Major life changes become the least risky option

Last month, I spoke with the participants in a course hosted by the American cultural commentator Daniel Pinchbeck. The course was all about regenerative attitudes and initiatives. Before a Q&A, I was asked to share four key ideas that would be relevant to the lives of the participants. As I’ve talked about it so much already, I decided to skip the evidence basis for taking societal collapse seriously, and spoke about the changes I am seeing in myself and others, and how that might inspire them. The four things can be summarised as:

• You don’t escape this
• You have permission to go wild
• You can’t avoid losing things
• You can gain what’s most important.

I made some notes on my talk, which follow below.

You don’t escape this.

For most people I know living in the West, life is becoming more difficult, more stressful, less promising. It’s the new normal of general regress and periodic disruption in people’s quality of life, peace of mind, and prospects. That’s shown by the data, which I outline in my book Breaking Together. So it’s not just my friends in the West. It’s not just you. And, once you understand that these cracks on the surface of modern life are happening worldwide, due to fractures in the underlying systems of economy, energy, and the biosphere, then you know the material conditions of your life won’t change for the better unless you get an inheritance. So, unless you want to wait for someone to die, then you need to make choices and changes.

What won’t help you is accepting the delusions of society that are promoted to us because they serve power. In reality, every indicator on the living world is going in the wrong direction and going there faster. Recognising that basic truth doesn’t mean we can’t try to “become an empowered agent of change” as the description of this course invites us towards. But it does mean you might want to stop and go deep into the question of ‘why bother?’

It might not feel like it right now, but it is incredible to be alive. To have come into existence. To have consciousness. To be able to wonder at the nature and meaning of it all, and of ourselves. So I suggest, if you haven’t already, then respect yourself and that awesomeness by reading up on what is the most critical issue to the rest of your life. Which is whether our ecosystems and societal systems are collapsing. Then reach your own conclusions. Key is that you don’t postpone it for years – like I did.

When exploring this, you can listen to your intuitions, and distinguish those from habits of emotional reactivity. We all know that some people tell us things because they think it will make us like them, or not dislike them, or give them more attention or cash. We also know that some people think they need to see the world a certain way, to feel OK in their identity and worldview. We know that some views of reality are more acceptable to power than others. We also know that our own mind-states, cravings and aversions influence how we react to views on reality.

Don’t be fobbed off by people peddling lazy ‘common sense’ statements, instead of facts, rationality and ethics. In critical sociology we recognise such ‘common sense’ claims as ideology-at-work. For instance, there is a ‘common sense’ idea in modern cultures that someone who isn’t positive about the future of our country or planet will be apathetic. That is despite many people with catastrophic outlooks having changed their lives, and become leaders in the environmental movement. There’s a tactic to shut down our curiosity about people and ideas, which is to apply a negative framing or term to them. Anyone who speaks to you about ‘doomers having no hope’ are not focused on exploring truth and wise action with you, but are seeking to employ you in supporting a story that is protecting themselves from their own unresolved traumas.

You have permission to go wild.

This predicament isn’t an accident. We were warned. We were warned by people and communities who were ignored or oppressed and destroyed. The dominant systems of culture, economics, and politics led to the degradation of nature, and then the downplaying of that and the delusional responses to it. If that doesn’t condemn all of those systems then at least it condemns our unthinking respect for them. So you can reject any deference you might have had for what is esteemed in modern society. Instead, you can choose what you want to continue to respect, and what to reject.

In short, you can go wild. For instance, quit the career ladder. Quit investing in a pension. Quit automatically respecting the top bureaucrats in any institution. Quit paying attention to the piddling differences and disputes between billionaires or their political pawns. Quit trying to be popular on social media. Quit assuming your country are the good guys in world affairs. Quit sitting around being annoyed at someone or something. Get on with discovering a more free, connected, wise and creative version of yourself.

In my case it meant I ended up quitting my job-for-life first-world full Professorship and attempting to become a third-world farmer (that’s an ironic use of ‘third world’, just in case you’re a member of the word police). To be clear, my farming project isn’t me producing my own food. Indonesia doesn’t need a British farm labourer, nor even allows it. And growing my own food isn’t going to help when the shit hits the fan. Everyone needs food. So my work in setting up Bekandze Farm School is about helping an area of farming to become more resilient.

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You can’t avoid losing things.

Living in modern societies involves an economic unfreedom for most people. When you can’t afford land, housing, education, or savings, and career pathways have crumbled, then there’s liberty in name only. To escape to a life of more economic freedom, many people are moving town, state, or country. If you have some savings, or can earn something by working online, then your money can go further in a new habitat of your choice.

That’s my story. By moving country I was able to have the time to work insane hours on a book, learn more about music, and get started on a farm school. I would need to be a millionaire in the UK to start such a project. Or borrow money and thus have the stress and priorities coming from that debt.

But making a big shift in life means you have to compromise. Moving away from friends and family can be a wrench. Moving away from a place you feel rooted. Moving to a place where there is insecurity of residency. Only taking a lease, rather than owning land, so as to get started debt free.

People move because they get to a point where they think sticking is worse than twisting. It’s only when I accepted that there would be downsides to my choice that I made the move.

You can gain what’s most important.

If you conclude that this era involves the end of the world as we know it, and that it might even reduce your health and life expectancy, then this brings into the present the most important questions about life. What’s most important to us! We don’t postpone that anymore.

It’s worth getting started, because it can take time to explore what’s most important.  I thought I was doing that. But it was only on the 11^th meditation retreat I co-organised, after 3 years, that I discovered something huge.

Finally, I was calm enough, as various stresses in life had eased. Ones about work, health, finances, relationships, and family. Not because things were perfect, or better, but because I was over a few major disruptions. I was able to ask myself the question, ‘what still bothers me’ and then explore that.

In my case it was the ‘not knowing’. I realised I wasn’t happy that on my death bed I’d not be completely OK with not knowing the nature of my existence, if anything, after death. For many years, I’d ditched religious stories of a soul that exists like my current consciousness, in an afterlife. I’d also realised that aspects of reality and consciousness are ineffable. Meaning, once we use concept and language to describe the ultimate truth, we are moving away from the reality.

But, I realised, I still had a part of me that wanted to know. Will I be conscious after death, will I merge, will I reincarnate, will I experience nothing? Will I leave no trace in the universal information field or akashic record? Did I even exist much in the first place? Upon reflection and meditation, I discovered, that any story about that would have originated in human fear, where the ego needs to map, order, and control reality and assert that onto others. I realised life and death couldn’t be more beautiful than not knowing the nature of consciousness, if any, after death. Because that mystery is itself an invitation to transcend the ego. Therefore, I decided that I want to cultivate in me a way of being where I will actually celebrate that ‘not knowingness’, and would naturally feel that way at the time of my dying.

I tell you this not to advocate for this kind of sacred agnosticism, where the mystery of consciousness is surrendered to. I simply want to say that whatever is most deep in your heart is waiting to be explored and guide you in the months and years ahead. By ditching your past compromises with a crazy culture, you can explore that. It might not involve you moving anywhere, as the real change is inside.

In conclusion.

I really do think that this is a time when major life changes seem the least risky option. That is because none of us will escape what is unfolding, and so we have ‘permission’ to go wild, while recognising we can’t avoid losing things, but can still gain what’s most important, in the deepest sense. There are so many people benefiting from this form of collapse acceptance, and helping others by changing in that way.

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I was pleased that Daniel made a contribution to the Bekandze Farm School crowdfund. Please check it out.

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There isn’t a public recording of the session, but some of this transformation by collapse acceptance is discussed between me and Karen Perry in an extended deep adaptation conversation.

Jem in Brussels and Budapest, April 2024

Jem in Mexico, October 2024

Jem in California, November 2024

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