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                      For the last half dozen years this web site has
                      served as my "explorer's notebook".  It
                      documents, in a very personal voice,             my journey of discovery
                      through the worlds of energy, ecology, economics
                      and human culture.  It describes my point of
                      view on the largely unrecognized, widely
                      misunderstood and potentially tragic predicament
                      facing humanity as a result of our refusal to
                      accept limits on our activities or aspirations.
            
              
            
              
            I no
                    longer see any point in singling out individual
                    aspects of the human experience for special
                    attention or criticism. Population growth, climate
                    change, global corporatism, chemical pollution,
                    resource depletion, species extinctions, ocean
                    overfishing and acidification, global financial
                    instability, mounting social disparities and
                    injustices are all merely symptoms of a system that
                    has been out of control for centuries (despite our
                    earnest attempts to convince ourselves otherwise.) We have no choice left - or
                    perhaps we never really had any other choice - but to ride
                    the dragon until the human overshoot corrects
                    itself, as overshoots always do.
            
              
            
              
             
            
              
            
                
             
            
                
            
                  
            
                    
            The silver
                          lining I see is that all the pressures coming
                          from this process of correction can be useful
                          goads toward personal self-development. "In all matters, strive to
                          do the right thing." What does this mean to
                            each of us? What does mindful living in the
                            midst of the whirlwind entail, what does it
                            require of us in terms of personal growth,
                            in the development of wisdom and
                            self-awareness? How might each of us resolve
                            our alienation - from each other, from our
                            societies, from nature, from our own place
                            in the universe?  How may we find the
                            re-connections that are essential if we are
                            to emerge from this tumultuous, careless
                            human adolescence into individual and
                            collective adulthood? These are deep
                            questions for dark times.
            
                                      Paul
                        Chefurka
            
                                      
                      
                    
            
                    
            
                    
            Most Recent Articles:
            
                      The
                                Many Faces of Denial (November
                                14, 2013)
            
                              Thermodynamics

                                Reading List (November 9,
                                2013)
            
                              A Thermodynamic
                                Answer to Fermi's Paradox (October

                                29, 2013)
            
                              A
                                Thermodynamic Critique (October



                                19, 2013)
            
                              The
                                Evolutionary Psychology of Fukushima
                              (September 13, 2013)
            
                              Paradise






                                        Lost
                                      (July 25, 2013)
            
                                                  The
                                Dawn of Cybernetic Civilization (July







                                16, 2013)
            
                                        Thermodynamic Footprints
                          (Updated
                            March 23, 2013)
            
                                      No Really, How
                            Sustainable Are We? (May 16,
                            2013)
            
                            The
                                Thermodynamics of Civilization
                            (May 17, 2013)
            
                                       
            
                    
            
                     "Ode to Louis
                          Sullivan" by Kathleen Farago MayArticles that
                        outline the core of my views:
            
                      
            
                      The Situation:
            
                    A 50,000-Foot View of
                      the Global Crisis (July 8, 2011)
            
                    Population: The Elephant
                        in the Room (May 2007)
            
                    Is Peak Population
                      Almost Here? (February 22, 2011)
            
                    The Neuropsychology of Climate
                      Change (December, 2009)
            
                    The Guardian
                      Institutions of Hierarchy (July, 2009)
            
                    Carrying Capacity and
                      Overshoot: Another Look (May 12, 2012)
            
                      
            
                      My Response:
            
                                 
            
                  
            
                  
            
                
            
                
             
            
                
            Climbing the Ladder of
                    Awareness (October 19, 2012)
            
                  Enough! (November,
                    2010)
            
                  Bearing Witness to
                    Collapse (April 26, 2011)
            
                  Introducing the Cultural
                    Psychopomp (February 14, 2012)
            
                  Finding The Gift (September
29,








                    2012)
            
                
            
                
             
                  

            
                    
            
                   
            
                
                
            
                

            
                
            
              
            
              
             
            
              
            
              
             
            
              
            Climbing the Ladder of
                        Awareness
            
              
            
              
            
              When it comes to our understanding of the unfolding global
              crisis, each of us seems to fit somewhere along a
              continuum of awareness that can be roughly divided into
              five stages:
            
              
              
                
            1. Dead asleep.
                  At this stage there seem to be no fundamental
                  problems, just some shortcomings in human
                  organization, behaviour and morality that can be fixed
                  with the proper attention to rule-making. People at
                  this stage tend to live their lives happily, with
                  occasional outbursts of annoyance around election
                  times or the quarterly corporate earnings seasons.
              
                  
              
                
              2. 
                
            2. Awareness of one
                    fundamental problem. Whether it's Climate
                  Change, overpopulation, Peak Oil, chemical pollution,
                  oceanic over-fishing, biodiversity loss, corporatism,
                  economic instability or sociopolitical injustice, one
                  problem seems to engage the attention completely.
                  People at this stage tend to become ardent activists
                  for their chosen cause. They tend to be very vocal
                  about their personal issue, and blind to any others.
              
                  
              
                
              3. 
                
            3. Awareness of many
                    problems. As people let in more evidence from
                  different domains, the awareness of complexity begins
                  to grow.  At this point a person worries about
                  the prioritization of problems in terms of their
                  immediacy and degree of impact. People at this stage
                  may become reluctant to acknowledge new problems - for
                  example, someone who is committed to fighting for
                  social justice and against climate change may not
                  recognize the problem of resource depletion. 
                  They may feel that the problem space is already
                  complex enough, and the addition of any new concerns
                  will only dilute the effort that needs to be focused
                  on solving the "highest priority" problem.
              
                  
              
                
              4. 
                
            4. Awareness of the
                    interconnections between the many problems.
                  The realization that a solution in one domain may
                  worsen a problem in another marks the beginning of
                  large-scale system-level thinking. It also marks the
                  transition from thinking of the situation in terms of
                  a set of problems
                  to thinking of it in terms of a predicament. At
                  this point the possibility that there may not be a
                  solution begins to raise its head.
              
                  
              
                  People who arrive at this stage tend to withdraw into
                  tight circles of like-minded individuals in order to
                  trade insights and deepen their understanding of
                  what's going on. These circles are necessarily small,
                  both because personal dialogue is essential for this
                  depth of exploration, and because there just aren't
                  very many people who have arrived at this level of
                  understanding.
              
                  
              
                
              5. 
                
            5.  Awareness that
                    the predicament encompasses all aspects of life. 








                  This includes everything we do, how we do it, our
                  relationships with each other, as well as our
                  treatment of the rest of the biosphere and the
                  physical planet. With this realization, the floodgates
                  open, and no problem is exempt from consideration or
                  acceptance. The very concept of a "Solution" is seen
                  through, and cast aside as a waste of effort.
              
                
              6. 
              
            
              For those who arrive at Stage 5 there is a real risk that
              depression will set in. After all, we've learned
              throughout our lives that our hope for tomorrow lies
              in  our ability to solve problems today.  When
              no amount of human cleverness appears able to solve our
              predicament the possibility of hope can vanish like a the
              light of a candle flame, to be replaced by the suffocating
              darkness of despair.
            
              
            
              How people cope with despair is of course deeply personal,
              but it seems to me there are two general routes people
              take to reconcile themselves with the situation. 
              These are not mutually exclusive, and most of us will
              operate out of some mix of the two.  I identify them
              here as general tendencies, because people seem to be
              drawn more to one or the other.  I call them the outer path and the inner path.
            
              
            
              If one is inclined to choose the outer path, concerns
              about adaptation and local resilience move into the
              foreground, as exemplified by the Transition








                Network and Permaculture








                Movement. To those on the outer path,
              community-building and local sustainability initiatives
              will have great appeal.  Organized party politics
              seems to be less attractive to people at this stage,
              however.  Perhaps politics is seen as part of the
              problem, or perhaps it's just seen as a waste of effort
              when the real action will take place at the local level.
            
              
            
              If one is disinclined to choose the outer path either
              because of temperament or circumstance, the inner path
              offers its own set of attractions.
            
              
            
              Choosing the inner path
              involves re-framing the whole thing in terms of
              consciousness, self-awareness and/or some form of
              transcendent perception.  For someone on this path it
              is seen as an attempt to manifest Gandhi's message, "Become the change you wish
                to see in the world," on the most profoundly
              personal level.  This message is similarly expressed
              in the ancient Hermetic saying, "As above, so below." Or in plain
              language,  "In
                order to heal the world, first begin by healing
                yourself."
            
              
            
              However, the inner path does not imply a "retreat into religion".
              Most of the people I've met who have chosen an inner path
              have as little use for traditional religion as their
              counterparts on the outer path have for traditional
              politics.  Organized religion is usually seen as part
              of the predicament rather than a valid response to it.
              Those who have arrived at this point have no interest in
              hiding from or easing the painful truth, rather they wish
              to create a coherent personal context for it. Personal
              spirituality of one sort or another often works for this,
              but organized religion rarely does.
            
              
            
              
            It's worth mentioning that there
                    is also the possibility of a serious personal
                    difficulty at this point.  If someone cannot
                    choose an outer path for whatever reasons, and is
                    also resistant to the idea of inner growth or
                    spirituality as a response the the crisis of an
                    entire planet, then they are truly in a bind. There
                    are few other doorways out of this depth of
                    despair.  If one remains stuck here for an
                    extended period of time, life can begin to seem
                    awfully bleak, and violence against either the world
                    or oneself may begin begin to seem like a reasonable
                    option.  Keep a watchful eye on your own
                    progress, and if you encounter someone else who may
                    be in this state, please offer them a supportive
                    ear.
            
              
            
              
            
              From my observations, each successive stage contains
              roughly a tenth of the number people as the one before it.
              So while perhaps 90% of humanity is in Stage 1, less than
              one person in ten thousand will be at Stage 5 (and none of
              them are likely to be politicians).  The number of
              those who have chosen the inner path in Stage 5 also seems
              to be an order of magnitude smaller than the number who
              are on the outer path.
            
              
            
              I happen to have chosen an inner path as my response to a
              Stage 5 awareness. It works well for me, but navigating
              this imminent (transition, shift, metamorphosis - call it
              what you will), will require all of us - no matter what
              our chosen paths - to cooperate on making wise decisions
              in difficult times.
            
              
            
              Best wishes for a long, exciting and fulfilling 
              journey.
            
              
            
              Bodhi Paul Chefurka
            
              October 19, 2012
            
              
            
                
            
                  
            
                
            
                        		
          
            
          
            
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