Inquiry: How has the U.S. economic crisis affected you personally?

Regarding the new "rescue" plan recently passed in the Senate: "You can put lipstick on a pig but its still a pig..."

-- "Become passers-by" (Jesus of Nazareth)

For as long as I can remember I've been expecting something some kind of collapse to happen. In the '80's (when I was a teenager) I expected a nuclear war to happen at any moment. In the late '80's I watched with astonishment as the Soviet Union collapsed overnight - that was the first time I realized sudden positive transformations could happen as well, but I also realized that if the Soviet empire could suddenly collapse under its own weight, the American system could similarly collapse - probably equally to the surprise of most people. Are we now approaching such a collapse, or just hitting a patch of turbulence? Damned if I know. :P

As I've gotten older - I'm 41 now - I have understood that there are many "failure modes" for civilization - economic collapse(s), nuclear suicide, ecological disaster, etc., with new ones emerging all the time. A lot of the ones that seem most likely are - directly or indirectly - the result of human activity, and could be avoided in theory, if we behaved with greater collective intelligence. Yet most people, most of the time - myself included - are sleepwalking, lost in a dream that is becoming increasingly complex and precarious. (I feel I'm kinda twitching in my sleep, occasionally showing slight glimmers of lucidity.) I see lots of things that just can't go on this way, for example endless urban sprawl and long lines of cars zooming past on freeways, and it looks like a fevered dream to me, one that's likely to turn into nightmare and maybe some kind of awakening. 

In the current turmoil, sure I feel anxiety, uncertainty etc. - but I'm used to that, what with a lifelong habit of catastrophizing behind me. I also feel a certain lightening of "cognitive dissonance" when more people around me seem to get that this illusion of stability and security could come crashing down at any moment - although so far it looks to me like the current crisis hasn't really shaken most people from their slumber (yet?) - not in the way that "big September thing" did a few years back. That woke people up, at least briefly. Astonishingly briefly, actually.

Have my spending habits changed? No. I'm still barely scraping by, and using a lot of my meager resources on personal growth and awakening. Given my lifelong lack of faith in any kind of future I can predict or rely on for any kind of "security," the only thing that really makes sense to me is to work on improving my physical, mental, emotional and social health, and ultimately on Awakening - to become a better dream character and wake up from the dream.

I could cobble together some advice for how I think people should deal with this, but this post has gone on long enough already. I'll let this personal statement stand for now and maybe add more later.

spiral out,

Arthur

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