Conversations with Todd

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I Don’t Know

so you wanna talk some more about solutions and responses

It was 5:30 AM. Still dark outside but I couldn’t sleep. I headed downstairs and started a fire. My laptop was pulsing in the darkness and I walked over to wake it up. Todd’s sticky greeted me. I sat down and read it.

“I don’t know,” I typed. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I stopped.

you dont know how come you dont know arent you going to write up part two of that last blog you called… uh… respondee vu… responze sil… shit dude my french sucks

I reached out to type a response and found that I didn’t have one. I sat back and thought for a moment, then reached out again. And again I stopped. I didn’t know what to say except that I don’t know what to say. Finally, not knowing what to say, I said this: “I don’t know what to say, Todd. I just don’t know.”

you dont seem yourself today dude

I sighed. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

I dont follow you

“Well… I mean… isn’t that the point of all this: to find some way into a new way of being on the planet? Don’t I have to stop being who I was?”

Todd thought about that a bit. I can always tell when he’s thinking: he tosses a sticky up, but then doesn’t write anything. It’s like his way of saying “So…”, holding the space while he gathers his thoughts. After a moment his words appeared.

thats what it took for me Tim I had to stop totally I had to die

“Yeah. That’s a good metaphor. In your case, though, not a metaphor at all.”

so are you dying

I stretched and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Yeah, Todd. It feels like I am.”

how so

“I don’t know who I am anymore, Todd. It’s like… I don’t know anything anymore. And that’s how I’ve survived in this world, that’s how I’ve won: I’ve known. I got caught not knowing as a young child. I got caught being out of control. A sunny summer day… I was just living, free and easy, singing a song I’d learned at school, a children’s bawdy bastardization of the Popeye song that my mother didn’t like. She told me to stop singing. But you know, when you get a song stuck in your head, how it doesn’t want to go away? I tried to be careful. I tried to control it. I tried to be aware and on top of it. But the song slipped out again. My mother heard it and dragged me off to the bathroom, driven with rage. She washed my mouth out with soap and sent me to my room. It was devastating. And I vowed from there on out that I was going to know. I was going to stay on top of the situation. I was going to be in control. I was going to have things figured out. So I would not get caught like I did before. “Won’t get fooled again.” That’s me.”

and now

“And now? Dude, look at what we’ve been talking about for the last year. Look at the doc. Read the news.”

you dont know how to stay on top of the situation now do you

“No! There’s a million things I don’t know! A million things. I know that I can’t stay where I am, but I don’t know where to go! The North calls to me constantly. New England. Do I go there? I don’t know. Does it make sense to go where winters are now long and cold? Will climate change make that a good move, or a bad one? Will the Northeast be the perfect place to be? Or will it end up under a mile of ice when the Superstorm hits? I don’t know!”

“I don’t know how to get my house sold. It’s in an intentional community. Selling it isn’t like selling a regular house. It’s complicated. It could take a long time. And I don’t know if I have time! If we sell it, do we buy a new place right away? Or do we rent? With the housing bubble bursting and the economy failing and the dollar plummeting, what’s the best way to do it? I don’t know! I don’t know, if we sell the house, what to do with the money, where to keep it, and in what form. I know that the best investment now is land and tools and knowledge and skills, but until I land somewhere, where do I keep what I have? Is it even possible? I don’t know. I try to figure it out, but it’s like there’s some Newton’s Third Law of Economic Analysis: every opinion is balanced by an equal and opposite opinion.”

“I don’t know what to do with the doc. I don’t know whether to keep doing what we’re doing or to do something else. We’ve got people from the mainstream movie machine interested in trying to put What a Way to Go into theaters in the international market. Do we do that? It looks like a major hassle, with little to no promise that it’ll put any money into our pockets. It looks like a huge loss of control. And I’m not at all convinced that it makes any sense. Right now, there’s a hand-crafted and sacred quality to the way we’re doing things, as people see the movie at local screenings, or in their homes with friends, at house parties or when we show up to do a screening and a dialogue. There’s the possibility of having time to process it, to come together as human beings and talk and feel together. Putting it into theaters could just turn it into an entertainment, an experience, a horror show. And the machine… I hate the machine! The machine is destroying the life of this planet! Do I even want to consider working inside of it? I don’t know!”

“If we don’t play ball with the machine, then what do we do on our own? How do we get the movie to the people who want or need to see it? How do we do it in a way that returns enough energy to us so that we can do what we feel called by the Earth to do? Again, there are enough equal and opposite opinions out there to fill a swimming pool, so it’s not like there are obvious answers. Do we figure out a way to get subtitles done in other languages? Do we go into wholesaling? Do we use Google Video or YouTube? Do we push to get that Bonus Disc finished before anything else? Do we spend money on marketing? Do we hire help? Do we do it all on our own?”

“And what else do we do? Do we spend time doing three day workshops? Five day? A full semester curriculum? Do we turn WAWTG into a book? A linked transcript? A Broadway musical? And if we’re doing that, how do we also sell a house and move? Where do we put our time, our energy, our money? What will serve us? And, more importantly, what will serve the Earth? Is there a way to know? I don’t know!”

I thought you didnt have anything to say

“Yeah, well… I guess I just had to get started.”

it goes deeper though doesnt it

I stopped. What the hell did Todd mean by that? Then the tears came, and I knew.

“I don’t know how best to help, Todd. Every time I publish a blog… every time… I’m terrified. Will this blog help? Will it hurt? Will it serve the life of this planet? I don’t know. All I know is that I stuck in my picket pin. I said that I would show up and say what’s true for me. So I keep doing it, even though it scares the shit out of me. But I don’t know. This conversation right now… should I write about it? Should I publish it? Will it help? Sally and I have both noticed that often, when we express our own fear, our own confusion, our own sense of helplessness or grief or despair or anger, the people around us react strongly to that. As if they depend on us to remain steady and calm. It’s like, ‘Shit, we’re staring into the collapse of fucking civilization! Tim and Sally have been staring it down for years now. They’ve even made a movie about it. If they can’t hold it together, how the hell do I?’”

“So what can I say that will help? I have to say what’s true for me, and what’s true for me is that I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. What’s true for me is that I’m often terrified. What’s true for me is that I’m grieving. What’s true for me is that I am so angry that I want to scream. Does it help, to say that? Does it help people to know that? So that maybe their own confusion and fear and grief and anger can be normalized, rather than held as somehow weak, or somehow wrong? Does it help? I don’t know!”

Todd tossed up another sticky that stopped me cold and left me sobbing: deeper

I rose as if compelled, put on my shoes, grabbed a hat, told Sally I would be back in a while, and stepped outside. Something told me I had to go into the woods, that I had to be alone, and I listened to that something. That’s what you do, when you agree to work for the planet: you listen and you respond.

An hour and a half later, I walked back into the house, where Sally had a bowl of creamed rice and yogurt and almonds waiting for me. I sat down, dug into my breakfast, opened my laptop, looked at Todd’s last sticky – deeper – and started to write.

“I don’t know how to help the people I love most, Todd. I don’t know how to help Carla and Karen. I don’t know how to help Dan and Jill. I don’t know how to help Carolyn, or Ted, or Iain, or John or Tom or Robert or Lynne or Vivienne or Janaia or Robyn or any of the dozens of others I could name. I don’t know what to tell them. I don’t know what to do for them. I don’t know where to point them.”

“And I don’t know how to help my own kids, Todd. I don’t know how to save them. I don’t know how to help my family, my parents, my brothers, my sisters-in-law, my ex. I don’t know what to say that will help them to take whatever steps they need to take in this world. I don’t know how to keep them from pain and loss and grief and disruption. I don’t know how to help them as they struggle against a culture that is trying to kill us all. I don’t know if my wisdom – to move North and try to create some safe space for my kids to land when things get crazy – has any merit. I don’t know if they’ll join me. I don’t know if they should. I don’t know, Todd, if I sell my house and move to New England, whether in doing so, I’ll be effectively saying goodbye to my own kids. The systems we now know are breaking down. Life is going to become very local. Our current mobility will disappear like melting snow. We will be split asunder, we who are now so easily connected across the miles. I don’t know if I can take that.”

I sat back. The tears were streaming down my face and I wiped them away with the back of my hand. I held my gut, as if to hold in my intestines, the ache was that fierce. Outside, one squirrel chased another up and down the trunk of a tree. Todd popped a sticky and started to write.

where did you go Tim

“I went into the woods behind the house. I followed the path and came to a log that crosses it, an old stripped pine that finally gave up and fell, years after it’s death. I sat down and just let loose, sobbing into my hands. For my kids. For myself. For my people. For all the peoples. For the tree I sat on and the land I walked on and the hawk that cried in the distance. I said that I was sorry. I asked for forgiveness. I told the trees I loved them and thanked them for their lives. And I asked them for help, Todd. Civilized ol’ Tim… Midwestern ol’ Tim… big tall smart white American male Tim asked some pine trees for help. Can you imagine? Crying in the woods and talking to trees is not something I was raised to do.”

you cant save your kids can you Tim

“I can’t save anybody, Todd. I can’t even save myself. I sit around with my collapse-aware friends and we try to peer into the future and figure out a way through it. The attempt to do that just exhausts me, and forces me to confront my own despair. I see no way to figure my way through this. And staying in figuring-out mode is just more control and domination. If we make it through the bottleneck only to come out the other side essentially unchanged, then what’s the point?”

so how did the trees help you Tim

I stopped. And then I laughed. Todd had no doubt that trees could and would respond to my request. When you get your ass kicked by a giant chicken, you learn to take such things seriously.

“After my tears stopped, I got up and followed the path a bit further. Down near the creek, there were a couple of crows up in the treetops, laughing at me. I looked off in their direction, noticed how completely dry the creek was, and decided to walk along the cobbled creek bed for a while. There was something about picking my way along those stones that was quite moving. It’s not a place one usually gets to walk.”

“As I walked I noticed a few bottles, a bucket, various pieces of trash. I marveled, as I often do, at how thoroughly we’ve trashed the place, that even here, in a place most people would consider “the middle of nowhere”, there’s more garbage to pick up than I can carry. I thought of future archaeologists sifting through the strata of this time and scratching their heads in wonder. I climbed over fallen logs and negotiated some wet spots and stopped to watch a vulture as it soared overhead. I kept moving, following the bed, lost in my thoughts, and in my noticing.”

“And then I looked up and found, quite to my surprise, that I didn’t know where I was! My intention had been to follow the stream all the way around the perimeter of our property and back to the main road. I thought I knew exactly where I was going. But here I was – lost. Somewhere along the way the creek splits and I’d missed a turn. Now, with the sky low and gray and no sun in sight, and with no identifiable landmarks to hang my mind on, I wasn’t even sure which direction I was headed.”

were you scared

“Yeah. For a moment I was. It’s unsettling for me. I’ve lived my whole life on the map, as Chellis Glendinning made plain for me. I feel pretty disoriented when I fall off.”

what did you do

“I stopped and just tuned in for a while. I climbed out of the creek bed and leaned against an old barbed wire fence and watched and listened. There was some hammering in the distance and I could see, through the trees, a huge new starter castle taking shape. In the opposite distance was the rumble and roar of logging trucks on the main road. On the other side of the barbed wire rose up a small pasture, with a line of trees on the hill on the far side. That was enough to get me started. I would head in the direction of the traffic noise. I got down on my stomach, crawled under the lowest strand of barbs, and stood to cross the pasture.”

“In the next tree line was another fence. This one I climbed, hanging onto the thin limbs of a small cedar and barely avoiding a tear in my jeans. I walked across yet another pasture, hugging the tree line, until I spotted a large gray barn. Knowing that the barn bone’s connected to the farm bone and the farm bone’s connected to the driveway bone and the driveway bone’s connected to the road bone and the road bone’s connected to the home bone, I headed off toward that probable road, keeping the barn in sight. Soon enough I saw where I was and I cut back into the woods, back toward my land, and my home, my fire and my Sally and my known… my known… my sweet, sweet known.”

Todd tossed a sticky up and, like the good introvert he is, took his time filling it: its a school isnt it

“What is?”

you know… the world this life this time the collapse its a school dude a school that is helping us to you know like grow up and become ourselves again

“Yeah. It’s a school. And I’m a student taking classes: Intro to Not Knowing with a lab in Being Lost. Giving Up 101 and Advanced Relatedness.”

so you can get lost and not know and just stop and listen and then find your way from there

“It feels like I’m driving at top speed on a winding road through the dark night with only my low-beam headlights, Todd. Like I get to see the next step, but I don’t get to see beyond that. Like all there is to do is crawl under the fence and walk up to the tree line and trust that, when I get there, I’ll be able to see a little further down the path.”

trust and also ask for help

“Yeah. Ask for help. Because, just in the asking, I take a step out of the dominant paradigm and into another one, a paradigm of relationship and connection.”

so whats your next step

I shrugged. “I don’t know.” I laughed. “It’s funny, Todd.”

what is

“It’s such a relief. To not know. To just admit that I don’t know. Knowing has been such a burden. When I set it down…. I feel lighter. Free, somehow. It’s like… we’ve never really known, we white guys with our plans. We’ve just been making it up, a bunch of scared little boys trying to pretend we’re in control, covering our ears and deafening our souls to the songs that are stuck in our heads still, the songs of the animal, the songs of the world, the songs of the stars. Such a burden to carry, that control. So much harm we’ve done. And so delicious, so freeing, to set that burden down, to stretch our arms in the sun and look around and see, perhaps for the first time, what is really there.”

its scary

“Shit yeah it’s scary, dude. But it’s worth every bit of the fear. To feel alive again? To feel a part of the sacred Earth? To feel like I belong here? To be able to walk the planet without hanging my head in guilt? It’s worth every bit of that fear.”

A sticky popped onto the screen, bright yellow and bursting with excitement and joy: gotta go back in a bit

That was it. He was gone. In whatever way it works in Todd’s world, he had just grabbed his hat and took off for his own walk in the woods, off to the school, down the dark and winding road.

That’s how it goes when you start working for the planet… the world calls, and you respond. Your story gets crazy big in an instant and all at once you are a part of a living universe that had, just moments before, as in some fading nightmare, felt cold and dead and frightening.

Nice work if you can get it.

They’re hiring right now, I hear.

Applications available outside.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Tim's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

25 Responses to “I Don’t Know”

  1. Alice in Wonderland Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 3:36 pm

    I can so relate to your words! What to do- where to go- how to keep your family safe? So serious and such a fucking joke at the same time!

    It is good to let it sweep over you- to cry- sob-scream – its real, its agonizing but sooooooo liberating. Regardless of what we “know” and don’t know, we will continue to BE, until we are done.

    Thank you for sharing – the honesty of even your darkest thoughts- is the sound of freedom to my heart.

    Hugs- Alice in Wonerland

  2. Rod Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

    Written by Gary Snyder in the early seventies, I still think it expresses so beautifully how I feel these days.

    For the Children

    The rising hills, the slopes,
    of statistics
    lie before us.
    the steep climb
    of everything, going up,
    up, as we all
    go down.

    In the next century
    or the one beyond that,
    they say,
    are valleys, pastures,
    we can meet there in peace
    if we make it.

    To climb these coming crests
    one word to you, to
    you and your children:

    stay together
    learn the flowers
    go light

    — Gary Snyder, from Turtle Island

  3. auntiegrav Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 5:35 pm

    First things first:
    Tell Todd “thanks” for me.

    Second: Thank you for trying.

    You’re trying to do too much, Tim. Unlike me, you can’t save the world. I can, but it doesn’t want to be saved. We can’t save our children because our children have to save themselves. They won’t inherit our world, so the things we have to teach them will be mostly useless in their world. We can only try not to screw them up and try to preserve useful knowledge and resources as we get the opportunities to do so. I cannot stop the idiots who want to burn up iron and chrome and copper and silver to make weapons to fight wars for oil that we shouldn’t need. I can only fix what I am given and asked to fix. I can only make a list and work through it as best I can.
    Your list is different from mine.
    The things that everyone will be affected by will be in the minds of the PTB. If everyone is about to lose their homes, it’s a pretty good bet that profit motive will put the brakes on it. If everyone is going to be hungry, then profit motive will find food for the System to buy.
    If my neighbor is the only one hungry, I can do something about that. If my kids want to buy a book instead of a video game, I can do something about that, too.
    If the world collapses around us, we deal with the cards we are dealt, and in between now and then, we work on our lists.
    If you specifically don’t know something, or wonder what it’s all for, I can help you with those questions. If you seek a group for companionship or a majority decision, I can’t help you with that. As the anarchist web site said: “If you have to ask how to join up, we don’t want you.”

    P.S. Nobody really wants to know the truth. Truth is thrust upon them like a maggoty chicken leg. No matter how hungry you are, or how dangerous it is, you must deliberately take a bite along with the maggots or you won’t get any at all. The Chicken just waits for the maggots to get done and eats them. That way, it isn’t like cannibalism so much, but the Truth is no longer intact.
    PPS: sorry about that, but some thoughts flow directly from the barnyard to the page.

  4. Mary Post Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 6:07 pm

    Loved your film. Created great discussion between my husband and me. Now we just need to show it to more people. Its not that we did not believe the seriousness in our situation before we watched it but you just bought out more things to think about.

    The only thing I can seem to do these days is to follow my instinct which seems very reliable at the moment. Maybe because of the increasingly serious situation instincts are being heightened and are becoming more important. Good luck with whatever you decide to do next but keeping doing. Its not a time to stand still is it? Have solar panels, wood burning house heating stove and grow our own vegetables. Must keep going this year to do more toward self sufficiency and lighter footprint. Even if there are not many people with us everything we can do helps.

  5. David MacLeod Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 7:22 pm

    Tim,

    Thank you. It DOES help…immensely I think. It does help to “normalize” the confusion and fear and grief and anger that many of us feel. And it is encouraging more people to speak their truth.

    See “No Happy Chapter Here” by Rick Dubrow:
    http://www.a1builders.ws/rss/cascadia_weekly_034.pdf

    David in Bellingham

  6. Sarah, Tim's step daughter Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 7:31 pm

    So, after berating myself for a late assignment, hating my boss for neglecting her child and blaming me for it, pouring a 4 year-old’s pee into a cup, and taking a chilly,lovely walk in the woods with two delighted, snot-nosed children who I love, I, like you, don’t know what the fuck is going on. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why I care so much about my grades, about other peoples children, about my bills and blemishes and boys. Part of me feels like there’s something much grander I should be doing, while most of me is so wrapped up in things that will mean very little or nothing to me in a few years. Am I wrong to care? Is this the culture telling me that I should be that 4.0, or that pretty girl, or that perfect employee? Or is it me, striving to do my best, to fully show up for whatever it is I’m doing, because I’m not here on this planet to mess around. I don’t know.
    Regardless, it’s inspiring to let go. it’s inspiring to surrender. it inspires all the other forces in the world to point you in the right direction, to send you messages about what’s next.
    Thanks, Tim.

  7. Gar Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 8:12 pm

    Tim, when you have a moment, I think you might enjoy this video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGu62iFb42s

    Gar

  8. Jen Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 11:36 pm

    Thank you, Tim, for that raw honesty. Your blog posts help me. Can’t speak for anyone else, but there is a woman in western Massachusetts with a sleeping baby on her lap who is tremendously helped by your words. Thank you for going deeper. Thank you for sobbing. Thank you for asking the trees for help.

    I live in a cohousing community and a house here is just about to go on the market on Saturday. I know you are torn about whether to move, but figured I’d mention it in case you might be interested.

    Your tale of not knowing and getting lost rings so true to my own experience. The phrase I have repeated to myself, to remind myself of what to do, is “follow your nose.” As in, we can’t see much further than the tips of our noses sometimes, so let’s just focus on that. As in, the nose knows. As in, sometimes it’s better to trust our feelings than our minds.

    The rawest, truest part for me of what you said above was the part about not being able to save anybody, and the grief for your children and family and friends and all the people, all of us. I am sitting here with my 8-month-old daughter asleep on my lap, with the most angelic little face, the tiny expressive hands, and my love and terror and grief is overwhelming.

  9. Tim Says:
    December 7th, 2007 at 9:00 am

    Hey All,

    Alice, thanks for your kind words and resonance. Wonderland may be a great place to navigate collapse!

    Rod, the Gary Snyder poem is so moving. I haven’t read much Snyder, but he has recently shown up a number of times, so I guess I’m ready.

    Auntigrav, your words are helpful, and reflect some things Thomas Berry said in his interview, about how almost nothing from our current life will be of much use to our children. The same holds for me, I think. Learning to not know is my spiritual path. I love it.

    Mary, thanks for checking in. Sounds like following your instincts is working well. Glad to hear you are in action.

    David, good to hear from you! So glad to hear that it helps. That’s always good to know. And I’m also glad to hear of so much truth-telling in Bellingham. RIck Dubrow’s piece was really cool. Yeah… give me reality, straight up!

    Sarah, yeah! It’s like, we don’t become teachable until we can admit we don’t know! Once we admit it, we open ourselves to teachers showing up and helping us, by pointing us in certain directions and sending us messages. Until we admit we don’t know, they’re just gonna hang out in the teacher’s lounge, drinking bad coffee and complaining about those damned kids. Thanks for that. I’ll be on the lookout for more teachers showing up. Like, for instance, YOU!

    Gar, thanks for the link. I’m in a place right now where the connection is too slow to watch, and for some reason it won’t keep downloading. Will watch ASAP.

    Jen, thank you… for connecting, for letting me know that it helps, and for loving that sleeping child as deeply as you do. I’m so glad to know that you are in a community in western Mass, which some folks I’ve met think will be a very good place to be as things play out. My best to you and your people there. I’ll keep your tip in mind. Thanks!

    Tim

  10. Dan Says:
    December 7th, 2007 at 10:14 am

    Well, Tim – and Todd – this blog was hard to read, as nearly every line struck so deeply with me that you had me peering back into my childhood and forward into my futurehood – if there is one for me. It’s been a tumultuous year for the planet and for me. Friends from my youth would probably find it odd (as do I) that to current friends I am Data Driven Dan, just the facts, ma’am, if you please. Check your feelings at the door. ‘Cause back then I was a bright kid, for sure, but my heart was e’re on my sleeve. I was the one the defense turned to for inspiration in the close game. Hit ‘em harder, play ‘em tighter, I would exclaim, and then go lead by example. Or if a zany skit or crazy antic on stage or after (sometimes during) class was called for, I was your man. But I was also known as he of the inevitable “blue funks”. I’ve been dealing with yet another of these lately. So, though you and Todd both know that Heart on His Sleeve became Data Driven by being crushed by Empire, there were other factors, oft replayed. One example, in the words of one of my favorite poems “How could the vagabond you see, ever love a woman and expect her love for me?”

    So I’ve wandered, in every sense of that word. Early in my days of being down here (it was a long, drawn out migration for me, as unlike most, I actually miss long snowy winters) I took a walk similar to yours. I found fields and ponds I hadn’t known were there, and then, ‘on the other side’, the encroaching machine – a subdivision going in where it seemed to make no sense – does it ever? That was ten years ago. A heckuvalota similar ‘development’ has gone on in the interim, h’ain’t it?

    My post is disjointed, this I know. That’s why you’re the blogger and director of a doc, and I’m just a supporter and hanger on. I can’t hold it all together like you can. What I mean by that is your writing, not your being. Here’s what I think about you and Sally holding it all together after staring collapse in the face for years – if you can then it isn’t real. ‘It’ being either collapse, or you, or the act of holding it together. Well, I’ve been looking at it for a bit, now, too, so I know that collapse is real. And I’ve sat in circle with you and heard you speak for the seagulls, so I know you’re for real. So that just leaves the holding it together not to be real. So don’t, Tim. Let it go. If I don’t see you breaking down in the face of this, then how the heck am I ever going to get past the data and back to my heart? How am I, or are any of us, to hear the lessons of the seagulls and the vultures and the crows and the hawks and the eagles and the owls? I’ve told you of my shared experience regarding snowy owls, and that helped me move one step toward my own letting go. They are wise, these birds, as are the rivers and creeks, the oaks and the pines. But we need those who can show us how to listen.

    I will tell you, as I am fortuned with the opportunity, in future conversations, of my encounters with crows, the times I’ve gotten lost, and my thoughts on international distribution of WAWTG. So I’ll spare your readers those burdens. But what I will share is this – yesterday would’ve been my mother’s 84th birthday, had she not died in Nov. 2000, while this country was in limbo wondering whether Bush or Gore would be president. Now as icecaps melt and patriots act, and those of us who can see through the veneer look for paradigm shifts, I, too, being a not as tall, not as smart but very white American male wished her a happy birthday, and asked her if she could in any way help me find clarity to end my funk and find my way through the fog. And she did. So you keep on cryin’ in the pines my friend. We all need you to. And we all need you, too.

  11. Medium Parnell Says:
    December 7th, 2007 at 11:28 pm

    Ah yes. Not knowing. The Tao Te Ching comes to mind. Helps me out during rough times, which is pretty often these days! The Tao Te Ching talks about not knowing as true knowledge, or something like that. It says that presuming to know is a disease, even. A disease we contracted during our captivity in empire?

    Nobody that we know of knows.

    I like to think of myself as an amateur handyman on the cusp of collapse. I’m building my tool kit, piece by piece. All I can hope is that the kit will be sufficient for the various jobs that will come my way.

    Let’s keep building! Best of instincts and “wu wei” to us as we surf the waves of the great unveiling.

    Peaces,
    MP

  12. Vivienne Grace Says:
    December 8th, 2007 at 5:13 pm

    Dear Tim,
    I just read your words……..
    “I don’t know how to help”………………
    Tim you do, you do, Oh yes you do……….you are doing it.. you ALWAYS help me when you speak your truth. Like the others who have responded, I am in deep gratitude to you for your raw honesty. That is exactly what I need from you. Our world is in great need of Truth Tellers not Experts. I don’t want or need you to become an Expert in Collapse. As you know I feel such frustration with experts especially ones who claim they know the way out of our present earth dilemma. I feel it is expertism that has got us into the mess we are in. I long for a world where we admit we just don’t know and we feel how that feels and we connect with our hearts and we listen to the pine trees to common sense and to each other. Even then, it’s a paradox, we don’t know but we also do know. We know what it takes for sustainable loving community. We know what we long for. The frustration I believe comes from thinking we have to do it on a massive scale. Well that is something else that got us into this mess. A way of thinking that said we had to globalize and homogenize everything.
    If we can just begin to look at the small of things instead of the BIG of things. I have great desire to build and foster community and some days i can barely hold together the community of two in my relationship with my life partner. More and more these days it just feels like it’s about relationship for me. Relationship with Spirit, myself, my loved ones, friends and family and the natural world around me. If I continue to strive for love in those places and at the very least kindness then I believe my world will be healed. Then I will go into the larger future with love in my heart and if the larger future is the death of me then so be it if it isn’t I will be living a sort of heaven on earth.
    “In my vulnerablity lies my strength”
    Thank you Tim for your continued vulnerability it’s exactly what I need for middle aged white guys to admit they are vulnerable and don’t have all the answers! Love ya!
    love & light Vivienne

  13. Joel Says:
    December 10th, 2007 at 2:29 am

    Tim,
    Thanks for writing because I have been having these same thoughts for months now, since I saw the film in Northampton MA. Even longer in some regards. And here I am studying music in college, something I love, but I know I’m just buying into the system by gettinga a degree, so I feel so lost. I don’t know. I’m scared for the future, and everyday I worry but I’m still just stuck going through daily life. I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to start. I relate with you Tim. It’s nice to read this because I haven’t been able to find anyone to come down to this level and talk about these things.

    -Joel

  14. Tim Says:
    December 10th, 2007 at 10:03 am

    Gar, I watched the video you linked. Nice song. Thanks!

    Dan, thanks for your love and encouragement. You’ve got one of the biggest hearts I know, and I understand, I think, why you plucked it from your sleeve and hid it away, to keep it whole until such time as it’s safe to bring it out again. In many ways, I followed a similar path, until I found my safety. Having found it, I can risk bringing it back out and letting it live again. It’s wonderful, to feel…

    MP, not having much familiarity with the Tao, I read the wu wei article on wikipedia. Sounds like something I want to explore further. It mirrors much of what Sally and I have been talking about lately. Thanks! Good luck with your toolkit.

    Hey Vivienne! Thanks for your kind words. Middle-aged white guys saying “I don’t know”… therein may lie an answer that “works”. There’s a wonderful, moving moment of just that in the great movie “Half Nelson”. Yeah, back to relationship, back to love, but now, looking for love in all the RIGHT places!

    Joel, thanks for checking in. I have little doubt that music will continue to be very important to us as the future unfolds. In fact, real people making real music in our local communities will likely become MORE important. The question is, do you need the degree, or do you need to follow another path with your music? Since there seems to be no way to rationally “know” whether you are doing the right thing by studying music in college, you are left with the non-rational. What does your heart say? What does the wind say? And how about that bird that sits and watches you as you walk to class? When you quiet your mind, your words, your rational, and let the universe speak to you with images and feelings and music, what bubbles up? We have found the words of the Hopi Elder to be right on and have referred to them many times in the past years. Do these words help to bring some clarity?

    It’s hard to be alone with this, isn’t it? So many of us who are looking are feeling alone, as if we’ve been spread out across the planet, perhaps to have the greatest effect? But my guess is that there are more of us than we think, and that we are kept artificially alone by the culture that would keep us from speaking of what we see. Keep opening your mouth. Keep seeking those souls that will meet you where you are. It feels risky, but it may be worth the risk. When you find those souls, your life changes. Mine did.

    Take care, all,

    Tim

  15. auntiegrav Says:
    December 10th, 2007 at 1:39 pm

    My two cents to Joel about music: Music is necessary to be RE-Creational, not entertainment. Entertainment is nice, but doesn’t fulfill a physical/developmental need as recreational music does. (just making the distinction, not trying to preach)
    Net Creativity: the positive future usefulness over and above what we consume in resources. We can create useful dynamic structure with very little resource consumption simply by singing. If everything was so unobtrusive on our environment, we would be in a lot better shape right now. Can we sing a better collective ‘music’ voluntarily, or will we be forced to by descent? My electric guitar weeps for a solar panel…

  16. Joel Says:
    December 11th, 2007 at 5:56 pm

    Thanks for those words both of you. I’ll put some good thought into them.

  17. John Ludi Says:
    December 12th, 2007 at 12:03 am

    “I don’t know how best to help, Todd. Every time I publish a blog… every time… I’m terrified. Will this blog help? Will it hurt? Will it serve the life of this planet? I don’t know. All I know is that I stuck in my picket pin. I said that I would show up and say what’s true for me. So I keep doing it, even though it scares the shit out of me. But I don’t know.”

    That bit (as well as a fair amount of the rest of it, actually), really hits home. Every time I am about to put a new project out I go through the same thing. In my case, I always ask myself if I’m really going to raise awareness with my lyrical observations, or am I just bitching? And there is always the “preaching to the choir” issue: are the people who are going to get something out of what I do only going to be the people who have figured things out pretty well already? In which case, what the hell is the point of it all? I suppose though, to be totally fatalistic about it, if everyone else falls off the cliff and the only people left are the “choir”, then the world may be a much quieter and peaceful place after the smoke clears…and we’ll be in good company.

  18. auntiegrav Says:
    December 13th, 2007 at 5:50 pm

    I finally watched all of your movie last night, Tim.
    Very good. I especially like that there isn’t a happy ending.
    There can’t be, so any attempt at it would be a farce. We have a tough, difficult path ahead of us, and we don’t even know if it will end or not. It is a solid rock wall with a hole the size of a person, just enough room to take a shovel or a hoe with us, but not enough to drive a tractor or a car or a tank through it. The hole goes through our planet into the future, so any attempts to blast it bigger with technology will only make it collapse upon us.
    Charlie didn’t just steal the handle; he threw it in the firebox and melted it down. Everyone keeps looking for the handle, but they are just wasting their time. We’ve got to RIDE this train, or jump. (insert Woody Allen’s quote here).
    I don’t know where to drive my picket because there are too many battles to fight. I think I’ll wait until some of the attackers start eating each other. Soylent Brown is horses. Soylent blue is dogs and cats, Soylent Green …ahhhh….there’s the rub now, ain’t it?
    My property taxes went up 22%. That means the value of my dollar, my savings, my life just went down by 22%. Since I’m losing money on the farm every year, I just cut my losses by 22%. I feel sorry for the rest of the world that thought they were getting paid 2% more this year.
    Praise the Lord and pass the Patriot Fries.

  19. Tricia W. Says:
    December 13th, 2007 at 6:05 pm

    Thank you Tim for your movie, your effort, and even your confusion :) .

    I met you and Sally with my friend Cameron at a screening discussion group in Lawrence Kansas and ever since it has lit a fire under us and caused us to make some serious decisions.

    I thought I had it all planned out so perfectly but now I’m also a bit more lost and fumbling around. Which, when you start talking like its the “end times”- straight out of the back of the biology book- around your friends and family, they always ask, “Well then what.” And they look at me like I have some answer because I’ve discovered we are so past the “tipping point” and that our population Will be decreased- I must have a solution right?

    But in reading this blog today, I kept comming back to the phrase “Don’t Know” – and how that is the main meditation that I was taught when practicing zen buddhism. Asking to your self, “Who am I?” and answering “Don’t Know.” And achieving “Don’t Know Mind.” is really the goal. The excercize that one teacher taught me was to imagine that moment just before you embark on something- like going on stage to perform or that white piece of paper before painting. That is what Don’t Know feels like.

    So falling into and being absorbed by “Don’t Know” is where you find clarity and peace. Maybe we all have to join you or already have and we are about to embark on a wonderful answer and journey to create beauty instead of destroying it. I hope so. Cuz ya man, we are F’n scared and confused sometimes.

    With regard to your moving delima (I’ve been there several times myself), have you considered renting out your property while you travel up there and decide? It might be easier to rent it, get the money to pay the bills while its on the market (if you decide to put it on the market) , and free yourself up to move? Renting might also be better with regard to the intentional community because then the prospective buyers possibly or a temporary resident might be able to mesh better with all the other people. Just a thought. :) Either way I’m sure you will find your space to dwell.

    As for being separated and split apart, it may not be as bad as it seems. People in Africa are doing it and have been making it work for a long time, even with threat of death from visiting the “wrong” people or at the “wrong” time. And I have plans for a sweet donkey cart if I need it. :)

    Thank you for sharing even your confusion. Voicing this as someone who has read so much just makes me want to be that much more creative on solutions. :)

    Good luck! (and I appologize for the spelling, I’m having to sneak this in during work.)
    Trish

  20. Lee Says:
    December 14th, 2007 at 7:06 pm

    I do know. The future is screwed and no matter what is done now in terms of efficiency and conservation, there are still to many people for the world to support. Welcome to the coming apocalypse. Thank goodness I read the “Population Bomb” as a college student back in ‘68. He was a little premature, but the delay in the outcome he predicted will only make the collapse more rending. I believed him and forswore having any children who would have to face the predicted outcome. Since I have no further stake in the future, and the current generation of airheads and the religious right (God will intervene) don’t seem at all concerned about the future I have simply decided to enjoy the life I have left. It is still possible to find some solace in Nature and that is how I intend to spend the rest of my life. No sense in running around wringing your hands and trying to convince anyone about the pending catastrophe. I have no long term stake in the future.

  21. ZenThing Says:
    December 15th, 2007 at 11:42 pm

    This is entirely a zen thing… submit already! Knowing that you cannot affect the outcome of the future is vital. You can only do what you can do… nothing more. And sometimes, the best thing to do is nothing… just BE.

    That’s not to say we can’t all continue to conserve and preprare and subsist but it’s the struggle that makes us miserable!!! Stop Struggling!

  22. Tim Says:
    December 16th, 2007 at 12:26 am

    Hey John… I like your fatalism! You can be the choir director!

    Auntigrav, I love your image of a hole the size of a human being, just big enough to take a hoe through with us. That one really speaks to me. Great!

    Thanks, Trish. Yep, I’m still “Don’t knowing” as much as possible. It’s the only way I can stay sane. We are thinking of renting, considering other options. Thanks!

    Lee, I think you are right. The acceptance of possibility does not cancel the inevitability of inevitability.

    ZenThing, that’s exactly right. Nothing would be a much superior option to much of what we are actually now doing in reaction to the situation, much of which comes straight out of struggle. That paradigm is bankrupt. Time for something really new!

    Thanks, all…

    Tim

  23. Jeff Scannell Says:
    December 23rd, 2007 at 3:53 pm

    Dear Tim,
    Reading your words, (after Todd’s beautiful “deeper” invited you inward and then outward), I too went deeper and several times erupted into tears of resonance.
    I am another middle-aged white guy who appreciates the reminder of the power and beauty of sharing an open-hearted vulnerabilty. Thanks for letting it show.
    I don’t know either. But this school we are in surely has something to do with finding and living from our true hearts, and reaching out to other hearts, like you ae doing. Don’t you think?

  24. danny bloom Says:
    January 31st, 2008 at 4:36 am

    Tim
    what about polar cities for survivors? read my blog

    danny: email me your peax pro or con

    http://prpc101.blogspot.com/

  25. Lorelei Says:
    February 9th, 2008 at 4:18 pm

    Not knowing ties in with “beginner’s mind”, and I also relate it to something I’ve been thinking about lately – chaos. I’m not so much interested in chaos theory which looks for order even in chaos, from my understanding, but in looking for and embracing the chaos even in order. We try too hard to order and control everything, unconciously selecting for certain things to happen, just as in breeding programs we select certain undesirable traits every time we try to select for desirable ones. We don’t need to, and can’t, control everything. It takes out the mystery and wonder to try to control and make things regular and mundane. I think we need the mystery, surprise and wonder to be fully human and fully part of life on Earth.