We're Never Getting Back to Normal. You Don't Have to Pretend Anymore.

This is it now.

grandfailure

A woman walks down a road in China. She’s recording hundreds of dead crows on her phone. It looks like something out of an M. Night Shyamalan movie. The comments are worse. The conspiracy theorists are blaming 5G. Someone else says, “It was lightning.” If you say the obvious, that makes you a fearmonger. People around the world are stumbling across scenes like this one everywhere. Meanwhile, three grizzly bears tested positive for avian flu.

So did a little girl in Ecuador.

So yeah, welcome to your worst nightmare.

Can we just accept it?

It’s almost funny how many optimists want to accuse you of panicking or fearmongering just for describing what’s happening. Scientists widely acknowledge that we’re living through the worst bird flu outbreak in history, by a long mile, and that it’s not slowing down anytime soon.

Bird flu is here to stay. It’s learning how to jump to humans before our very eyes, and yet so many want to pretend it’s not happening. They want to believe their problems will stop with a temporary price hike in eggs. Newspapers want to run clever headlines about the “shell-shocking cost.”

It’s like listening to Fozzie Bear.

That’s just the tip.

As many of us already know, an avalanche of scientific evidence is saying now that Covid slowly hijacks our immune systems, one infection at a time. It makes us vulnerable to other viruses, bacterial and fungal infections, you name it. Even there, a chorus of professional minimizers make desperate arguments that somehow it’s fine to allow this virus to run wild forever.

We’ve worn out our vaccines and treatments.

The drug shortages are getting worse, not better. The media continues to play that off too. They’re saying it’s normal for us to run out of common painkillers, antibiotics, and anti-inflammatory drugs.

You might wonder what our leaders are doing about all this. If they’re not bickering over gas stoves, they’re congratulating themselves online for letting the Federal Reserve tank the economy—because none of them will stand up to corporate corruption. The Surgeon General is tweeting spiritual wellness platitudes that belong in a Rachel Hollis book. He’s got no plan for Kraken or anything else. One state just passed a law saying women have to cover their arms when they’re in Congress. Another state wants to ban the sale of electric vehicles by 2035 to stabilize the very industries that are destroying the planet. Honestly, we’ve seen better leadership in The Simpsons. At least last year we got Fly Formula.

This year, we’re getting life advice.

You know, I think it’s pretty clear. They’re not coming to save us. They never were. Our president has gone full vice president mode. He’s flying around cutting ribbons and giving lukewarm speeches.

If you wanted permission to talk about doom, this is it. Our leaders have abandoned their posts. They’re all clinging desperately to power, and they’re just fighting for attention now. Politics has devolved into a sad reality show, where everyone’s in a contest to say the most outrageous thing.

Everyone keeps talking about getting back to normal. That’s not happening. We’re lightyears from normal.

We’ll never see normal again.

On the climate change front, there’s now a 48 percent chance that we’ll breach the sacred 1.5-degree threshold within the next 3-4 years. Climate scientists are now saying that it’s a 100 percent certainty by 2030. Anyone who’s still talking about achieving net zero emissions by 2050 is living in a G-rated movie. Our emissions have continued to rise, and this year’s COP28 Conference is being held in the UAE of all places, one of the world’s top oil exporters. If you read Bill McGuire in The Guardian, then you know that most climate scientists aren’t doomsayers at all. They’re scared to tell us how bad it really is.

It’s safe to say, you don’t have to worship at the feet of normal anymore. If you haven’t already, you have full permission to start prepping for a life of scarcity and uncertainty. It’s just a matter of time before it touches your life.

Things that aren’t crazy anymore:

1. Building a water catchment system.

2. Keeping a prepper pantry.

3. Packing a bugout bag.

4. Homesteading.

5. Planning for de-industrialization.

6. Assembling your (zombie) apocalypse team.

I’m not kidding. It would be smart to get a bicycle and learn how to fix it. Worried about storms and megafloods? Get some life jackets. Get some helmets. Have them ready. Let people laugh. What do you care?

I no longer dream about owning a home library. I dream about owning a tiny home with solar panels and a safe room.

Don’t feel bad for doomscrolling, either.

You’re not panicking. You’re gathering information about threats from social media, since our mainstream news is often the last to report them now. If anything, you need to get better at doomscrolling.

Don’t take it so personal.

Don’t feel bad about wearing your N95 mask. Don’t feel bad about taking your kids out of public school. Don’t feel bad for prepping. Don’t feel bad for skipping all those lame parties and brunches. It’s not weird. It’s the smart answer to what we’re seeing. You’re right to be thinking about these things. You’re right to be talking about them. You’re right to be planning for them.

You’re not living in fear.

The ones who say that are living in denial. Look at how far they have to stretch their arguments now. Look at how uninformed they are. They’re telling everyone not to panic, but they don’t have the slightest clue what’s happening. They’re operating on speculation and whimsy.

It gets clearer every day.

Anyone with a good head on their shoulders isn’t planning for a normal future, not anymore. We know we probably won’t be sending our kids to college, assuming we have kids. We know we won’t be retiring.

We have to build our tolerance for bad news, and we have to find moments of peace and beauty whenever we can. We’ll be scavengers of happiness. We’re not hysterical. We’re not bitter, not anymore. We know what’s going on. We’re going to spend the rest of our lives fighting for our survival.

We’re kind of already doing it.