I’ve just realized one reason that primitivism and primitivist thinking makes me uncomfortable.

Here’s a quote from a recent post on the Anthropik website:

Rather, primitivism says that it isn’t humans who are the problem, but civilization, and one of the worst problems with it is that it is so deeply dehumanizing.

I don’t deny the validity of that statement. I certainly acknowledge the rampant destructiveness of civilization, and I no longer deny the fact that the collapse of civilization, in some form or another, is probably inevitable.

But when browsing through various primitivist websites, I notice how much The End of Civilization is on their radar, and frankly, it gets kind of depressing. Depressing because that’s a heavy burden to be carrying in the forefront of my consciousness all of the time. And, what strikes me about the above quote is that places the power out there, projected onto that evil entity called Civilization. Thinking that way repetitively makes me feel weak without a productive result. I think it’s more constructive to carry the awareness of collapse in the background — not to deny its existence, but to accept it, and once accepted, to dwell on what can be done rather than what cannot.

I don’t know. Perhaps this is my way of burying my head in the sand. I’m fairly sensitive right now, and focusing on becoming stronger is the most important thing I can do, not concentrate on how the world’s going to hell. Honestly, I hate looking at ugly things. And boy are there a lot of ugly things in this world.

I just know that forcing myself to live primitively didn’t work for me. Something about it did violence to my spirit. I made myself do it in part because I thought I needed it, because I was afraid; and in part because I wanted the spiritual connection that I thought was promised in that way of life.

Well, I learned that the choice to live primitively can’t just be about fear. I can’t be running away from something else; I have to run toward life. I have to want it. I have to experience the spiritual connection and genuine, deep, and lasting transformation of consciousness and self that is the essence of what primitivists seek. There have to be ways of attaining that, and I don’t think those ways are necessarily inherent in the primitive way of life — or, rather, I think that they are not necessarily inherent to the modern civilized person’s facsimile of the primitive way of life.

Often, primitivism has meant, ironically, reaching for an artificial, technological solution for survival (i.e. learning crafts and skills). Some people practice those arts out of appreciation for beauty (my wife’s knitting is a fine example), but as an aspect of the primitivist movement, sometimes they are practiced out of a fear of death — to enable people to survive the crash. That desire to avoid death is what got us into this mess. Say what you will about civilization, but in the short term at least, civilization has proven very effective at helping humans survive and grow. Embedded within it is a separation from natural cycles, including that of life and death.

I think that’s the paradigm we need to outgrow. I haven’t studied this, but I imagine that real primitives were not afraid of death the way we are. To be truly free, we need to learn not to be afraid of death; we need to become who we really are, instead of what other people or institutions say we should be, force us to be upon pain of death (whether that’s real death or ego-death). That’s the true paradigm change: Seeking freedom to be alive fully, rather than making a devil’s bargain to survive.

It’s not just about survival.

I don’t know if I will survive the future. I may die in the collapse. Or a telephone pole may fall on me tomorrow. What is most important is that I live my life in a way that brings me, every day, closer to experiencing, embodying, and expressing God. That way, whatever way I die, I will have no regrets. Because it’s the journey that really matters.

This is not an either-or position. I’m going to do the best I can to survive. But really, all this talk of collapse has only emphasized to me what is really important, made me focus more intensively on that which I would have or should have been thinking of anyway. As Castaneda’s don Juan asserted:

A warrior-hunter knows that his death is waiting, and the very act he is performing now may well be his last battle on earth. He calls it a battle because it is a struggle. Most people move from act to act without any struggle or thought. A warrior-hunter, on the contrary, assesses every act; and since he has intimate knowledge of his death, he proceeds judiciously, as if every act were his last battle. Only a fool would fail to notice the advantage a warrior-hunter has over his fellow men. A warrior-hunter gives his last battle its due respect. It’s only natural that his last act on earth should be the best of himself.