I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There.
Indi Samarajiva
A writer living in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
I lived through the end of a civil war. Do you know what it was like for me? Quite
normal. I went to work, I went out, I dated. This is what Americans donโt understand. Theyโre waiting to get personally punched in the face while ash falls from the sky. Thatโs not how it happens.
This is how it happens. Precisely what youโre feeling now. The numbing litany of bad news. The ever rising outrages. People suffering, dying, and protesting all around you, while you think about dinner.
If youโre trying to carry on while people around you die, your society is not collapsing. Itโs already fallen down.
I was looking through some old photos for this article and the mix is shocking to me now. Almost offensive. Thereโs a burnt body in front of my office. Then Iโm playing Scrabble with friends. Thereโs bomb smoke rising in front of the mall. Then Iโm at a concert. Thereโs a long line for gas. Then Iโm at a nightclub. This is all within two weeks.
Today Iโm like,
โdid we live like this?โ But we did. I mean,
I did. Was I a rich Colombo [redacted] while poorer people died? Well, yes. I wrote about it, but who cares.
The real question is,
who are you? I mean, youโre reading this. You have the leisure to ponder American collapse like itโs even a question. The people really experiencing it already know.
So Iโm telling you, as someone whoโs been there, in similar shoes to yours;
this is it. America has already collapsed. What youโre feeling is
exactly how it feels. Itโs Saturday and youโre thinking about food while the world is on fire. This is normal. This is life during collapse. Just read what it says on the tin:
LIFE! Now with 20% MORE DEATH!
Collapse does not mean youโre personally dying right now. It means
yโallare dying right now. Death is sometimes close, sometimes far away, but always there. Usually for someone else, but someday, randomly, for you. I used to judge those herds of gazelle when the lion just eats one of them alive and everyone keeps going but, no, humans are just like that. Thatโs the real meaning of herd immunity. Weโre fundamentally immune to giving a [redacted].
It honestly becomes mundane (for the privileged). As Colombo kids we used to go out, worry about money, fall in love โ it all went on. Weโd pop the trunk for a bomb check. Turn off our lights for the air raids. Iโm not saying that we were untouched. My friendโs dad was killed, just gone with a land mine. RIP
Uncle Nihal. I know people who were beaten, arrested, went into exile. But thatโs not what my photostream looks like. It was mostly food and parties and normal stuff for a dumb 20-something.
If youโre waiting for a moment where youโre like
โthis is itโ, Iโm telling you, it never comes. Nobody comes on TV and says โ
things are officially badโ. Thereโs no launch party for decay. Itโs just a pileup of outrages and atrocities in between friendships and weddings and perhaps an unusual amount of alcohol.
Perhaps youโre waiting for some moment when the adrenaline kicks in and youโre fighting the virus or fascism all the time, but itโs not like that. Life is not a movie, and if it was, youโre certainly not the star. Youโre just an extra. If something good or bad happens to you itโll be random and no one will care. If youโre unlucky youโre a statistic. If youโre lucky, no one notices you at all.
Collapse is just a series of ordinary days in between extraordinary [redacted], most of it happening to someone else. Thatโs all it is.
One day, I was at work when someone left a bomb at the bag check at NOLIMIT. It exploded, killing 17 people who were out shopping. I experienced this as the phone lines getting clogged for an hour. My wife experienced it as, well, a bomb, it was 500m from her house. 17 families experienced it as the end. And their grief goes on.
As you can see, this is not a uniform experience of chaos. For some people it destroys their bodies, others their hearts, but for most people itโs just a low level hum at the back of their minds.
Whatโs that buzzing sound you hear now?
Today I assume you went to work. Bad news was everywhere, clogging up your social media, your conversations. Maybe it struck close to you. Iโm sorry. Somewhere in your country, a thousand people died. Iโm sorry for each of them. A thousand families are grieving tonight. A thousand more join them every day. The pain doesnโt go away, it just becomes a furniture of bones, in a thousand thousand homes.
As a nation you donโt seem to mourn your dead, but their families do. Their communities do. Jesus, also, weeps. But for most people itโs just another day. Youโve run out of coffee. Thereโs a funny meme.
This canโt be collapse, because nothingโs collapsing for me.
But thatโs exactly how collapse feels. This is how I felt.
This is how millions of people have felt, including many immigrants in your midst. Weโre trying to tell you as loud as we can. You can get out of it, but you have to understand where you are to even turn around. This, I fear, is one (of many) things Americans do not understand. You tell yourself American collapse is impossible. Meanwhile, look around.
In the last three months America has lost more people than Sri Lanka lost in 30 years of civil war. If this isnโt collapse, then the word has no meaning. You probably
still think of Sri Lanka as a
shithole, though the war ended over a decade ago and
weโre (relatively) fine. Then
what does that make you?
America has fallen. You need to look up, at the people youโre used to looking down on. Weโre trying to tell you something. I have lived through collapse and youโre already there. Until you understand this, you only have further to fall.
