It can seem so attractive to just give up and say “fuck it” when we’re confronted day after day with the grim reality of our world today. Staying emotionally engaged with the on going industrial destruction of the environment and human suffering from war, inequality, isolation and misery is overwhelming. Many around us are concluding that we’re doomed—they’re giving up on the future and retreating from the struggle for a different world. Whether it’s reeling in terror about global warming, peak oil, 2012, or a coming plague, people are checking out. It can be hip to be cynically dispassionate about our world’s certain doom and the human race’s role as a cancer on the earth.

 Corporations and mainstream culture cultivate this attitude because people who’ve given up make better consumers. Mainstream culture depends on a vicious cycle in which economic relations focused on individualism and seeking private profit create psychological conditions of isolation, loneliness and meaninglessness which in turn support those same economic relations by reducing people’s ability to resist or change the system. This system requires constant competition and economic growth as an ends to itself, which in turn increases human impacts on the environment. On a finite planet, industrial capitalism has reached the point where its ecological impacts are unsustainable so without some change we may, in fact, be doomed.

            Under capitalism, each individual acts selfishly to maximize his of her consumption. A huge part of modern consumption is the quest for ever—m ore privacy and individuality—private cars vs. public transit, houses in the suburbs vs. apartments in town, packaged fast food vs. group meals, a TV set for each bedroom. All of this privacy comes at a huge environmental cost. But even more costly is the psychological fallout.

            The more successful an individual gets, the more lonely, isolated and meaningless their life tends to become. When you only know how to seek satisfaction through consumption and individuality, you’re constantly dissatisfied—always going in search of the next thing as soon as you realize that what you just got didn’t make you happy. Each new degree of privacy and individuality you achieve leaves you feeling more alone, afraid and dependent. And the more meaningless your life feels, the more you want to consume to cope with the emptiness, increasing your ecological footprint.

            We refuse to participate in the system’s collective suicide. The best way to respond to the terrifying capitalist rush over the ecological cliff is to replace a sense of despair and passive resignation with courage, action and empowerment. That means fully facing and feeling the depth and seriousness of the ecological crisis, the grinding poverty, and the war and injustice dished out by the system. Rather than turning away in despair or fear, we have to learn how to hold this scary moment in our heart, look deeply and approach it anew.

            How can any of us summon so much courage? As individuals, we’re small and weak in a sea of negativity. But just as the individuality of the system makes its participants powerless and scared, when we join together with others and struggle for a different future, we are empowered.

            The alternative to consumerism, individual privacy, corporate ownership and ecological catastrophe is a new set of priorities and human interactions—sharing collective living, cooperative work. These values and actions also create a feedback loop that makes these alternatives more powerful the more they are used. Psychologically, the more you’re cooperating with others to get what you need, the less alone and passive you feel. As you increasingly get to control your own destiny as an active participant rather than as a passive consumer, viewer and employee, your self-confidence and courage builds. When you seek satisfaction inside yourself, in your relationship with others, and as part of all life on the earth, your life fills with meaningfulness, engagement and love. And as one’s life focuses on things that don’t cost money and that don’t come from corporations, your ecological and social footprint declines. Your life connects more with those around you, and you become less dependent on sweatshops, global transport networks and high tech gadgets.

            It is crucial to keep in mind that the trappings of the seemingly solid and permanent system are in fact temporary and fleeting. Some of us can feel left behind when we try to compare ourselves with people who are successful within the mainstream society. But the socially acceptable life path you are expected to take—employment and consumerism—is not intrinsic or necessary. As we increase our involvement in alternatives to the system, we alter our consciousness. We realize that social interactions that seem “natural” are in fact created by powerful people to serve their interests. It doesn’t have to be that way. We can get together and create a new reality. And we don’t have to be doomed or afraid.