Day of the Holy Mountain, 56th of Spring, 525 M.E. (Castor): These are the end times. 

I know that sounds hyperbolic and over the top, but I really believe it to be true. We are on the verge of so many collapses - ecological, climatic, political, economic - that I don't see any way the world continues without violence, and by violence I don't mean only mobs and riots (although that will happen) but also armies and bombs. It's not a question of if it will happen (it will) or when (soon), but where. Each person's best hope is that it happens elsewhere and affects someone else, not them.

It's already happening to Ukrainians and Palestinians and now to Kashmiris as well. It's been happening all across Africa and in Central and South America. It's been happening in Haiti.   

I'm not a prepper - my reaction to the impending collapse isn't to horde food and water and arm myself to the teeth, ready to kill anyone who tries to take away from me what I think of as mine. It's that kind of mentality on both a personal, national, and international level that got us into this situation to start with. I have no interest in being the last person on Earth to starve to death after I've exhausted my and everyone else's rations.

Preppers are actually optimists - they assume that there will be some version of society or a world worth surviving for if only they could make it through some temporary crisis. Pessimists assume things will get bad and then get even worse. Why delay the inevitable just to experience even more suffering?

But in the meantime, today. It's sunny outside and birds are chirping. Food is still available in the supermarkets and I get clean water from my tap. Why darken these days with anxieties about future famine and war? These are the days about which future people will dream. Enjoy them now.