've known a number of people who came off drugs (of whatever kind) and it can take quite a while to readjust, especially after using them from teenage years. Most everything is going to feel different at first, a bit raw. Hope you stick with it. It'll be worth it.