Downshifting

One of the issues that confronts people grapping with how to prepare for the coming collapse and new Dark Age (or how to deal with it, now that it's here, depending on how you measure things), is when to make that jump from a citizen of the modern industrial world to a tribesman of the post-collapse, post-industrial world. Humans are binary thinkers, so it all-too-often becomes an "all or nothing" affair. In other words, people might stock up on some supplies, but continue living the SUV McMansion lifestyle. Or, they may sell off anything of value in the modern world and start raising their own free-range bean sprouts and using nothing more technological than a candle.

One reader recently pointed out that the real issues is "timing" when to go all-in with preparing for collapse. Others have pointed out that our collapse is gradual in nature, maybe taking a generation or more to complete (although, there are plenty of Black Swans flapping around all over the place to definitely wreak havoc with whatever plans we've made regarding collapse). It's really not a trivial question. If we don't match our efforts to the current reality, we are setting ourselves back in one direction or another. The person who refuses to accept the idea of collapse, or who waits too long to start dealing with it, is going to be living an obsolete lifetyle, while the person who jumps in with both feet at this point is risking losing access to resources that they would otherwise have been able to use.

My general rule of thumb in life is that you between two extremes, you can generally count on the middle interpretation to be right. For us, using that idea means that we accept the reality of looming collapse, but try to take advantage of what the industrial world still has to offer, with the recognition that it won't be around forever. This means that we have to start planning for the post-industrial world, as well as the role of our lives in it, and how we plan to adapt to it. While this may come on a slower pace than some expect, we're four years on into the first great upheavel related to Peak Oil and Peak Wealth, and the flow of good economic news like in years past has instead become a thin trickle of perpetual promises and little in the way of delivery on that hope.

While things look bleak at the cultural level, we can start adapting and making changes in our lives. People have kicked around the term "downshifting" before, and I think it's a nice metaphor for what we're doing at the end of the Peak Age. But the question always remains of how to define it and how to practice it.

Most activities in our lives can be categorized into things we have to do and things we want to do. While people may argue the point that we have to work (sometimes, quite successfully), most people reading this have or have had jobs at some point. A modern job is usually directly tied into the exploitation of surplus which has been the economic model of the world for the past two hundred or so years. Short of changing or abandoning our source of income, there's not a lot we can do to "downshift" in that area without being considerably creative. On the other hand, everything we do outside of work is a good candidate for reexamination into how we could begin to adapt our lives into a post-Peak age.

Sports is one area which comes readily to mind. Widespread, well-organized team sports are a child of the industrial age. The leisure time needed to play them, plus the manicured facilities and equipment, plus the accepted risk of debilitating injury, means that they are probably going to get increasingly scarce as times goes on. Other sports like golf require precision equipment and dedicated grounds to enjoy (although I can see "rough" golf persisting, like the way the game was originally played, the other point of downshifting is to prepare for the new Dark Age while still finding a niche for these activities in our daily lives). If we still want to participate in sports, what can we do to "downshift"? For the person who wants a more intense and physical activity, I would suggest participating in some form of martial arts or historical fencing. These skills are going to be useful down the road, and a person could conceivably be able to barter some teaching time in return for lodging, food, or other compensation (this was the case back in the Middle Ages and even earlier). If a person doesn't want the intense workout from martial arts, backpacking or hiking is basically golf without the fancy drivers and the drinking, usually costing a lot less and providing better exercise.

Food production is another area which comes to mind. People like to garden as a hobby, but how high are their energy inputs and are they gardening with the idea of transitioning to subsistence food production? Most people are going to be personally a lot more involved in agriculture, so practicing this now is a good idea, but do we do it in a realistic manner? Gardening is labor-intensive, but we can begin to use organically fertilized raised beds and other high-yd techniques to cut down on the labor or industrial tool input we would need. When we're growing plants, do we choose things which have good nutritional value or do we grow things on a whim? Are we practicing our food preservation techniques on the surplus? And do we practice seed saving instead of buying seed packets each spring?

Speaking of food, cooking is another area where we can downshift and begin to practice for a post-collapse world, while still living in the Peak Age. Do we know how to make cheese from excess milk? Or how to make wine or mead from excess honey and fruit? Are we familiar with how to smoke or salt meat to preserve it? And how to cook on a wood fire instead of a stove?

Reading comes to mind, too. We can choose both the content and the medium of what we read. The battery lifespan of a Kindle or Nook is limited, and won't run without power in any event. Downshifting here means going back to paper for our books. And what do we read, anyway? Techno-thrillers where the world is nearly saved by the last page, or books that will teach us how to prepare for the new Dark Age? And do we have books of quality that we can pass onto the next generation? (acid free paper, etc)

If we choose to watch TV, are we watching gossip programs and sports, or are we watching programs which will educate us?

When we think of purchasing firearms or bows, are we buying higher-tech items, or are we thinking about the long-term? Modern firearms are very complex and would be difficult to service or repair, plus ammunition will grow increasingly scarce (or simply become non-functional with age). Building and learning how to use flintlocks would be a good skill to have, plus these items can be passed down to the next generations. Likewise with bows -- do we buy compound bows or do we buy/learn how to make odler bow designs?

Housing also comes to mind. I've written previously about how ill-suited modern houses are to being used in a post-collapse world, plus they often come with an unusuable amount of ground. For people who are considering buying a home, building, or relocating, are we moving to someplace that will be untenable in the days ahead when the power grid eventually begins to fail, or is it someplace we will be relatively comfortable and self-sufficient in? Is there room to do some small-scale agriculture, and so on? For people who want to remodel, likewise, why not do it in a way that will serve you well when the lights go out and candles are the primary form of illumination?

There are some areas which absolutely cannot be translated to the coming collapse, and we just have to recognize that we are wasting time and money on them if we engage in them. Among them are video gaming (hard to run with the power off and I'm skeptical of arguments like "Fallout teaches me how to survive in a hostile world"), expensive vacations (going to Vegas, Europe, etc), wealth building through investments (the only safe investment these days seems to be hard goods like gold and silver and even these cannot be translated to useful items in a post-crash world), and collecting otherwise worthless items (stamps, baseball cards, etc). I'm sure readers could name several more complete wastes of time and resources, too. If we choose to engage in these, we have to do so knowing that we're not ever going to see a return on them.

Downshifting is a rational response to the changing world. When we do this, we're like the animal who is growing a thicker coat in response to cooling weather, or the tree whose leaves are changing colors. We know what's coming, and what we need to do to prepare for it, but we also recognize that we are still part of a different world, even if it's one which is coming to an end at some point, to be replaced with something completely different. We don't have to lose hope, but just have to recognize where we can make changes that will make sense for us in this generation and our children in the next.