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April 2008 
Apocalpse soon? 7 Ways to Prepare for an Uncertain Future.
Posted on Jan 16th, 2008
by 
Duff
Duff
http://flickr.com/photos/dailysnap/932035/
It seems like everyone is talking about the end of the world.
Conservative Christians interpret every bit of news from the middle east as evidence that a Jewish mystic from the 1st century is coming back to condemn us for having premarital sex.
Leftists on the other hand, prefer to use predictions from violent primitive civilizations plus the evidence of global climate change and depleting oil supplies as "proving" that we are about to experience a total crash of civilization, sending us (at best) back to the 1850's industrial age.
Meanwhile the transhumanists seem to think that things are inevitably getting better, and at an exponential rate, unless of course self-replicating nanobots eat the biosphere.
And of course, there are still many missing nukes, and many terrorists who'd like to use them.
Perhaps one of these scenarios will occur, or perhaps not. Y2K and 911 if anything simply boosted the economy, especially in the bottled water and canned food sectors.
So what's a reasonable person to do? Here are my 7 hot tips for preparing for the uncertain future:
1. Develop a sense of humor. No matter what happens, it's gonna be hilarious! Wouldn't it be great to see Jesus come back and tell us that we are all going to be eaten by nanobots because we didn't conduct enough Mayan human sacrifices to the oil gods?
2. Meditate. No doubt, the future is going to be weird! The best way I've found to develop the ability to roll with the weirdness is to practice non-attachment, and meditation is a great way to do that. Plus meditation helps one develop an ability to see things as they are, and to enjoy the present moment.
3. Get healthy. Whether we are heading towards a post-oil apocalpse or a transhumanist immortality in the metaverse, your health matters more than ever. Aim for the kind of health that will lead to a long life, with a robust immune system. That way you can live long enough to experience as much of these strange times as possible!
4. Drop the drugs. Drop pot and cocaine in particular, as they tend to make people paranoid. We have enough to be worried about as it is--we don't need any additional drug-induced paranoia. I have a hypothesis that many of the conspiracy theories and apocalptic visions of the left are simply pot-induced paranoid fantasies. Do some personal growth work on paranoia and worry. Learn to let go and accept your own death (read Who Dies? by Stephen Levine).
5. Think in systems. Only systems-thinking solutions will work for systems-level problems. Global warming is largely a problem of imbalance in the carbon cycle--we've moved much of the carbon that was stored in trees and fossils into the atmosphere, and removed many of the trees that kept the system balanced. Learn the systems archetypes. Study systems theory, on all levels.
6. Think in probabilities and models. Modern science no longer considers absolute truth attainable, but rather thinks in terms of useful models and approximations. Alfred Korzybski pioneered thinking this way in all domains, which he called General Semantics. Read Robert Anton Wilson's Quantum Psychology to begin to think with more sanity and less dogmatism.
7. Become incredibly curious about the human addiction to certainty. Expose yourself to several intelligent yet contradictory perspectives on the future. Read The Long Emergency and The Singularity is Near and Natural Capitalism and 2012. Argue one at a time that each one poses an exact view of the inevitable future. Then, try to figure out which one or combination of which ones are "correct." Let all these perspectives go. Become incredibly curious about the human addiction to certainty.
Have a wonderful day! And try to relax, ok? :)
Access: PublicTagged with: apocalpse, 2012, end of the world, end times, left behind, General Semantics, systems thinking, meditation, humor, nanobots, peak oil
Pax Duff - Peace with you
Saw your blog entry on Gaia's Frontpage.
As a (non-conservative) Christian I love what our big brother, friend and master Jesus recommends in His “Apocalypse soon ? - One way to prepare”
He basically says: ” You don't know and even I don't know the hour and day [of the apocalypse] - Simply become and stay awake, conscious. That`s it.”
Of cause - then there are a thousand ways to become awake and conscious - as we all here @ Gaia explore together.
Thx for your entry, Duff.
The playfoolish Pilgrim
This advice sounds like that of Stephen Levine in his book Who Dies?
Stephen has worked with thousands of dying people, and he's noticed that those who die peacefully lived a life of facing each moment as it arises, becoming more alive and conscious and accepting of changes.
Cheers!
Another helpful book that could fit in among those you listed, as a comprehensive guide to developing a new perspective with clarity, is Training the Mind, by Chogyam Trungpa. Humourous, cogent, perspicaciously delivered and a tad advanced.
Thx for the entry, Duff
(I've never called a book purposeful before, but this one receives that acknowledgement …)
Gotta love Trungpa. He was the first Buddhist I read.
reply 2 Duff - two entries above
Yes, Stephen Levine refers to what Jesus recommends in times in which Apocalypse was already a popular theme
I sense, that maybe only point 2 of your tips really matters, Duff ?!
Duff,
I must say this is a great post. Besides approaching mastery of the blog medium on this one, you really provide a good big picture view of the whole scenario as well as some very good advice to boot. You also turned me on to Korzybski who looks like a complete nut–right up my alley–and reminded me about Robert Anton Wilson, who i'd almost forgotten about.
Thanks Lionizer!
Yes, Korzybski was a complete nut. He popularized “air quotes” and hyphenating words like mind-body as techniques of thinking for greater accuracy and wholeness.
PlayFoolPilgrim,
Point #2 (meditate) is extremely important in my opinion, for preparing for difficult times or potential endings.
But I agree with Ken Wilber on this one, in that meditation will not show you your psychological shadow, nor will it train your intellect.
There are many dogmatic, neurotic, ethnocentric enlightened masters.
It depends on how you experience, live or practice meditation. I experience and heard others as well sharing, that meditation also shows your shadow and shows you zones to liberate the shadow. And that meditation also trains my intellect - especially in the art of emtpying ”mindfullness” which prevents my intellect from “operating” well.
To what do you relate your last sentence to, Duff ?
Thank you for our conversation and a nutrious culture of (sometimes) dis-agreement. :-)
Andre, Germany
I'm enjoying the dialogue as well, Andre! :)
I suppose it depends on what you mean by “meditation.” I meant something like the practice of Anapana (noticing the sensations of the breath at the nostrils) or Vipassana (noticing sensations with precision and equanimity, or noticing aspects of attention with precision and equanimity). Neither of these two techniques engages with the content of mind directly. In order to see and deal with shadow material, one must engage at the level of the content of the mind and personality, e.g. using the Enneagram, Jungian psychoanalysis, dream interpretation, men's work, shamanic journey work, etc.
These types of meditation techniques can lead to noticing content of the mind which can give insights into shadow material, but this is NOT the point of these techniques, and can be highly distracting from the the true goal (especially when you are in the dark night periods, where your mind is going insane, and the way out is to keep practicing meditation, not to deal with your psychological stuff). The goal of these techniques is usually stated as going beyond mind and matter to a state of pure emptiness and/or insight into the fundamental nature of (subjective) reality. It's about changing your relationship to mind and matter, not about solving any problems within the realms of mind and matter. I recommend Daniel Ingram's very helpful book for a practical guide to this territory.
On the other hand, if by “meditation” you mean a collection of introspective techniques that can include engaging with the contents of mind, then of course these kinds of techniques can help you see and work with your shadow. And any training of the attention can help when you do engage with the contents of mind, whether doing psychological work or intellectual work. But the contents of mind remain unchanged until they are examined and changed. Learning to concentrate the mind and have equanimity will not necessarily eliminate any bad habits (I know many smoking meditators), purge you of any specific fears, make you less sexist or racist, etc. And I still hold that it is one of the most important things we can do!!
What I meant by the sentence about “dogmatic, neurotic, ethnocentric enlightened masters” is that pure training of the mind through Anapana, Shamatha, Vipassana, Dzogchen and other techniques of meditation that do not engage with the contents of mind do not necessarily correct problems there. Specifically, these techniques do not deal with intellectual frameworks (dogma), psychological material (neurosis), socio-cultural issues (racism, sexism, etc.), or levels of development. Hence you find deeply realized teachers that have strange rituals in which they can't be in the presence of women, or that talk dogmatically about how we must overcome dogma in the Buddhist tradition, etc.