Everything in Review
2025 in a nutshell
A flower bloomed, the squirrels played, the rain fell, and the planet moved ever closer to destruction.
Existing during a year when the entirety of our lives got worse on almost every level, is troublesome, to put it mildly.
I have never been an overly optimistic sort, but the last year has stretched what little optimism I may have had to the breaking point.
I’m trying to come up with an angle for this post, and failing miserably. I don’t feel as though I’m alone in this struggle. There are little things to write about; small moments of joy or beauty, how we feel about our lives, what we might want to consider doing sooner rather than later, how to cope or adjust, how to protect ourselves and our families from the ongoing threat of airborne contagions, and all the other manifestations of a world and a society in terminal decline.
I don’t think that anyone, so far, has been able to truly absorb how unimaginably horrible our lives are going to become. If you still have shelter, food, clean water, and a modicum of financial security then you are in the temporarily safe group, a group, that because of their current position, other than those of us in this little echo chamber, will not ever be able to comprehend what is going to happen.
There used to be a subgroup that I called the “not in my life timers,” they claimed to be concerned about things but believed that it would be young people who would experience the full, disastrous effects of our decline. I haven’t seen as many of those lately because the full disastrous effects of our decline are here now.
Naomi Klein mentioned in one of her books that we have to imagine a future that is unimaginable. She was talking, of course, about a better future, not the nightmare future of what now faces us.
I have always been fond of disasters, the bigger, the better; storms, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, and fires, but that was before these became a very real part of everyday life. When I lived in Northern Arizona, I used to love sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee, watching the thunderstorms as they rolled across the Verde Valley, and then completely engulfing my house, and then moving on. This is a physical manifestation of how things were, the storms used to move on, now they don’t.
There is no joy in Mudville, our precious world has struck out.
I guess I found a thread to pull, it worked for today.
I concur my friend. I am of the belief that 2026 is going to bring in a whole lot more grief than we endured in 2025. More wars, pestilence, hunger and governments toppling.
For those of us who are blessed with a modicum of income, we will need to learn to stretch it more as I still think a recession is coming soon. We're seeing the beginnings but I only give it about another 4-6 months and we'll be seeing gas prices and everything else rise with it.
We had three so called polar vortexes in December, and my home heating bill is huge compared to previous years for the same month. I usually don't see a bill like this until the end of January. This is a fluke, if the weather dudes are right. They're predicting an El Nino for next winter that will make the temps go up beyond what used to be normal for the northern hemisphere this time of year. Good for home heating but bad for droughts and wildfires.
And that's just the weather report. Normally a mundane conversation starter. We're going to war in South America this year. Trump and Rubio will see to it. Israel is probably going to figure out a way to bomb Iran, with or without Trump. Putin is going to roll up what's left of eastern Ukraine by springtime and that will finally settle that. Europe is headed for a major financial reset which could seriously damage the EU bloc altogether, if not destroy it. England is marching quickly to war within it's borders due to its financial distress. Let Bonny King Charlie and Prince Willy figure out how to keep their crowns when London bridges all fall down.
If there was ever a time to hunker down and save every penny (Ohh, I forgot, we don't have those anymore) to try and make it another year above ground, this would be it. I spent a lot of money in 2025 to try and make things ready for what I'm pretty sure is coming. Now I can sit back a little bit and become more reclusive as I watch Rome burn from afar.
I have my solar panels and I've hardened my computer systems to weather the power surges and voltage drops. I'm reading Jessica Wildfire's new survival book she's writing that will upgrade my old Foxfire books with new technology. I am looking into ways to expand our kitchen vegetable garden in case there are produce shortages in the stores because all of the immigrant pickers are in concentration camps or deported now.
Enjoy your new year everyone and good luck surviving the apocalypse in 2026.
I have terminal cancer, so I guess you can count me in the "not in my lifetime" cohort. As I said to another poster, I can't say "happy new year" with a straight face anymore, but I do send you my best wishes. I hope to live long enough to read the conclusion of The Priest. ❤