Post-doom conversation between Shaun Chamberlin and host Michael Dowd, recorded August 2019. Each of the 2 parts of this conversation is 45 minutes long,. Overall theme is "What story do you want your life to tell?" Linked timecodes of topics:

00:09 What story do you want your life to tell?

00:18 Preview 1: Grief

01:00 Preview 2: Living in a dying world

02:46 Preview 3: Find a Peer Group

03:43 Dowd (MD) summarizes Shaun's key contributions

04:18 Chamberlin (SC) adds to summary of his biography (incl Extinction Rebellion arrest)

05:37 SC: Shaun's August 2019 blogpost: "Humanity: Not Just a Virus with Shoes"

07:14 SC: "Make hope possible, rather than despair convincing," says Ray Williams

07:45 SC: Schism between those who focus on determinism v. choice (cultural evolution)

08:22 MD: Importance of bridging seemingly divergent perspectives

08:54 SC: 2013 blogpost - "The secret truth behind environmentalists' favorite argument"

10:33 SC: Dark Mountain Project "creates a space where we can ask those questions"

10:48 MD: Hope is not neutral; some hopes are "overshoot-prone" and thus "anti-future"

11:50 MD: Importance of ecocentric books by Edward Goldsmith and William Catton

14:37 SC: Evolution is not human-centric; implications for where to ground "hope"

17:01 SC: Grief. "It hurts to let go of the stories we've been told.... The space between stories is one of the most awkward and painful places, because you don't have anything to make sense of life with."

17:30 SC: Personal story of emotional turmoil from two near-simultaneous deaths

20:10 SC: David Fleming's death led to SC editing his works into published books

21:33 SC: Personal and existential grief can lead to healthy forms of post-doom hope

22:57 SC: "When I could actually accept, 'Okay, I don't think I can change this; we're headed into the collapse scenario,' once you step beyond that threshold and accept that, a huge amount of energy is liberated. The hope beyond hope is actually stronger than the original hope because it's no longer really attached to outcomes. It's just about telling a story with our lives that we're proud to tell — in the context that we find ourselves."

25:40 SC: Resilient motivation; overcoming burnout; joy becoming one's guide to action

27:02 MD: Generations born into story of progress now need post-doom guidance/emotions

27:59 MD: Sense of doom is emotional midpoint between avoidance and returning to joy

28:28 MD: Paul Chefurka: "Finding the gift" beyond despair and mere acceptance

29:17 MD: Terminology - apocaloptimism, post-doom, civilizational reboot, Homo colossus

30:18 SC: Terms preferred: "dark optimism" (title of his blog) + David Fleming's "climacteric"

30:51 SC: James Howard Kunstler's term of the great global "clusterfuck" (dark humor)

31:04 SC: Interpretations matter as in "choosing to be alive at this time"; joy as guide

32:12 SC: After despair, coming back to life is through the stages of grief

33:08 SC: "We can still tell beautiful stories with our lives."

33:34 SC: Dark optimism is acknowledging the darkness yet living fully, meaningfully

34:06 SC: The apocalypse is ongoing for most peoples of the world; shrinking affluence

35:23 SC: Horror of species extinctions: "the death of birth"

35:44 MD: recommends "The Dark Mountain Manifesto" Paul Kingsnorth, Dougald Hine

36:17 MD: Crucial what stories we tell with our lives and our chosen narratives of reality

36:31 MD: Reframing the Christian story; e.g., the Fall as "violating grace limits"

37:09 MD: Indigenous wisdom in making the future one's guiding principle

37:31 MD: Reinterpret the Trinity, deify Time: Creator=Past, Christ=Future, Spirit=Present

38:06 SC: Environmentalism shortcoming is can be too preachy; guilt and self-sacrifice

39:42 SC: His personal story of choosing whether and when to use airline travel

41:44 MD: Importance of having a larger sense of self in time and space

42:28 MD: Recites a Joanna Macy quote re importance of a larger sense of self

43:29 MD: "Pro-future" is good, godly; labelling anti-future as "evil" is appropriate too

44:04 MD: Arne Naess - responsibility is a treacherous basis for conservation; need love

44:27 MD: This "post-doom conversation series" emphasizes one's personal journey.

CONTINUE TO PART 2 for Shaun Chamberlin's story of his personal journey.

https://youtu.be/njglhRhGgKc

Shaun's website: http://www.darkoptimism.org/

The global 'Surviving the Future' community he facilitates online: https://www.ce.sterlingcollege.edu/surviving-the-future

Gift-economy pub 'The Happy Pig', his home in Ireland: https://mstdn.social/@DarkOptimism/109410285273214948

Free access to David Fleming's book, Lean Logic, in custom fan-built web format: https://leanlogic.online