We blew past the point of no return – and lit fireworks on the way down

How collapse became a lifestyle brand, why denial is the new national pastime, and what’s left when the lights go out.

 

How do I feel?

Not today. Not in the “forgot-my-umbrella-and-stepped-in-a-puddle” kind of way. I mean cosmically. Existentially. Spiritually. How do I feel after half a decade of watching the world burn down in slow motion like a budget Netflix series with too many filler episodes?

Well, thank you so much for asking.

Imagine waking up in a burning house — flames licking the wallpaper, the air thick with smoke. And then it hits you: you lit the fire. Worse, you’re now arguing with the neighbors over whose turn it is to water the plants while the roof collapses overhead.

That’s about right.

The collective amnesia we’re bathing in is so thick it deserves its own zip code. Everyone I speak to — from LinkedIn visionaries to WhatsApp doom-scrollers — seems to harbor this quaint belief that life before 2020 was a halcyon age of order, peace, breathable air, and groceries that didn’t require a small bank loan. A golden age, they whisper nostalgically, back when you could still buy eggs without consulting your mortgage advisor.

Then came COVID — that charming guest who shows up to your birthday party wielding a chainsaw and a bad attitude — and suddenly, everything unraveled. But here’s the thing: that sweater? It was already moth-eaten, patched up with denial, and reeking of old cologne. We just didn’t notice, too busy posing for filtered selfies, documenting our curated #blessed lives like oblivious extras in the prequel to collapse.

The Greatest Hits of Collapse

Allow me to jog your memory with a nostalgic recap of the descent:

• A global pandemic that transformed every couch-bound idiot with a Wi-Fi signal into a self-certified epidemiologist.
• Lockdowns that would’ve been considered Orwellian fan fiction a year earlier — applauded by the same people who once tattooed “freedom” on their ribs between yoga classes and flat whites.
• The most brutal war on European soil since 1945 — now featuring TikTok influencers broadcasting death and destruction with ring lights and hashtags.
• A Middle Eastern quagmire metastasizing like stage-four cancer, ignored only by those too busy optimizing their side hustle.
• The first hot war between nuclear powers since we collectively agreed that nuclear wars were a bad idea — and now apparently undecided on the matter.
• China’s economic miracle quietly tripping over its own shadow like a drunken acrobat on stilts.
• The United States, in a fit of manic isolationism, taking a hacksaw to the last threads of globalisation like a toddler dismantling a toaster.

And that, my dear reader, is merely the trailer. The opening act. The amuse-bouche of mayhem.

Yet people, sweet summer children that they are, pine for their old lives — as if those weren’t already half-dead, sedated on credit, dopamine, and moral posturing. Like kids begging to rewind the movie just after the bomb goes off.

Newsflash: those lives were already on life support, strung up in a hospital corridor built on debt, denial, and delusion.

The Grand Illusion of Stability

Let’s be clear. The rot didn’t start in 2020. That’s just when the curtain fell off the stage and revealed the termite-infested beams.

No, the unraveling began long before. Some would point to 2008, the year the illusion cracked. But even that was merely the last exit ramp off the doomed highway before the bridge gave out.

We could’ve chosen pain. Productive pain. Tumor-extraction-without-anesthesia kind of pain. But no — we opted for morphine. Quantitative easing. Bailouts. Laudable moonshots. Poetic speeches by empty suits promising salvation through the sacred rituals of more debt and more hope.

Remember 2008? The moment we saved the banks and let the people drown? We pumped adrenaline into the heart of a dying financial system, then clapped as the corpse twitched. The stock market soared, housing became a casino, and executives cashed out with golden parachutes while the real economy — that quaint concept — was left face-down in a ditch behind the Goldman Sachs gala.

What came next? Cheap money. Fake jobs. An attention economy that pays you in serotonin and steals your soul. And a corporate-political pact forged in the flaming pits of short-term greed and long-term ruin.

And now, from the mouths of people who should know better: “Why is everything falling apart suddenly?”

Oh, honey. It’s not sudden. It’s just your blindfold finally slipped.

The Crash Is Already Here

The economy — any major one, take your pick — is now a Ponzi scheme with a national anthem. The U.S. juggles trillion-dollar deficits like a drunk clown. The EU plays ideological hopscotch while its energy policy disintegrates. China? They’re tap-dancing over a minefield of ghost cities and speculative debt.

Germany — that once-proud industrial colossus — is deindustrializing faster than you can say “energy transition.” Britain has become a punchline written by an algorithm. The U.S. refuses to accept the very concept of democratic alternation of power. France is burning again. Italy is bankrupt — again. And Japan? Japan is balancing on a Mt. Fuji of debt in full kabuki makeup.

Even Switzerland, smug, silent Switzerland — banker to the world, refuge of neutrality — is glancing nervously at its balance sheets like a casino manager who just noticed the mob walked in.

And when the final domino falls, the talking heads will bleat:

“Nobody could have predicted this!”

Of course not. Except for all the people who did — the ones you mocked, censored, ridiculed, and ignored. You know, the ones who can fix a flat tire and read history.

Bread, Circuses, and Denial

The public doesn’t want truth. They want convenience. They want Netflix. Avocado toast. Climate virtue without climate action. Digital luxury socialism. Electric SUVs that weigh more than a T-Rex and take six hours to charge.

Inflation? It’s not a number — it’s a shakedown in slow motion. Everything costs more, quality spirals downward, and yet, miraculously, the weekend restaurants are packed, airports oversold, and social media is alight with smiling photos from a civilization tap-dancing into the void.

Meanwhile, the few who do prepare, who ask inconvenient questions, who try to live with eyes open? Laughed at. Shamed. Cancelled. Then — when the system finally buckles — quietly imitated.

The Parasite Class

Let’s not forget our noble “leaders.” Politicians, CEOs, influencers, bureaucrats, and moral entrepreneurs — an unholy synod of decadence and denial.

They don’t ride this train with us. They sip champagne in Davos, tweet climate mantras from Gulfstreams, and buy Boltholes in New Zealand with crypto gains.

They tell you to eat bugs and lower your footprint while expanding theirs to planetary proportions. They ban your gas stove and then install heated driveways in Aspen. They are not here to fix anything.

They are the rot. They are the system. Their job is not to steer the ship — it’s to keep you pacified while they loot the lifeboats.

Pain Is Not the Problem — It’s the Price

Even if we had the moral courage of a Stoic army and the planning skills of a Prussian general — which we absolutely do not — the pain would still come. The losses are already booked.

Wealth. Comfort. Stability. Poof.

That’s what forty years of overdraft living buys you: a bill you can’t afford. And yet we will continue to pretend. To scroll. To tweet furiously about microaggressions while the macro-collapse gathers speed.

Yes, it’s going to get worse.

People will lose homes, pensions, reputations, purpose. Some will lose their minds. Others, their lives. And the response will be:

“Why didn’t anyone do something?”

Oh, sweetheart. Someone did. You just didn’t listen.

Burn It Down

Here’s your good news — if such a term still has meaning. This circus? It needs to burn. The fake valuations. The TikTok economics. The empty virtue. The climate cult wrapped in luxury branding. The idea that we can have infinite growth on a finite planet with declining IQs and inflated egos.

All of it: ash.

From that ash, maybe — just maybe — something real can grow.

We need real work. Real value. Communities. Trust. Human-scale structures. Local economies that don’t depend on trans-Pacific cargo ships filled with junk and lies.

And, crucially, we need to purge — without mercy or apology — the techno-bureaucratic vampire class that’s been draining us dry while composing symphonies of distraction.

Don’t Build a Bunker. Build a Backbone.

You want to survive? Don’t start with canned beans. Start with clarity.

This isn’t about prepping. It’s about decoupling. Mentally. Spiritually. Systemically.

Understand human nature. We are tribal. We need order. And when that order fails — not collapses, just quietly fails — people unravel.

Own less. Need less. Want less. Minimalism is not a lifestyle blog. It’s a f**king sword. The less they can take from you, the more dangerous you are.

Most people don’t die from zero. They die from “not enough.” And if your “enough” is lower than theirs, you might just make it.

Hell, you might even enjoy the ride. Because those who can laugh during collapse? Richer than kings.

Wake Up — Or Be Buried in Comfort

Most people will remain asleep. That’s the natural order of things.

But not you.

You can wake up. You can think. You can adapt.

You don’t need hope. You need strategy.

You don’t need more. You need less, treasured more deeply.

This isn’t about doom. It’s about clarity.

Look the collapse in the eye. Smile. Then walk through it — light, lean, and ruthless.

It’s not easy.

But it is simple.

Your call.