Getting cosy with collapse

I want to be soil

“All civilisations, like everything alive on this planet, go through the cycles of life: birth, growth, flowering, harvesting, dying. It is essential to recognise that we are in the final stage of this cycle.” – Margaret Wheatley

Hello dear readers, and welcome new subscribers. I’m going straight in with a heavy topic that has kept me busy for a while: collapse. 

The first time I read about the concept of collapse was in Jem Bendell’s paper Deep Adaptation in 2018 (which later inspired the founders of Extinction Rebellion). In it, Bendell stated that near term societal collapse due to climate disruption was inevitable. My willingness to engage with the idea varied greatly. While I understood it intellectually, I didn’t quite grasp it on an emotional level. Maybe it was just too scary, too monstrous. I didn’t allow myself to feel what it meant, but it has been bubbling under the surface all the time.

It has become impossible to ignore the precarious place the world is in. The systems that hold our society together are disintegrating. Our shared sense of reality is disappearing fast. AI slop is flooding the internet and our minds. Not to mention pandemics, wars, global IT outages, and increasing crop failures – all directly or indirectly linked to climate breakdown.

“We are dealing with a systemic backdrop of steadily declining foundational systems of civilisation” Dark Matter Labs

It feels both redundant and impossible to describe the mess we’re in. Call it permacrisis or endcore. The world we have taken for granted is breaking down. And we haven’t figured out what to replace it with. One thing is for sure: the myth of progress, this reassuring sense that things are getting better that my generation grew up with, is no longer true. Our kids will almost certainly be worse off than us. If collapse sounds a bit dramatic to you, I’m not talking about a sudden apocalypse, but an enduring deterioration of the systems and structures that make up modern society. Everything will get a bit more shit (or a lot, depending on where you live and how wealthy you are).

It would be beyond this post to go into the details of climate science (if you want an up-to-date expert view check out this sobering Ted Talk on climate tipping points) or the possible outcomes for the global economy. What I am interested in is the societal response.

How can one build a life faced with so much uncertainty? How do we find meaning? What are the new stories? 

I see two dominant approaches in culture right now – we’re either numbing out or yoloing our way through. We distract ourselves with ever duller, shorter snippets of entertainment (see Ted Gioia’s brilliant piece on dopamine culture). We think nothing of queueing half an hour for a four quid cinnamon bun (definitely a thing in London). It’s a constant flipping between dissociation and decadence. And I include myself here. Both are essentially avoidance tactics and will leave us feeling empty and massively unprepared for a future of discontinuity and disruption on an epic scale. 

Interestingly, these behaviours are predictable responses of humans when their civilisation is in collapse. Sir John Glubb, who studied societies from ancient empires to modern states, calls it ‘the stage of decadence’ (see this piece by Margaret Wheatley). What sounds like an accurate description of our current moment, is in fact a timeless characterisation of the last stages of any civilisation:

“Frivolity, aestheticism, hedonism, cynicism, pessimism, narcissism, consumerism, materialism, nihilism, fatalism, fanaticism, and other negative attitudes suffuse the population. Politics is increasingly corrupt, life increasingly unjust. A cabal of insiders accrues wealth and power at the expense of the citizenry, fostering a fatal opposition of interests between haves and have-nots. Mental and physical illness proliferates… The society’s original vigour, virtue, and morale have been entirely effaced. Rotten to the core, the society awaits collapse, with only the date remaining to be determined.”

Ha! And we thought this shit is unprecedented. But I believe there is a third way to deal with collapse, and that is to embrace it. I’m not talking about becoming a doomer. But can we embrace it as part of a natural cycle, and maybe even find joy in the process? I’d like to think of it as composting, the magical process of transformation that turns waste into nourishment. It’s an intricate dance of decomposition and regeneration that requires the collaboration of a large community of microorganisms. 

Because let’s be real. Who is really thriving in our current system? What’s the point in holding on to something that leaves us and the planet exhausted and depleted? If we were more willing to give up certain things and behaviours - what Jem Bendell groups under the banner of ‘relinquishment’ - it might allow us to find new ways. Without downplaying the devastating impact of systemic collapse, it could become an opportunity for existential recalibration.

How can we become better composters?

It would require us to think more about what we leave behind. We would have to consider our legacy not as grandiose, egotistical ambition, but as a way to improve the health of the whole. We would have to value squad wealth over individual wealth. Reduce toxicity and increase diversity. We would have to realise that our short-term well-being is best served by thinking about our long-term survival.

SOIL the world at our feet at Somerset House

It is no coincidence that popular culture is fascinated with soil at the moment.

A forthcoming exhibition in London’s Somerset House explores soil’s vital role in our planet’s future. It is both the literal soil we need to pay attention to if we want to make it as humanity and the metaphorical soil. The going-ons underneath, the root systems, the connections, placing more emphasis on relationships rather than the visible, outward expression. Aren’t fungi and their mycorrhizal network like good citizens within functioning communities? They give more than they take and are all about maximising the potential of the whole. 

View from the oakwoods

Last week I stayed in a bothy in a remote part of Scotland. A magical little shelter in the wild surrounded by some of the last vestiges of Atlantic oakwood in the UK. These ancient oakwoods are recognised for the abundant communities of mosses, liverworts, lichens and ferns that they contain (the colours and shape of which are seriously mind-blowing!). As I lay down under these old trees and thought about the microorganisms holding it all together, forming the soil that was holding me, I felt both connected to the whole and also totally insignificant. Maybe I’m getting closer to understanding collapse on a physical, embodied level, knowing it can also be liberating.

Cosmo Sheldrake says it best: I want to be soil.

Until next time x

I wanna go downwards

I wanna be ground

I wanna be fed on

I wanna break down

I wanna be all gone

I wanna be food

I wanna be walked on

I wanna be soil

I wanna be soil

I wanna be sound

I wanna hold secrets

That will never be found

I wanna be soil

Live upside down

But it will never get lonely

With everyone round

I wanna go downwards 

I wanna be ground

I wanna be soil 

I wanna be sound

But it will never be silent

And I will never be found

Never never be a question

That I wanna go down

That I wanna be soil

That I wanna be ground

🌱 🌍

Soil by Cosmo Sheldrake