First question-- when the poll was taken last week most conveyed that their best educated guess was--the the rollover would generate a depression. That being the case I will assume some commerce will still exist. What are the vocations that you think will be coveted at that time?? Second Question-- What do you portend will be the psychological manifestations of the rollover---WITHOUT any disruptions occuring between now and then? Thank you in advance for your insightful responses!!

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), July 24, 1999

Answers

Question 1:

I have no idea. I've never had the knack of correctly guessing trends.

Question 2:

Most people I've met in this life I regard as sheeple. Sheeple either cannot or will not think for themselves. Sheeple rely on the media (t.v. mostly) & the government, as filtered by the media, to fill the void.

Therefore, the sheeple will not suffer unduly when the clocks tick over to 2000 UNLESS the media leads them to believe panic will ensue, at which time the sheeple will, in fact, panic!

Best Wishes,

-- Bingo1 (howe9@pop.shentel.net), July 24, 1999.

In respondse to your quiry about which lines of employment will be in demand. That is simple, If we do not go TEOTWAWKI. The boom will be in the industrial construction trades... Pipe fitters,electricans, mill wrightes, etc.

There will be a push on to re-build and or replace damaged equipment,pipelines, and all their attendant systems. The "Hard ware" of ur civilization as it where. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_a_buner@forty.feet), July 24, 1999.

1. Vocations? Lo-tech transportation/repairFarming Teaching Healing arts Leadership

2. The psychological impact of rollover? My feeling is that its going to separate the men from the boys, so to speak, very fast. Did you read that thread about rage? Man, I didnt even contribute to it, because I knew if I let myself near that emotional abyss, I would unlock so much rage I wouldnt be able to see.

At this point, it hardly matters to me what happens. Ive learned how to be numb now, to keep the door to the terror room locked. Im ready to handle whatever happens. My contingency plans are a thousand layers deep. But its been a long road, getting here.

The day I got it, I went into a state of profound emotional and intellectual shock. To see that the potential for global catastrophe exists and to witness the reprehensible way we are dealing with it, to think of the setbacks in our best arts, sciences, and technologies, to have to wonder whether it really will slide into Milne and Infomagic, trying to find reasons to believe that it wont regardless of the outcome, y2k has already changed my life forever. The world I occupy now is a far, far different one than the one I inhabited a year ago.

Not only have my personal aspirations and dreams for the next decade radically altered, but a whole slew of major mental constructs shattered, too, about how the socio-political world works. Cynicism, in the form of questioning everything, has cast ruthlessly aside the few precious shreds of hopeful idealism I still possessed. Whether this is a change for good or ill I cannot yet say. In the long run, I suppose, its all grist for the mill. But I do know that I sometimes long for the way it used to be, and that a certain level of sorrow runs beneath even my most transcendental moments.

In the beginning, I decided to try to understand my psychological reaction. A lot of folks were talking about the five stages of grief, but I know grief, believe me, and what I was experiencing was dimensionally beyond grief. After a lot of research and contemplation, the closest I could come was to label my devastation Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Instead of flashbacks, I was flashing forward into visions of all the possible scenarios, trying to figure out what tools and skills and action I would need to live through, and serve through, each of them. I learned what it means to dissociate, to live multiple disconnected, incompatible roles. And I have had a year to go through this dance of crumbling paradigms. What will it be like when all those folks who believe that growth will spiral upward into a grand and splendid elaboration on the status quo have to give up all their paradigms so suddenly? I can only pray that the dominoes fall slowly enough in lucky enough places for us to adapt, and that each of us meets the new millennium with every ounce of brotherhood that we can muster.

-- Faith Weaver (suzsuoltuions@yahoo.com), July 24, 1999.

Faith, Great response, thanks. Pre-traumatic stress syndrome. Yup. Seeing everyone you meet...dead.

Most sought-after occupation--shaman. The majority of people people will be stunned and desperate. A few will rise above it to shine.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), July 24, 1999.

" a certain level of sorrow runs beneath even my most transcendental moments."

Faith----> that statement pretty much nails it!!

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), July 24, 1999.

Faith, your posts are diamonds of light and lucidity. Thank you.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), July 24, 1999.

"a certain level of sorrow runs beneath even my most transcendental moments."

No kidding. Went dancing last night. Great band. African drumming. Truly transcendant moments. The place was beautiful, the crowd was friendly, the music was awesome, and through it all I felt this river of grief sliding through it. Untouched by the experience.

Even my moments of levity are affected. I was thinking that they were a Y2k compliant band - all those drums. Then I flashed on an image of the club iself in a year. Lights out, windows shattered, liquor cabinets long since looted, tables used as fire wood. Then looked around at all the happy shiny people dancing there way towards TEOTWAWKI.

Its hard very hard.

I have lots of healing skills that I have acquired over the years. Herbs and also massage and other less conventional skills. The AMA frowns on energy healers so its not the sort of thing I can advertise. I always wondered why I was given all these healing skills if I wasn't going to be able to use them in this time and place. I studied with Shamans and other very powerful folks but avoided practicing professionally myself even though I wanted to. The time just didn't feel right.

Well here it is. This is the time. I don't know if I will ever feel right charging for healings but I will barter for my herb and massage/adjustment/midwifery services. Thinking about taking a wilderness medicine course so I can learn how to do stitches and set a bone.

People have always come to me with their emotional troubles so I expect that people always will. I am finally coming into my true occupation - the one I "saw" as a little girl - in circumstances that I could never ever have imagined. It makes me humble and somber.

I am stocking up on herbs, bandages, etc.. and putting all my healing and doctoring books into plastic so they will be safe. Have been making a concerted effort to know as much of the local flora as possible. Mostly have been studying up and honing my skills. I am so glad now that I studied this stuff for years already even though I knew then that it was a waste of time (I should have been building a better paying career according to my Dad et. all.)

Instead I worked as a bookkeeper and spent every spare moment and penny learning all these other skills. Even went pre-med for a while just to rationalize taking all that physiology and biology. It is strange to have done so much for so long for "no reason" just to wake up one day and realize that reason was here.

It actually took 3 or 4 months into my preps to realize maybe I oughta dust off the healing skills.

I hope that all healers everywhere will wake up in time. We need all of you and we need you now.

I will be posting herbal info on the new Prep board. Anyone with questions is free to ask me there or e-mail me. Don't worry about guarding your preps with Ammo. Worry about protecting your immune system. Germs don't give a damn how big your gun is.

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), July 24, 1999.

In times of economic depression, entertainment related activities usually do o.k. Even when there is very little money, people will want/need entertainment. Taverns, restaurants (at least the american diner variety); the NWO (wrestling)and whorehouses should make money. If everything goes toes up, once the dust settles (or blood dries, if you prefer), there should be a good living as a free-lance salvage specialist. I've always liked the "general store" model for post-apocalypse-it's 1899 (or 1799, or 1299) and what city life there is, revolves around the general store. Tanners, farmers, artisans of every sort, hunters,blacksmiths, innkeepers and the occasional medical professional (excellent as long as you are a GP sort, rather than a high-tech pill prescriber) all use and trade/barter with the general store. There might even be room for a few lawyers, as long as they had some other redeeming quality-like, say, being an Ace fry cook or a diesel mechanic. You should take a look at the curriculum for the Wycliffe Bible Institute to see what's really needed if (when?) we go to a Third World existence. As for psychology, I think initially, there will be many.many people who simply cannot cope. This will manifest itself in violence and desperation-see the slightly useless Ad Exec in "Lucifer's Hammer". There will be compensation, in the form of religious aberration and an ocean of just plain mental illness (especially depression).Family and friends you can count on will be rarer and more priceless than anything material. Personal faith in God may be the most priceless treasure of all.

-- Greg Lawrence (greg@speakeasy.org), July 24, 1999.

Try this good prior thread: http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl? msg_id=000Kuj

-- Ct Vronsky (vronsky@anna.com), July 25, 1999.

That's an exceptionally relevant thread, Ct. Thank you. Rob Michaels' description, especially, captured my own feelings. That numbness. It helps to know it's a shared response. Lets you know your anchor is still holding.

Im a bit embarrassed to admit this, but the only images my mind seems to find inside my brain to symbolize what Im seeing are end- scenes from Apocalypse Now, with its ultimate madness. Ive heard someone else here quote from it, The horrorthe horror, and I note I am not the only one to have heard that cold and evil whisper in the night.

The archetype is rising in dominance now within the mass psyche, triggered by the date itself. The problem is that the archetype is more than a shared mental construct; no matter how you struggle to awake from the nightmare you see developing before your eyes, you cannot escape. Because its already irreparably cracked and broken, like Humpty Dumptys egg. And you know how that ends.

Anyway, I, Miss Susie Sunshine the Cockeyed Optimist, feel as if I have been kidnapped by aliens and plunked down on some bizarre science fiction planet, where chaos and absurdity reign. And I see us, this little brave, conscious troupe of us, kind of making our way through this jungle, as we move inevitably toward the center of chaos. It's as if we have entered a patch of dense, hypnotic fog.

We have seen so much already. We have been able to do so little. The world has become a sinister place; it is, indeed, as if the physical world is a film--the Maya, the illusion.

But the characters inside the movie arent characters at all. They are real people. Real neighbors. Family. People we would like to know if we had the chance. REAL people. And there they are, inextricably mesmerized by the illusion and therefore, believing it true, seeing us as mad. So we conform to their perceptions when necessary, to keep our jobs, to prevent total alienation from our loved ones, so they wont label us and lock us up. We dont scream, Merge?!/Buy a new car?! NOW??!! Are you MAD? We let it go. It seems the wisest thing. The disconnect is insane. Its surreal. A very thick forest this, and filled with much strangeness.

We need to walk carefully, and to be alert. We need to trust ourselves, in our personal goodness, and in the goodness of our companions. I have found that if I let myself see and breathe from my hearts center, my brain works more clearly and I avoid unnecessary conflict. Just a household hint.

Out into Oblivia to be amazed by grocery stores, full of food and people.

-- Faith Weaver (suzsolutions@yahoo.com), July 25, 1999.

"Oblivia"

What a great term!!! Thanks Faith!!

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), July 25, 1999.

"Tinker, tailor, candlestick maker..." Traveling peddlars were an important part of the economy in pioneer days- tinsmiths, general peddlars who carried seeds, lilac bushes ( a little bit of home) ribbons, patent medecines, NEWS, traveling shoemakers, home delivery wagons of all sorts from milk to groceries, etc.

Other good bets; farriers, blacksmiths, potters, silversmiths and goldsmiths, weavers, fullers (cleaners) , armsmen, horse trainers. What about millers, coopers, wagonmakers, carpenters, bodgers, bakers, inns keepers? Local sheriffs, still need justices, jails, undertakers, priests and ministers, teachers, etc.

-- seraphima (seraphima@aol.com), July 26, 1999.