Resilience, Empathy & Wu Wei: Living a More Fulfilling Life in the Age of Collapse

Some people out there have looked at the science, thrown their hands up and said “Oh well, it’s all over. I now have an excuse to do nothing and complain all day, because the world is ending.” Even more unfortunate is that some of these people are calling themselves Doomers, which I take offense to. I like Jem Bendell’s “Doomster”, and I find it to be a good way of replacing a word that has been used in a derogatory way to describe us—a  subculture of people who have decided to accept our current reality based on not only scientific data, but what we see and feel with our own eyes. I get that things look dark—hey, maybe even dismal—but responding with apathy and the do-nothing copout is not any different from being in denial. There is a way to move forward, knowing what we know about where we are and the uncertainty that lies ahead, without just giving up. We must adapt to our new circumstances as they come, let the changes in the environment and our lives shape us. As the old saying goes, “What doesn’t  kill us makes us stronger”.

Once we’ve come out of denial and moved into the acceptance of what is, there is a possibility for us to lead more fulfilling lives, to become stronger, to help others in their struggles. Once we stand with our arms and eyes open, then we truly have the chance to make our lives count.

Resilience

The American Psychological Association defines resilience as:

“The process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.”

The key words there are adapting, flexibility, and adjustment. We can’t just do things the way we always have if the goal is resilience. So let’s look at one big change—2023 was the hottest year on record, and summers seem to be getting longer, hotter and drier.

How can we adapt/adjust/be flexible?

• We can collect rainwater in wetter seasons to water our gardens in summer

• We can plant drought or heat-tolerant fruit trees for shade and food on our own properties or on public lands to provide for the community

• We can stop using fireworks and also educate others on fire-safety practices while camping and celebrating.

• We can invest in shades for the south-facing doors and windows in our houses to cut down on summer energy use

• We can rip our lawns out and plant summer veggies, herbs and fruits or replace the grass with clover (in wetter climates) or rocks and desert plants(in drier climates)

• We can repurpose the water from our washing machines to use for non-food watering

These are just a few suggestions to increase resilience as a response to that particular situation, but the adapt/adjust/be flexible response can work with most situations. This approach can be a great starting point for increasing financial resilience in our current economy, where groceries are 2-3 times as expensive as they were four years ago and rent is often double the usual rate. Increasing resilience all around is the key when considering the implications of the changes and uncertainty collapse will bring.

Empathy

The second concept I’d like to bring up is empathy. Empathy is an emotion that has been chipped away at by social media use, less meaningful human interconnectedness, and increasingly stressful and polarized times. However, empathy is absolutely necessary as we move into this new reality. Here’s a definition of empathy from the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

"Empathy: The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another."

We can’t create the kind of community that has a better chance of surviving collapse without being empathetic and fighting off the social conditioning that has us at each other’s throats. We need to realize that we’ve all been lied to, not just by Trump and Biden, but by Bush, Clinton, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, McDonald’s, Kroger and all of the other corporate and political masters of the universe. In the name of asserting control over the general population and creating wealth for the one percent, these monsters have convinced us that our enemies are each other, when in fact, they are public enemy number one.

To stop seeing other (non-1 percenters) as your enemy without even knowing them, try reaching out. Think about things that you might have in common, and say hi. Most likely, they watch some of the same shows you watch, have their own families, and have their own struggles.

Think about the hurt they might feel if they knew how you felt about them, without even knowing who they were. Think about the struggles they might have every day as a person of color, a poor white blue collar worker, an immigrant, a woman, a single parent, whatever. Reach out across the boundaries that keep us from joining together and start creating real community, without the restrictions and negative attitudes of the past.

It Is empathy that will help us to move past the politics and the petty judgements we all hold for each other—to truly create community, beyond small groups that all subscribe to the same narrow ideas and into a radical new community of people from all races and walks of life.

Wu Wei

Wu Wei (无为 in Chinese) is an ancient Taoist idea that stems from the ideas of ancient philosopher Lao Tzu, author of the Tao Te Ching. In English, the meaning of Wu Wei has been translated as “non-doing”, “effortless action”, or “action without doing”. This idea of effortless action means that we are not forcing, not striving against the flow of life and of nature. Perhaps the most popular description of Wu Wei is Bruce Lee’s assertion that we should “Be like water”:

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

Being like water, Wu Wei, means adapting to everything as it comes and not fighting; it means finding the path of least resistance; moving through each moment in flow, without trying to control. Moving forward with purpose and flow in an age of pandemics, weather emergencies, severe climate change and economic uncertainty is increased aggression and violence will require us to let go and adapt to the reality of each moment, as it comes.

We don't know exactly what will happen in the future, but we can be open to and accepting of the present. We can join together, despite petty differences, and as a result, become stronger and more resilient. What we have now is the opportunity to live a good life, to work with the Earth instead of against it; to work with each other instead of fighting; to give everything we have to create the best kind of future we can.