Sunday, January 6, 2013

exhaustion



I've been a full-time single dad for the last 12 days, and it's cutting into my ability to just about anything else.

This is not an appeal for sympathy, rather it's an explanation of why I'm not putting together a more thorough or well-researched post this week.  I resolved back in November that I would post something every Sunday night in the coming year, managed to do it through the month of December, and really enjoyed it in the process.

But Gita left for Nepal on Xmas day to see family and friends and take care of some family business.  She planned for a three-week stay, as that's more or less the minimum reasonable stay given the cost of the ticket and the 36 hours of combined flight and layover time it takes to get there.  Not to mention the jet lag.

When she  was going through chemo and radiation the thought of going back to Nepal again sustained her through some of the difficult weeks, so I couldn't hold taking the trip against her.  But I wasn't looking forward to being alone with the kids for three weeks.  What would I do?



As it turns out, we have had  a lot of fun.  I've also found out that moms probably do have the better end of the deal, in that spending more time with your kids makes them less clingy, more fun to play with, and more open in conversation.  I've had a chance to hold  and nurture my son through a serious sick spell (projectile vomiting and nosebleeds!) and play house and endless games of Candyland with my daughter.   As well as help them rearrange the Xmas lights, helping them put them up under the dining room table, as they have declared that now to be the 'kids house'.

I feel like more of a true dad now, after surviving, and even enjoying the extra time with my children.  I've tried to arrange an 'adventure' each day, taking a trip to a museum, or going skating, or visiting a relative's house.  And that's fun, but the most enjoyable times have been spent at home, letting them direct the play, and joining in where I could.  I didn't expect that.

Of course, it's also completely exhausting.  That's the other side of the mom coin.  It's wonderful and completely energy-sucking.  I fell asleep on the kids' bed a couple of times while putting them to sleep, waking up an hour or two later, confused about where I was and how I got there.

So that's where my focus has been.

It has made me reflect on the place of family and caring for dependents in the Long Emergency/Descent/Ascent or whatever you care to label it.  As John Michael Greer pointed out last week, we are in the descent already, that is, we are experiencing a slow-motion ongoing apocalypse of sorts if we care to be honest with ourselves about it.

Lots of doomer publications focus on (to the point of fetishizing about them) the role of bunkers, dry food stocks, guns and geographical escapes as the means of escaping the perceived events of the near future.

But, with young children, my outlook is very different.

Granted, I don't buy the fast descent scenarios that some are putting out there.  I think the decline of the American empire is something that I will deal with for the rest of my life, as will my kids.  This is not something to be ridden out in a bunker in Idaho eating MREs.   At least not as far as I'm concerned.

I prefer to trust that there will be some sort of civilization for my kids to grow up in.   I would like them to be in a school with other kids, so long as that is possible and safe.  I want them to learn about gardening and build useful skills to deal with whatever future they'll be inhabiting.  Perhaps the cornucopians are right, and there will be a future of even greater energy and optimism, and with plenteous office jobs that require little to no effort.  But I'm not banking on it.  Neither am I banking on Mad Max.

There's a lot of room between those two visions of the future, and very few people addressing them, save for some of the folks who's blogs I've linked to on the right side of the page. 

That's something I'll try to touch on more in the future, as I don't have the energy left tonight.

I do wonder how much of the bunkers/guns/MRE mentality is driven not so much by the desire  to ride out a difficult situation as by the desire to have ones mettle tested by extreme circumstances.  I also wonder how much of it involves having license to live out some John Waynesque shoot-em-all fantasies.  In other words, in all but the most dire, fast-collapse scenario, are the preparations really useful?  Or is it more about the desire to live out a video game?

And when raising two young children, and surrounded by people with young children, I have to wonder how far into barbarism most regular people will really allow themselves to descend into.  Difficult times can drive people to do things they otherwise might not, but there is still a lot of good here.  I see it in my neighborhood, my city, my state.  My country is so large that it's hard to see any consistent qualities throughout, but I think there's still a lot of good there as well.

That's no excuse for not being prepared.  I am preparing for a more difficult future, without trying to draw attention to myself (other than yakking about it on this blog of course).   That means being resourceful in a lot of ways- being able to grow and store food, and having a secure home.  But no bunker.  I prefer to know my neighbors. 

More on that another day.  Thanks to those who have commented on the last couple of posts by the way.  I do appreciate it.  I'll try to address something more substantial next week, but still have 10 days of single dad life ahead of me.  I'll see what I can manage.

6 comments:

  1. Ahem!! There is nothing more substantial than raising your kids. And no, I don't have any of my own, so I'm not biased that way.

    The key appeal to me of a non-resource-depletion fast collapse scenario (bird flu pandemic is an excellent example) is that it leaves more resources for the survivors to rebuild with. Of course, we don't really get to choose as individuals how collapse will play out, so we need to be prepared for many possibilities.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hold in there Jeff - I can certainly relate on the kiddie front!

    Don't sweat about doing a post a week. I used to do that, but now I think that it might be better to hold off unless I have something particularly interesting to say. Of course, if you have a lot of free time, doing one a week makes sense, but it doesn't sound like you have a lot of free time at the moment!

    It's also a great point you raise about being PO aware and still choosing to have kids. I thought about doing a post on it myself - there's plenty of meat on that bone!

    ReplyDelete
  3. """"I'll try to address something more substantial next week,""""

    Jeff,

    Stop for a moment and imagine yourself writing this blog post or even discussing ANY of the concepts therein, with any clarity, even five years ago, this time in 2008? I was at Best Buy World Headquarters writing blog posts about weirdo corporate culture (on the clock;), planning a "vacation" to Cancun. How far we have come?

    I am of the opinion the global financial system, aside from being a vast racketeering enterprise (LOL), is also a great deal more brittle than most care to acknowledge, and it is only a matter of time (having been inside one of the big banks for four months) before a reckoning of sorts is going to happen on that front, which will necessitate reckonings on a great many other fronts, but of course the only way to face that is wide-eyed and awake, calm and secure in one's body. Which is really mostly about being at ease in place, which is a thing you help remind us is readily learned in the presence of kids. :)

    Skills and presence of mind, in other words, the watchwords, whatever happens.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks John,

    I agree completely. My kids are the most important thing to me, I'm just not always sure that everyone else will find them as interesting to read about as I find them interesting to write about. Glad you do.
    Regarding fast collapse scenarios- yes, they could happen. I would think of a bird flu pandemic as a sort of micro-collapse within the macro-collapse of the enviroment, economy and empire we're now going through. Having just been through the flu, I'd say there's not much about it that's micro, but it's matter of scale I suppose.

    Jason- Thanks for the encouragement. I go back and forth about holding to the one post a week, but think I'll try to keep it up. I'm starting to plan some work transitions, and posting once a week at the same time every week is a good way to build self-discipline. Or at least that's what I tell myself.
    Kudos on the big move by the way. Looking forward to reading more about it.

    Hunter- You're right of course. I'm kind of fascinated by the community that has been created around this issue in the last few years. It makes me hopeful that something good will emerge from the long emergency.
    Nothing good will emerge from the financial system however. I agree that we're overdue for a meltdown, and Gita and I are quietly converting what little we have in stocks into something more tangible. My faith in the market is now zero- and I was a true believer at one time. I think we need to be prepared for an economy in the near future that looks like that of other nations where corruption is common- that is, much of the third world.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jeff,

    I finally managed to read your entire blog. A little bit here and there when I had the time. I love it! Your writing is so much fun to read. It got me very exited about gardening season and also some great new ideas. Thanks!
    But I had even more fun reading about the kids. So please tell more about them on your blog!
    Ahlem

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Ahlem! It seems like lots of people like hearing about the kids. I'll keep that in mind for future posts. I appreciate your thoughts!

      Delete