"Collapse," Apocalypse, Suicide Notes, Pain, Meaning

I got caught in a rabbit hole of inspiration, depression, truth, and death on Friday.

It started during the day at work when my co-worker suggested I watch the documentary, "Collapse." I watched it Friday night and then started tweeting about Michael C. Ruppert, the activist/whistle-blower/author, speaking throughout the movie.

The Twitter world told me he was dead. I searched how Michael C. Ruppert died.

The interwebs told me he shot himself only a few weeks ago (13 April 2014). He left two suicide notes. Ruppert's attorney left a comment: "He absorbed the pain of the world on a daily basis until he could not take it any longer."

I also found out Vice Media, Inc made a special series about him, "Apocalypse, Man." The first two minutes highlight the tension and the pain that Ruppert was living with. "I'm tired. I'm ready to die," said Ruppert. Right after that comment, a teary-eyed Ruppert expressed his love for this broken, dying world. Tension. Pain. Grief.

Finally, I listened to the radio show that Michael C. Ruppert recorded shortly before killing himself. Twenty-two minutes into his show, after giving shout outs to those who have been "doing the work," fighting for the world and acknowledging climate change and social collapse, Ruppert shared the song, "Calling All Angels," by Jane Siberry and KD Lang. (Listen to it, you won't be disappointed.) Such weight in the lyrics and sounds.

What hits me hardest is how worn down Ruppert must have been. I caught glimpses of his despair throughout his videos/radio show. There were scenes of him breaking down, of his hopelessness coming through. Ruppert also said that he moved to Colorado "to die or to commit suicide."

I try to imagine 35 years as an activist, whistle-blower, author and truth-seeker. I'm not even 30 yet and feel isolated and tired. In the "Apocalypse, Man" series, Ruppert commented on how he found a community of support. "I'm so not alone anymore," he said. However, we're all ultimately alone. As much as we can grieve for the state of the world in community, we wake up and fall asleep in our heads. If we can't work through our own feelings, a community won't be much help. We have to do our individual grief work to be able to process such heavy, overwhelming feelings.

Ruppert's friend, Carolyn Baker, speaks of the importance of inner work and of finding peace and love. There's no doubt in my mind that Ruppert had to have done serious inner work over his years of activism. What is heart-breaking is that it wasn't enough. Grief and despair wear you down, break you down. How can we learn to sustain ourselves in a world that is constantly compounding bad news?

How can I find meaning in my present life knowing that we're committed to global climate change, to social change, to suffering? This is the question I'm researching and writing about for my thesis. Seems so important, but it requires sitting with tremendous tension and few answers.

My thesis chair tells me to sit with the tension, to find answers in the process.

Wish me luck.

Final thought: "An entirely new level of human consciousness is needed right now, or we're all dead." Michael C. Ruppert