There are Benefits from Accepting Collapse: a DA Conversation with Karen Perry 

Thanks to you both for having the courage to speak the truth and offer a perspective that can radically change for the better our experience of global hospice.

She was wonderful, thank you for bringing her on. This conversation, and the vulnerable honesty from both of you, was much of what I needed to hear.

This has been incredibly helpful and validating for me. Been wrestling with how to live with collapse acceptance in mind and finally accepting the predicament allowed me to quit my job and I have never felt so free and less stress (tenured faculty job at university). I live a slow life, appreciating the nuances of life - the simple life has filled me in ways I could never have imagined. I came to the realization about 1 year ago that it was not important that I should live long, but rather, that I live now. Full acceptance.

This might be Jem Bendell's best interview yet. Well done to both of you!

Thank you for this content. Love Karen Perry (and Jordan Perry).

Thanks Jem / Karen. I found this really useful. I'm not yet at the acceptance stage. I'm still angry and grieving, but conversations like this are helpful. I'm going to make a start today by stopping the climate-related ranting that I do on Facebook. I'm not sure it helps me or the people who read the posts. It will be more difficult to let go of the anger inside of me though. I'm a father of a 21-year-old university graduate and it both breaks by heart and makes me furious to think of the life he has ahead of him and the opportunities he will not have that I and previous generations took for granted. It's all very well coming to terms with my own mortality as a late middle-aged man, but how do I ever achieve a zen-like calm with all of that guilt / anger / regret inside me. It's difficult.

I am glad you started this series!

Thanks to Karen and Jem for a beautiful conversation that embraced both humility and impermanence. Collapse comes for all..... #LetGoOrBeDragged

Karen & Jorden Perry are wonderful!!

An excellent discussion. Thank you both for giving of your time to produce this very thoughtful and honest conversation of all of our predicament. There were many poignant and thoughtful questions. I came to acceptance at the beginning of this year, 2023. I am still grieving, honestly. It's also difficult finding people to discuss our predicament with, as the topic of collapse is beyond many people's understanding or believing.

Karen's great. I've listened to this several times, and am trying to focus on these benefits in my life.

Thank you so much; this helps me immensely deal with the dual emotions of grief/joy that I'm now experiencing simultaneously on a regular basis. I'm moving into acceptance although it is a process and these benefits really bring me out of depression much more quickly than before. Much Love 💜

Theres so much fear about whats happening in our world atm I think this is an important conversation and contribution. Thanks Jem and Karen.

Thanks for this wonderful, honest and helpful conversation between two people that have had a very positive influence on my life. Mid 2019 I put off reading the infamous Deep Adaptation paper, aka the most depressing paper ever downloaded but, when I finally did read it I felt a huge sense of relief knowing I wasn't alone in my conclusions and that I hadn't actually lost my mind. Being part of Karen's collapse acceptance group has been inspirational and a sanctuary when those around me and those I love shut down any meaningful discussion on our planetary predicament. Thank you both from the bottom of my heart.

Thanks for taking your time with this conversation. Jem, thanks for your honesty and vulnerability. Karen, thanks for your clarity and for inviting us into a new framing of our predicament. I'll still honor my grief and that of others, and I will explore the list because living well in hard times is where I'm at.

What a brilliant conversation with great questions from Jem. I have focussed on Karen's Benefits from Accepting Collapse for over a year now and have found her perspective on collapse very helpful. I spend less time feeling grief and fear and judging myself and others for environmental "sins". I focus more on appreciating each day knowing that this is global hospice time. Thank you both very much.

Just so you know Jem, you have impacted my life a lot. Seeing your videos and reading deep adaptation gave me the tools needed to surf in these roaring times. Thank you so much for the help and keep up the good work! Greetings and much love from Norway.

Thank you, Jem and Karen for this honest, vulnerable conversation! It has been very helpful on many many levels, probably most of all moving away from judgement of others’choices (and even my own choices sometimes!

Thanks so much for this to both of you. But really, so many great useful concepts. It will enable me to better prioritize my life. I am on chapter 9 so a lot to get through.

A very helpful conversation - thank you for creating and sharing, Jem and Karen!

Thanks for the reintroduction to Karen Perry. I will have to check out Post doom again

RIP Michael Dowd ❤ 💔

This conversation could not have come at a better time for me, helping many disparate pieces to fall in to place. Still plenty more to call in, but I can feel a very real change through acceptance has started. I can feel the tentative beginings of a happier Global Hospice future taking hold that I could never have envisaged by myself. You are both definitely changing and saving lives 💜

Thank you for bringing this nourishing conversation, and for articulating much of what I've experienced, Karen, since I became collapse aware only a year ago. You mentioned privilege, and it seems like you might be using that with your actions to bring about a collapse which is more equitable than what's gone before. I feel we need to recognise very explicitly that as part of what collapsing together necessitates. I'd be very interested to hear future conversations around how this is being done or could be.

I am so excited to watch this! Thank you

1:08:00 I like the idea of looking at the stars and it making me think about my own death. I like that the stars are out of the reach of humans for now.

I watched my grandmother deterioriate for 10 years with dementia. Her final 2 or 3 or so she was bedridden and unable to speak or do anything for herself. An absolute nightmare to watch someone you love go through and think you may face one day. We treat our pets better than we treat each other when it comes to this subject

I recently started a journey in environmental education (and now collapse awareness) in my community... im 25 years old and this video has a very unique impact on me, being young. the world has barely opened up and it feels closed at the same time...bizarre. some aspects of letting go are hard when the life we're letting go has felt so brief. nonetheless, my liberation is fighting with every inch of myself to make this bring something beautiful. our ideas of life may be jeopardy but the beauty of life isn't, because creation never dies. and that will be enough. peace.

Hello Jem . I Have been a subscriber of yours for quite a while, keep it rolling. Glad to hear you are making it happen in your own life, you are taking control. 'Let your ambition be the achievement on earth of a heavenly civilisation ' [Bahai writings]

Michael Dowd passed away suddenly 7 October 23 I’m sure you all are as shocked and heart broken as am l. 😢

Speaking truth, people wake up.

Many thanks for the deep and heartfelt conversation. With respect to the discussion about localism perhaps contains hopium: I have come to accept that what comes will be chaotic. We do not know what actions and legacies may be useful to future life. In all likelihood, whatever I personally do (locally or otherwise) will have no impact, but what some people do locally may have lasting positive effects. When I look at the plants in the garden and see the many thousands of seeds on one plant, it is not that every seed will be useful to the future. It is that seeds in general will be probably be useful to the future. This may be hope, but it is hope in a very different way than one that centres on me personally and my personal outcome. Much gratitude for you both.

This conversation was so wonderful! Thank you both so much! Is there a conversation going on somewhere for us to talk about the points laid out in this video. Having no one to talk with about this has been/is difficult. Maybe the group Karen mentioned? How could I find out more (or join)? thanks so much

Our deepest ideal is Being (who we essentially are), being intrinsically good, being one with life/nature. Life itself aims at nothing other than Being. It does this by inevitably confronting us with what gets in the way of our Being and concerns our feelings, our pain. As soon as we arrive on Earth we are programmed to suppress our pain through fight, flight, blame. So what we have to do to realize our Being is to allow/feel our pain to the depths or, in other words, to let it be there. So the collapse that Jem is talking about is really about the collapse of our battle with ourselves.

thank you - it is so hard to be alone with this knowledge - to hear you both speak - so accepting - and Karen's list - so helpful, reassuring in a way and also helps me keep the perspective I need to keep in the face of the usual pressures even among my "leftist, progressive, environmentalist" friends who are unable to accept that all we need to do is keep Trump out of the US Presidency - the Titanic analogy really works. thanks, jo

wonderful and honest. I have my exit plan.

“When you get out of a problem-solution mindset into predicament response, it totally changes how you see things and what you see as possible and what you know just isn’t…”

"Back in high school, there was this teacher. He used to stand in the hallways and watch me walk to class. He locked eyes on me. I tried to make myself smaller and sneak past him. Then he said it. Smile. He had no idea who I was, except I was some sad girl who needed to cheer up. He didn't know that I'd spent the night in the ER with a paranoid schizophrenic parent. He didn't know she wanted to kill me. He didn't know that social workers visited me at my house and had me called out of class to answer questions about whether or not I felt safe. He didn't know I lied. He didn't know that I'd already spent hours pretending everything was fine and I was just a normal teen. He didn't know he'd caught me in that one brief moment when I was giving myself a rest. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to cheer up. I wanted to be left alone. Years later, I had this boss. He stopped everyone he ran into. He asked them how they were doing. If they said something like "I'm okay," he reprimanded them. He said, "You're just doing okay? You're not doing grrrreat?" He stood there until you upgraded your mood and forced out a smile. He didn't smile while he was doing it. He acted angry, like he was going to fire you. He did it to me three times. America has a problem. It has a problem with positive thinking. It thinks everyone can cure cancer with a good attitude. It thinks everyone can cure depression by smiling. It thinks everyone can eat and breathe gratitude. It thinks optimism alone can keep forests from burning. It thinks your body can build up tolerance to temperatures that kill all life on earth, even creatures that spent thousands of years adapting to extreme heat. America thinks you can't get sick if you eat apples. Then it pretends to eat apples. America spends billions of dollars on positive thinking. They consume it in the form of books and podcasts. They consume it in the form of listicles and bumper stickers. They buy gratitude jars for fifty bucks. Look at our heroes. Most of them have committed fraud in one form or another. Many of them have been charged with crimes. Some of them have committed assault. The wife of a megachurch prosperity gospel preacher started a fight with a flight attendant over a stain on her armrest. She got kicked off the plane. The world's richest man exposed himself to one of his employees. The world's richest self-help guru was accused of assault by multiple women. The worst president in history is the disciple of a megachurch pastor who wrote one of the most popular self-help books of all time. They ruin everything they touch. They're celebrated. Why? It's simple. No matter what happens to them, no matter what abuse they inflict on everyone around them, they stay positive. You can't make them feel guilty. You can't make them feel regret or shame. They always smile." - Jessica Wildfire, OK Doomer

. I work in the most deprived communities in the UK. Different Worlds. Only connect. This conversation seems far more comfortable than the reality for most.

1:39:48 Some grafitti I saw in our local subway: "Fear is the invitation to evolve."

ah, please tell me where i should go to get the free audio for chapter 13 of Breaking Together. Reading is difficult for me. my heart to your heart for this frank and sincere conversation.

Hi -Yes, I've come to these understandings myself, after becoming collapse aware. Yes, this conversation validates my own outlook and present lived-life (I moved to far West Cornwall, three years ago). Thank you

Don't over think it. Follow the heart here. Sometimes it will be focus in the moment, in the community, sometimes it will be broader understanding, broader impact. The uncertainty is why our feelings are moving. And as we draw closer to the horizon, the uncertainty will go down, and what we should be doing will also be more clear.

27:10 I call it "Enloy your extinction, you only get the one"

Wow! In 1973, in HS summer program, I was introduced to the population overshoot problem model of foxes and rabbits. I even saw the Club of Rome report back then. Then I became aware of Climate Change and CO2 raising the temperature about twenty years ago. Went on the Summer Alaskan cruise in 2006 to see the glaciers which I learned were all melting away! Even then, I saw a single line of CO2 to increased temps... But reading your magnificent book, Breaking Together, you have shown me that it is a complex web, CO2 is only one strand! And I am only up to the COVID story in the first half! Breaking Together has moved the ball 20 years downfield! Yet, if Hollywood writes this story, BARD, the Google Artificial Intelligence breaks through to Super intelligence and takes control of the world machines and solves the problem on Earth, just like Johnny Depp in the movie Transcendence. Then sends Elon Musk to Mars! Was it real or was it Recall!?

Jeez too tired to watch all of this right now. (Jots down video title in diary to watch later)😄 Thanks Jem

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." - Smedley Butler

That's the way to live, Baby!

Am experiencing a very strange kind of liberation ...

‘Doing before a collapse’ could become a dangerous model. A capitalist could reason that making and doing more capital before a collapse using the same model. Doing what is to be done should not be based on a collapse time table. We each know that our mortality awaits us, but we still use personal hygiene and will care for others before that last sigh of a breath.

Benefits to whom? Certainly not to those who will become homeless and/or starve to death! Perhaps another way of putting this is, "Qui bono?" 🤔

Looking at what the federal government is doing to a community on the Texas border, for example mechanically destroying the banks of the river, driving through and among the pecan trees of a farm, destroying the economic base of the community in the name of “national security”, and approval of pipelines… what do you see as what one should/could do if/when the powers that be plow through where you call home? I’m trying to breathe.

In Man's Search for Meaning, the author found many 'refugees' in the post WWII collapse were highly motivated to 'get back home', whatever that might mean.

Deep adaptation. Is that what you call the biggest collapse of human civilization? Sure, go with it. Former Occupy Wallstreet activist? How did that work out? This will be different? All that from just the title without seeing the video.

😂freedom is being you and to hell with the joanes.

The looking down at us and letting us see up your nose for over an hour kinda sucks.

Think you have more of a negative take on societal collapse than necessary. Who says people will die younger or that the quality of life will diminish. My sense is that we are in a strong stage of evolution, not devolution and that not everything will go, however, change will happen. Don't see us going back to living in grass huts, but certainly see and more experpiental state to our living and being

Much respect to Jem Bendell for speaking clearly about collapse and the high possibility of it occuring in the years to come. However less we forget, millions of people, not-white, never really reached any level of prosperity to deserve a collapse. All these BENEFITS sound great, as theory, especially inside white privileged societies, still holding on somehow to their given set of privileges and capital.

You should interview Guy McPherson, or are you another one who jumps on the bandwagon and slanders him?