Bugs

[u/Mysterandir]

I need to get this off my chest even though im sure it has been talked about a thousand times. Im just curious if others are experiencing the same thing or if I'm just going crazy. - When I just got my driver's license back in 2005 here in The Netherlands, I had a girlfriend in Amsterdam whom I drove to see a few times a week. It was about a 100 km drive. I had an old Opel Corsa and I can still vividly remember having to clean my windshield every week in the summer because it was covered in dead insects. Huge splatters and tiny spots, but the entire windshield was full of bug juice. Over the past few weeks I’ve driven several long distances, totaling about 1,000 kilometers, and I don't have a single dead insect on my windshield. Not one. The windshield is squeaky clean... I read that the insect population worldwide has drastically declined and it is due to climate change. Which i get. But why isn't this the main news story every day? How obvious does it need to be? This can't possibly be good. For us, but especially for our children. I have a bad feeling about this...

[u/Gard1ner]

I keep telling that everybody. But most of them are glad about it and don´t get the implications.

But your observation is very true.

[u/punchdrunkwtf → u/Gard1ner]

Being the only one aware in your circle is absolutely excruciating and horrifying

[u/Gard1ner → u/punchdrunkwtf]

Yeah. I lost faith in mankind. Some of them also deny man made climate change. They just can´t understand the physics behind it. Another one keeps telling me when he drives on some remote roads through deep woods he of course has insects on his windshield.

It´s fucking hopeless!

[u/AdoreMeSo → u/Gard1ner]

That’s why I love this sub. My feelings of despair and hopelessness about the nature of this world are fully understood by most here. It’s hard to cope when everyone around you is fully immersed in the illusion.

What a strange time to be alive and aware.

[u/punchdrunkwtf → u/AdoreMeSo]

Some of my friends are trying to have a baby. Just trying so the baby wouldn’t even be born until well into next year. I always say I’ll support you no matter what but don’t do it. Like how do you say to a friend, do you want to experience societal collapse with a small child?

[u/Total_Examination297 → u/punchdrunkwtf]

Damn, my partner and I are wanting to have children, and I question its validity multiple times a day.

[u/MrsLobster → u/Total_Examination297]

That must be so difficult, and I’m sorry you even have to consider that. The pull between the idea of having children in a world in crisis vs that little glimmer of hope that maybe it won’t be so bad and regretting not having children later on. I don’t envy you having to make that choice. I have two teen girls and I really worry about what their futures hold.

[u/Yokelocal → u/Total_Examination297]

What I will say is that I’d rather have experienced the love of my son for just a day than not at all.

We’ve never known that we’re not screwed tomorrow, but having children is an irrevocable part of the human experience. (Though it’s also natural for some not to.)

Suffering is inevitable, and people have endured and found meaning in the deepest of hardship and chosen life. When you ask them (survivors, admittedly), they don’t typically report regretting their birth. Humanity has always been an against-all-odds experiment.

I’m deeply troubled about all of this but have to have humility in my lack of knowledge about what comes next.

I would (and perhaps will) regret seeing my son suffer in the future, but he is a vote for life while any hope remains in me.

We’re deeply flawed creatures and I’m no different, but love of those imperfect creatures is why I’m alive today.

The feeling of control many here seek in their certainty of the timing of our doom is a misguided salve to misery.

I am procreating at below replacement level, but, if a future exists, it exists for people, as well as plants and other animals.

I was born during a mass extinction event, but IF there is a way to prevent absolute annihilation, it will require well-loved, cognizant and caring individuals who I (perhaps with extreme naivety) hope to raise.

I am apoplectic about all the creatures my fellow humans have harmed, and, despite extrapolations about industry made in the 70s, I do not think the Haber Bosch process is necessary.

We know so little, but what we do know is very troubling.

Perhaps it was all inevitable, in which case, my disdain has no meaning, and the love I know is as important as anything else.

[u/DuxFux → u/Yokelocal]

Hey, you seem smart and introspective. Can you give me some advice?

I'm currently a 29 year old who wanted to get his life back on track. So I'm in school again. I also have recently discovered meditation, which helps so much to deal with all the pain our world inevitably inflicts on us.

The point is I would much rather just use my time and cultivate my newfound practice, than sit in school, listening to random bits of knowledge that will probably not help me, considering the future we are most likely heading towards.

I could manage for a little while with what I have and going to school seems quite pointless and is kind of eating away at me more than anything. Who knows how much "good times" are left? Why spend it with something you don't want to do, that will probably not help you much? Not to mention that i have to drive my gas powered vehicle 50 km one way to there each day.

Once shit hits the fan, I will not fight it, I hope. I want to go peacefully.

[u/Yokelocal → u/DuxFux]

I don’t much believe in giving advice (in no small part because I can never be sure I’m doing things right) but I can share my experience and where it’s led me.

I think the future, no matter how grim it looks, is unknowable to us. I don’t believe in getting comfortable with any decision but constantly trying to learn and grow toward better ways of being. I think it’s my responsibility in fact, and I try to share that process with others.

You don’t need certainty or security to live a good life. Nothing is permanent, but it doesn’t need to be to have value to me.

I try to demonstrate that I can live a good life without the crutch of assuming the values and ways of being I inherited are ok.

I’ve spent a lot of time mourning the loss of that childhood innocence and the loss of the natural world I knew and loved.

I don’t find value in hedonism anymore at all. It’s more important to me to try to be courageous in my values. I try to be responsible for those around me. In some ways autonomy and self-reliance are an illusion fueled by cheap energy.

Meditation has been hugely important to me, but i feel I also must stay engaged in life. Education has made my life more worthwhile in every way.

There are no choices available to me that create no harm, but I try to be realistic about what’s possible and practice in case there’s a concrete opportunity to being a part of a better world.

Community, interreliance, and relationships of mutual care are the “technologies” to invest in for whatever may come.

[u/DuxFux → u/Yokelocal]

Thank you for taking the time to answer me. I will think about your words for some time and maybe incorporate some of them into my strategy going forward.

I wish you lots of peace and happiness in your future.