Friends will be friends

Almost anybody that's figured out roughly what kind of mess the world is in has, eventually, come to the same conclusion: Yes, there is a whole lot of things that one could do to prepare (for example, put all your possessions in something that floats and can be carried fairly easily somewhere else), but, as a poster in peakoil.com put it: "It doesn't matter squat how many vegetables I grow in my garden if my neighbours don't have any." Yes, things can be useful and important, but the most important thing of all isn't a thing: it's people. It's who are your friends, what they can do for you, what you can do for them, and how far they are.

People coming to it from all angles are coming to the same conclusion. Luis de Sosa, one of the young bright minds at the ASPO conference (ASPO: Association for the Study of Peak Oil), kept talking about being in touch with your community in the dinners after the presentations, and was trying hard to reconcile it with knowing how dull most people are in a small village, and how far and wide are scattered the people he sees as his ASPO friends. The same kind of talk comes from the posts of Michael Panzner, one of the economic bloggers that have figured that we are at the doors of another Great Depression, with the difference that, this time, the fundamental economy is definitely contracting (nobody was too sure of what was really happening in the Great Depression). At the other end, among hippie types that are attracted to the local Transition group, with only the barest understanding of the technical detail of what's happening, you find the same thing: it's all about the community.

The problem is that, just because it's just dawned on you that friends are really, REALLY important, it doesn't mean that everybody else has noticed at the same time. You may be suddently willing to spend a lot more time with people, that doesn't mean that people are more willing to spend time with you, help you, or anything like it. You may need help painting your houseboat, you still have the same trouble finding helpers. You may put your hopes up that the local Transition group is somehow going to become your tribe where you all do things for each other, and soon discover that most people in the group aren't going to reconsider their social ties in the least. You never realized how many of your relationships with other people are long-distance, casual, and otherwise unsuitable for harsh times, until you start counting with your fingers and discover in despair that one hand is more than enough to count the friends you have that look like half dependable.

I think I have about three and a half friends right now that would count when it matters: the Mad Scientist, the Buddhist engineer, the Ex and the Boss (this is the one that I only count as half). They're all great for a chat and they've all proved that they can help sometimes. They all have very obvious flaws as well, but hey, I'm far from flawless myself. If things got really tricky, I'm not sure any of them could make a difference. But for the gradual day-to-day trying to figure out what to do next, I think they will do. In times like Christmas, I'm already double-booked with two of them, possibly triple-booked, and the remaining one would invite me immediately if I said that I had nowhere to go. They all worry when I have a cold and whether I'm keeping warm enough in the boat. 

I guess that's as much as anybody could ask for. Goodwill to all men! (And don't ask what's in store for the girls...)