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[sunflowersFTW!]

Well, if anyone wants to funnel that depression/anger into a cause, the Haskell-Baker (Wakarusa) Wetlands in Kansas are officially going to be paved over  we could use some help in halting this bullshit! The Governor's veto was overridden earlier this year.

I manage my depression fairly well, but this is going to send me into hysterics.

[BlueHeron]

Ouch, that is horrible!!  I can't believe that legislation allowing shit like that still passes, in this day and age of urban planning.

What strategies are being employed to counter the decision?

[ulcerite]

And so I don't feel so... alone.  Thank you all for sharing these ideas.  I totally relate.

Whatever you do, do not let this destroy your life, which is essentially what is happening to me. 

i'm a very socially awkward person... and over the years, I've grown ashamed of my association with anarcho-primitivism.  It's become a part of me that I've come to hate as I see it as a part of everything that is "wrong" with me and everything that makes me unable to get along with people.

I've also  become exhausted by being on-alert about the destruction of our world all the freakin' time.  $126 oil (rising fast) and talk of salmon collapse makes me sick and frightened.

[ofthewood]

My depression comes and goes.
I work on an organic crannberry farm in northern Wisconsin.
They just recently went "organic" Though It is still a fully industrial farm in the sense that we use machinery and oil to run that machinery.
Yes I realize that I am a slave somewhat by choice.
Yes I get depressed at times When I realize this is not the life I want.
I look at this place right now as using the system to get to where I want to be.
I am not saying that money is neccessary to rewild, by no means!
It is just a temporary path that I have chosen.
There are times when sadness wells up, such as times when my favorite places to watch deer and fox were leveled out to build a subdivision.
There are so many places that are being threatened, like the Yellowdog and Salmon trout water sheds near where I live in Michigan.
Corparate Giant Kennecot Minerals wants to pull out tons of Iron sulfide ore
right under the salmon trout river.
The runoff of acids would kill all wild life in the stream, and eventually reach lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world and the cleanest of the great lakes.
Kennecot has mines all over the world,Arizona,Minnesota ect.
I know we all have our local places with local problems, but for those of us nearby,
I just wanted to create some awareness of this issue.
I dont know the best approach to fighting things like this, It seems that peaceful protesting,and petitions dont work all that well sometimes.
For those near enough by with the time or resources, you could turn your depression into anger and channel it against these capitalist fuckers.
Check out, savethewildup.org
Sorry if this sounds like an advertisment.
It is just a wonderful,beautiful place that I think of as home, and some greedy,ignorant, assholes want to fuck it up.
Most of the time I am a quite cheerful not often depressed person.
I realize that it isnt good to be depressed all the time, so I try not to focus on everything bad all the time, and listen to the news rarely.
Rewilding ourselves and just living it as much as we can,will be an example to the world in itself. It just might be contagious. And thats a good thing.
                                                                                                    ofthewood

[A pipe for peace]

I've found that most of my depression stims from civilisation's causes. Environmental and existential.

That's why my depression tends to worsen every time I'm forced to do some "civilised" activity like working at a job I don't like, doing things that don't benefit me or the environment (A cog in the machine), job interviews, shopping, and so on.

When I'm reminded that I'm a wild person, out in the woods, gathering medicines or with friends, I'm a fine happy person. But expose me (and probably most of hte other posters here) to civilisation and that sickness of depression just comes back.

In civilisation, they call depression an illness, but it's my opinion that depression is a symptom of a worse illness: society.

[ChocolateWaterfall]

Yes, sometimes too I feel an immense sadness about the state of our beautiful world. I know I can deal with my personal life sorrows, and deal with whatever nature is doing, which is not always pretty. What makes me depressed, is the doings of mankind. *We* should know better, *we* have a choice, etc. But witness the matter-of-fact horrors we relentlessly unleash on the world.

So I deal with the haunting images the best I know how to: grieve, cry, replace them in my mind with healing thoughts. Sometimes stay in bed with a book and numb myself until I get out of it. Focus on what gives me joy (pet my cats, notice a flower, breathe, think of loved ones). Sometimes I'm feeling like it's too much and I don't want to live anymore in this world, but I know I'm not serious there, I need to go on.

Then comes anger. A good sequel to depression. And a good energy to draw on to take action.

Also, I'm wondering --- since anti-depression pills are the most prescribed of all drugs in the US --- how much of that depression is in fact stemming from the state of the world, although nobody talks about it --- except here!

[Singanothertime]

ofthewood,

I just moved to Marquette from SE Michigan and although I see protest signs everywhere, on cars and billboards and such, I wasn't at all sure about what this entailed.  I actually thought it was something over by Calumet...  One of these is the river that runs by Big Bay, isn't it?  I was just there a few days ago.  It's a pleasant place.  It's a little sad seeing the difference between the old forest that the rich folks own and the logging area right next to it.  I just looked at the map on the site you linked.  That's a lot of places.

I care a lot about this lake (and I mean the region, because things like that seem inseparable), but like with everything, I feel useless and dumb.  I don't know if I can keep Lake Superior anymore than I can keep Lake Baikal, even though I live right on it now. 

For a time I had thought of this area as a place (like New England, maybe) that had already done its time and could start to live again.  When I first heard about the mining on the radio a while back I was a little dismayed, but sort of brushed it off as a small thing.  Now... I feel like I don't know nor have anything at all.

Sometimes I just want to give up and embrace it, like I've sort of embraced my personal failure and isolation.  It seems maybe like there's little else to do.  Sometimes I do.

[sunflowersFTW!]

<<Ouch, that is horrible!!  I can't believe that legislation allowing shit like that still passes, in this day and age of urban planning.

What strategies are being employed to counter the decision?>>

The creepiest part, to me, is how difficult it was to actually find articles covering the decision. When I first moved back here my roommate told me gravely that it'd been decided. I tried to find concrete evidence that this indeed had been ruled, and it took me DAYS to find anything. It's pretty damn hush-hush as far as I can tell--of course, it's an extremely small minority who's for it.

As for strategies to make it stop, I've had even less luck finding anything, although now that I'm finally settled into my house I'm going to be actively searching for people planning to take action. I'm almost positive Haskell University is planning for lawsuits up the wazoo.

The problem of this, of course, is how heavily the FBI is trying to infiltrate dissident groups, but surely that can be overcome somehow.