I’m a woman in her forties and maybe my perspective helps. What I’ve noticed about myself as I am approaching menopause is this: I won’t tolerate stuff that I don’t want. No compromise anymore. My body just won’t allow that I be in a place I don’t want to be in, with people I don’t want to be with, in conditions I don’t control … so I’m probably not a very nice person anymore in the way I used to be - but at same time feeling powerfully aligned with what I really want for myself, and walking out of situations that don’t serve me.

As women are still raised to please and support others many of us tend to wear ourselves out in caring for other people and their opinion, and when that falls away with menopause the results can be very painful for the person themselves and their families. This change in me killed my relationship, and I do feel very sorry how it all went down, but I was literally physically unable to stay and remain in this ‘wife’ situation that I tend to almost automatically create for myself when with a partner.

And for your situation as a partner: No, you never have to put up with your partner criticizing you all day and dumping their rotten mood onto you. That’s not acceptable for any reason.

Wall-E, is that you?

Go solarpunk!

Why should the homeless have no right to organize? It’s funny that the only places with (rough but efficient) functioning self-organization I could find so far were among the homeless and the small folk. Those with stuff left to protect are too much up their own arse to want to play well with others.

Also, the plans to get off the street are real, most of the time. Every kindness you show is a seed that one day will point towards the right direction.

I’ve been hanging out with the homeless as a kid, and lived on the streets for a few months as a young adult, travelling and panhandling. I met many very kind, and often very damaged people. They are on the streets because it’s for a variety of reasons the only option they can manage, not because they enjoy scamming you out of a few coins and do nothing all day.

If you are concerned about your money look at the suit wearing people, most of it ends up with them.

Improve your local community in other ways. Or give in other ways. Not sure what would apply in your local community - I live in rural Western Europe and that’s very different from what you describe. People here set up donation boxes, swap shops, create food banks, organize markets, create safe spaces for minority groups, community gardens … mostly volunteering time. Not sure you are in the position to do this? Sorry things are so heartbreaking. I hope we all figure this out soon.

How did you like Georgia? I keep beong obsessed by it (because music).

How did you address your trauma? What methods did you find worked?

Thispunk.

The farmers themselves have to come to their senses as well and support these government reforms or eventually the crime gangs might take the land and eat the owner. After that is done I hope we can return to a commons system of land use.

They help with slowing down, degrowth, a meditative life. Although the speed depends a lot on the motivation of the donkey. Towards home and a bucket of food they might reach ludicrous speeds temporarily!

Hmm, the farmer interviewed in the article farms 570 ha - maybe consider a restoration of smaller-scale farms and restoration of the commons before complaining about criminals roaming lands the size of an entire village?

The concentration of ownership into fewer and fewer hand means that smaller farmers had to sell out to the big guys, a process that has been going on for very long. When there is nothing left but large swatches of land owned by single persons what is normal folk supposed to do? Turn into serfs again? It’s not even possible anymore because most farmers will just import the cheapest farmhand from other countries because nobody can live a dignified life from the pittance they pay workers.

Not to forget, with large areas of land in a single hand comes monoculture and all the destruction associated with it.

Fuck it, distribute the land to the crime gangs and teach them how to garden.

My dream is to use the donkeys as my main means of transport. I’ve had so many cars broken recently, I don’t know why I bother anymore.

trying to catch trains, trying to find the correct room at university …

Where I live Mimosa kills everthing where it grows, so does Eucalyptus. But watching (and unsuccessfully fighting it) during two decades I find that it ultimately can’t outgrow the native species, it finds a more humble place in the landscape with time. Yes we shouldn’t stupidly introduce new stuff left and right, but the idea that invasives could be removed entirely feels entirely impossible (how? and where to draw the line?), and also frighteningly fascist, to me. Managing a landscape by building diverse ecosystems where the ‘invasives’ have place and function seems to be a more fruitful (!) thing to do imo.

Sounds too much like ‘the war on weeds’ only for humans. Still no thanks. We can grow smaller but lets take it easy. Also if we squash ourselves back who is gonna fight the invasives (/s because I don’t think the term even makes sense)

The idea of a slow and careful crafts movement aligns with a more sustainable society, because it slows things down. Best way of slowing down is like this: create things very beautiful, even out of broken stuff.

You decide which human is invasive? No thanks. As for invasive plants, are we going to take all our agricultural plants back to where they came from as well?

Every plant in the garden and in the surrounding landscape has a use. There is no weed. Learning how to use plants again is important!

Naughty mushrooms doing theirs again, they are so good. I got remembered I never was the uninspired believer in a mechanical world I had become, and turned back to animist knower - a lot of what you write resonates very much with me! Congrats to getting out of the rat race, faraway friend. Cautious as well with the little prankstershrooms. Remember grounding inbetween flights. So many people are getting out - once we get together we will be unstoppable!

Yours is just one of many versions of ‘why I personally don’t do anything’: I’m all for change, but the others don’t want!

Society will never be fully aligned on the solutions and you cannot expect everyone to agree with you, but you still can work for your preferred solutions in smaller groups?