The train this morning had a bike car, which is great. We've needed one for a while. The trend I see on the train echoes the news stories I hear from all over. The train is steadily filling. Ridership is up.
The other thing I see from the train? New homeless camps. Two more than Friday, in fact. There's the one woman on the edge of a marsh, between the sand beach and the refinery. Her camp has paths and rooms and stuff; she's been there since before I started taking the train a year ago. On Friday nights, I've started seeing groups of men around small fires. That might be recreational. But this morning I saw two new homesteads, tarps, tents, collections of items. I can't believe people are choosing the train right-of-way for recreational camping.
Last year I read Jack London's memories of time as a hobo. It was grim, and some of the worst of it was the battle between railroad companies and hoboes. I think times are about to get bad, and I rehearse the same mental stories that you do. What would I do if we contract to a near-barter economy? What useful skills do I have? I get the same outcome you do. I'll fall back on my network, my ties to people.
What I worry about as much as I worry about anything is that people will turn mean. Or even meaner. We're already so harsh and unforgiving, looking for fault in the victim, letting people die on cold sidewalks for being sick or addicted or mentally ill. We've been mean for long time, but I keep hoping that we aren't yet the kind of mean that Jack London sees in his travels. I worry that when people are scared for a long time, insecure in food and shelter, the fear poisons them. It makes them cruel, feel justified in selfishness. At the least, the last Depression left my grandparents with a crippling frugality, the inability to enjoy anything that cost money. That lasted long after they were secure and cost them pleasure for decades.
I have two hopes against that worry. The first is that we may again be led by someone who is genuinely decent and humane. People do get inspired, and they will follow a good example. Sometimes, being shown the way is enough to get people moving in that direction. Second, I run my little storylines about how I'd survive a Depression, and the thing that transforms them from fear and survival is to introduce a different frame. Instead of, "how would I hole up?", I try to tell the story "how many people could we help?". Running through that story feels different. Well, there is organizing to do and resources to arrange. The whole feel is different, more energizing, offering choices. Well, there's this option and that option and it would be easier to reach this group and that person would know how to do this part so we'll have to drag her in. It is not a fear-based scenario at all, largely because the focus is moved into the communal. It isn't like I'm a saint who actually does anything so productive. But thinking like that is a good way to move out of fear. If things get bad, we're going to need to stave off fear.
