Christmas... with collapse goggles on

one of those posts to ritualise the end of a year that was even more absurd than the one before

OK, this is my last post for 2024. I’ll be back in January with both the weekly reads available to everyone, and the final few chapters of the Book Serialisation for the paid subscriber community. I reckon we’re about four chapters from the finish line! Feel free to catch up on the rest of the book so far, here. The first three chapters are free to everyone, as are a few others along the way.

Meanwhile, a little sign off message from inside a campervan. And below some ideas, thoughts and gift ideas I felt compelled to share.

A joyous dispatch from the commentariat frontline

Every year,

Helen Lewis

(who’s been on Wild twice) does a hilarious Christmas quiz with two heterodox podcasts - Decoding the Gurus (they’ve also been on Wild) and Jessie and Katie from

Blocked and Reported

. They are a lot of fun. Helen is able to dance (like a Trad Wife former ballerina) between all the phenomena while holding onto decent human values, journalism skills and humour. There is a funny side to all this….

Understanding the Trump situation…because we will have to

Trump has not happened in a vacuum; he’s an entangled expression of broader collapse. Our current challenge (especially over Christmas and into January) is to understand the meaning crisis going on under and over the madness. I know when I view things through this “meaning crisis” lens, I can access my compassion. To this end I found this video by #MattisSuperman on TikTok illuminating. It frames Trump as reflecting our own collapsing moral structures.

@mattissupermanYou forgive Donald Trump… #america #politics #harris #trump #kamala #vote

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I have also been reflecting on this:

When humans are overwhelmed and despairing, when the complexity and fragmentation is too much, we will often elect a dictator. We want someone to tell them what to do. Erich Fromm writes about this, ditto Hannah Arendt. Peter Turchin points out that this will specifically happen when the educated middle classes starts to feel the pinch. History is full of examples of this playing out.

Hannah Arendt knew 2024 was coming!

Much of America is despairing. The inequality is too much. The land of opportunity has been collapsing for some time. As Hannah Arendt wrote: “The masses’ escape from reality, is a verdict against the world in which they are forced to live and in which they cannot exist.”

Oh, and a Naomi Klein wisdom that I’ve found myself returning to:

In her book Doppelgänger, Klein references a tweet from a colleague in the climate justice movement:

The “x” thread from @JNoiseCat continues:

“It’s all so Freudian. The fear that it will happen to them stems from an implicit admission that they did it to others. As though the Black, Brown and Indigenous downtrodden are just as hateful as they are and are going to turn around and do to them what they did to us.”

Naomi then writes,

“Is that part of what we are seeing? Are increasingly violent conspiracy theorists in the Mirror World afraid of being rounded up, treated as second-class, occupied, and culled because on some level they know that these are the genocidal behaviors that created and sustain their relative but increasingly precarious privileges? Are they terrified that if the truths of the Shadow Lands—past, present, and future—are ever fully revealed and reckoned with, then it can only result in a dramatic role reversal with the victims becoming the victimisers.”

Klein has actually made this part of her book free online…you can find it here. It provided me with a profound understanding of Israel’s genocide. I really recommend reading it.

Some memes that might help

I found these on Instagram in the wake of the US election, mostly shared by black, female activists. You might enjoy reflecting on them…

Gift good ideas

1. In Australia, more than 90 writers and literary supporters joined forces to pay for every federal parliamentarian to receive a carefully curated package of books on the Middle East to expand their knowledge of the conflict. You might like to work your way through the same books, or gift them.

2. Nicolas Kristof created this gift guide - “Gift Ideas That Push Back the Darkness”…essentially charities you can allow you to donate money to save another human’s life.

3. You can also gift a year’s subscription to this newsletter. A great last-minute suggestion! I’d truly love to have your friends and family join us here. So you know, you can schedule the subscription their inbox Christmas morning!

4. And you might also like to gift This One Wild and Precious Life, which is a nice primer to the collapse conversation for anyone in your life skirting the edges (with lots of travel memoir fun; the “story” is told over the course of a dozen hikes around the world).

   I’ve put a button below for Australian readers. As a little reminder, the new owners of Booktopia, in very good faith, bought my books back from the liquidators. I said I’d put then word out to everyone to get back to buying the book again!

If you’re elsewhere in the world you can find it in regular bookstores and on Amazon etc.

And, finally, a shot from the back of my van. I woke to this. The town of Grazalema in Andalucia.

A thought or prayer for someone special in this community

Almost three weeks ago reader

Kei Ikeda

lost her beautiful partner Bill, very suddenly. Bill was a school principal most of his life in the Montessori system. I met Kei and Bill twice, at reader events. They were the “nodders” in the crowd. When I’m on stage, I rely on the one or two people in the crowd who nod and smile at me as I talk. These generous souls keep me vertical in such moments.

With Kei’s permission, I want to invite you to bear witness to her loss and her pain. I know she is finding solace in this community just now, via the comments thread that accompany the book chapter posts. Thank you to all of you who are holding Kei, and holding all the other vulnerable humans here who are bearing a load. Sometimes we just want our pain seen.

And, yes, thank you to all of you, too, for accompanying me here, holding me, guiding me and bringing me so much joy and reassurance with all the kind feedback you give to each other.

Onwards to ‘25!

Sarah xx