The end of certainty
"It's coming", the crowd murmurs. We hear a distant rumble but, straining our eyes down the tracks, we can only make out a smudge of sooty smoke and a glint of metal. A man in a dark suit stands on a box to address the gathering. "It is going to be bad", he intones.
"Very bad." With a shake of his head he adds: "The end of certainty."
The small town of Certainty has grown fat and comfortable. For years, the population has barely noticed the thunderous clatter of the railway, the clouds of coal dust which blacken the washing on the line. It has been too busy getting richer.
But now there's something wrong with the engine. "What can we do?", a small boy asks his mother. "I don't know", she replies solemnly. "It's a problem in the works. Don't understand it myself. All I know it is bad and it is coming our way."
Reading the papers and listening to the news at the moment, there's not much room for people. The story being told is about numbers. Enormous, baffling numbers.
But beneath the high finance and international politics, there are millions of anxious, bewildered individuals. Thousands of British workers have been told they haven't got a job this week. Thousands of families are wondering how to pay the bills.
But such are the macro-economic distractions that you'd be hard pushed to find their stories.
We are so mesmerised by the darkening sky, we don't notice the rain on our face.
I met Eva yesterday. She is in her late sixties and lives alone in South West London. "It is extremely worrying. I am frightened", Eva admitted. Her eyes told me it was true. Surviving on a small pension, she is terrified her meagre income might be gobbled up by global forces she cannot comprehend.
Kaarina has been dreaming of running away. "London's become a horrible place and I just want to get away from it and get back to basics" she confides. "The last 20 years there's been this culture of self and materialism. It's almost like we're paying the price."
I met others who echoed the theme of retribution. "It's all about one word. Greed." Chris, an unemployed man who suffers from depression told me: "It feels very threatening.The world is closing in on us."
The conversations are held in a courtyard in East London packed with people in "Get Moving" t-shirts.The charity Mind is marking World Mental Health Day with a series of walks encouraging exercise as a way to counter depression and anxiety.
"I notice there's already been an increase in calls with people worried about their finances", says Bridget O'Connell who runs Mind's helpline.
The charity's website has also seen a surge of hits to its advice pages.
"They're just really anxious about how they're going to make ends meet and how they're going to look after themselves" Bridget says.
One psychologist recently described it as 'a perfect storm'. Anxiety feeds on helplessness and the speed, scale and complexity of the economic crisis has left many feeling powerless.
If we are not careful, helplessness can become hopelessness. The National Director for Mental Health in England, Professor Louis Appleby, is urging Ministers to consider how the country can best prepare for the psychological impact of the crisis.
"Despair is a dangerous state of mind, and preventing people going from being worried to being desperate is important - ensuring that they're resilient" he tells me.
"That's about people having practical solutions to their problems, it's about knowing where to get help, it's about seeing a positive outcome despite the difficulties, and that's where I think we have a responsibility to get the message right."
Professor Appleby stresses that there is nothing inevitable about economic blues inspiring clinical depression. But some mental health charities worry the government is being complacent.
"It's essential that the government supports people by making sure they've got the right information about how to look after themselves and that's really where government's failing at the moment" says Dr Andrew McCullough, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation. "I'm not saying it's wrong to spend £10,000 per head on propping up the economy", he tells me. "but we're only spending 10p per adult on mental health promotion in England and I'm afraid that just isn't enough."
The MHF has just released an excellent television ad offering straightforward advice to those who feel overly-anxious or depressed.
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But they haven't got the funds to broadcast it anywhere except East Anglia.
What worries experts is that economic turmoil in the1980s coincided with what's been described as an 'epidemic' in suicides involving young men.
Death rates among 15-24 year-olds shot up to record levels when recession hit and unemployment soared. As the economy stabilised and entered a long period of growth from 1992, suicide rates came down. (see graph)
Key factors are thought to be the levels of joblessness and relationship breakdown. Drug and alcohol abuse may also play an important part.
But in all these respects, Britain appears potentially vulnerable. And there has been a marked fall in community capital - the web of family and social connections that can act as a safety net when times get tough.
I sense a change in Britain's psyche.The trees are twitching as the winds pick up.The temperature has dropped sharply. But the rains have not yet fully arrived.
As we hurriedly prepare for the storm, we must not let our eyes become so hypnotised by numbers that we forget about people.
I'm 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~04~RS~)
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sadly society today is only based on self worth greed and this over indulged i must have becouse compulsion, it is having a very negitive reaction on the majority of us.
companies advertise to our vanity and our greed and it causes depression due to not being able to reach these adverts levels.
society has been corupted and needs help, an enima of reality may well just be a start but who knows.
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What a shame none of the 50 million people outside London were available for interview...
It would seem that you've conflated an arrogant assumption that unsustainable things would bowl along forever, with certainty. The media (not just the BBC) still seem in thrall to the supposed "brilliance" of people in the City, who are allegedly the cream of the crop and far-sighted geniuses. In fact, many of them are dimmer than a 10-watt bulb, but it's the rest of us who have to pick up the pieces.
We will have to live through uncertain times, but let's have some perspective. We've had several recessions since 1945, and survived all of them.
Oh, and I guarantee, the banks will make billions in profits this year, and next, whatever their current bleating.
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The connection between debt and psychological distress was being noted some time ago and presumably the numbers will increase in the current circumstances.
Best wishes to anyone who is suffering.
I just hope that the involvement of special interest groups like 'mind' and 'mental health zsars' isn't going medicalise this perfectly understandable reaction to horrible experiences.
They are moaning about lack of spending - but recently released figures show massive increases in 'mental health' funding since 2002 and England does very well in the international league table of spending.
Never forget that all of these peope make a (good) living out of the 'mental health' industry.
Lets see the funding go to helping people keep their homes, keep their pensions and savings, keep their job (or get a new one) etc. Thats a real 'cure' for their distress.
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We have no sense as a nation of culture, heritage, identity or continuity. We seek to reinvent 'Britishness' every ten years or so.
We don't believe in anything, we are morally defunct and directionless. Secular humanism has emasculated family life, indulged selfish rainbow lifestyles, corrupted our children, made education pointless and ineffective and infantilised our men.
We are truly the 'Have I got News for You" and "Mock the Week" society. Nothing is truly valued that should be valued. We live in an infantile eternal present.
I'm not surprised that the the ideology of Islam is getting such a hearing. Muslims see the West hoist on its own petard of greed and usuray.
We feel we should have had something to offer that prefigured the arrival of Islam here, but we don't know what it was.
Just in case you need telling, it was Christianity.
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We have lost our way so with such ease taht no one noticed the downturn untill it turned. The promotion of the indervidual has taken us away from the basic moralitys that used to bind us. Every girl must be a Wish I was A WAG. Everyone must drive a fast Car be seen in the latest bar fallen before Babel, even our Church has lost its way looking to bright city lights for its wealth and turning its back on its people.
However, the Tower of Babel was not built for the worship and praise of God, but was dedicated to the glory of man, with a motive of making a 'name' for the builders "Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'" - Genesis 11:4. God seeing what the people were doing, gave each person a different language to confuse them and scattered the people throughout the earth.
Maybe im a bit old school but we have fallen into a pit and we look to the same people to pick us out of the pit they have dug for us.
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Interesting views Mark - and here's something to add - It took a merchant Banker in the shape of David Freud to imply part of the black economy was being propped up by those on benefits (Incapacity Benefit) .
Dave was working for the Govt in advising how disabled people should be got back to work by the use of privately paid for firms . The Telegraph ran the article which carried his views and they were prejudicial and stigmatised those on benefits - playing up to popular prejudices which are not supported by "in the field" figures on benefit fraud by the DWP .
The charities like Mental Health Foundation and Rethink and MIND have been tango-ing with Govt around the issues of getting MH Users back to work - there's a massive policy wave of anti-stigma and "employers must be better" at integrating mental illness into their businesses on the way . A "benefit tsunami" one might say ..
And all this whilst the Banks now seek benefits for their incapacity while Dave's advice is rolled out to lever disabled people off incapacity benefits ....Kind of makes you see that class is alive and well in the world and priorities for comforting greed are still alive.
I've seen "Globalism" parroted around in financial and business circles - and it does not make sense but it does re-create a kind of pyramid power model - typical enough of the UK .. What makes better sense is locality democracy being beefed up . Like seeing the lottery proceeds automatically distributed to regions and localities fairly - and likewise seeing the boudaries of local councils etc keeping their money inside the country with a competitive local banking economy . "Global" in some senses like finance means "boundarylessness" and power that has created it is also almost boundaryless and anti democratic but it does follow a Nation social model in the West where people are overgoverned by centralism and nods and networks in them ..
Boy do we need democracy in detail in the country ...
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there are only two certainties in life thats taxes and death.
but as taxpayers you should have the right to know what your taxes are being used for.
local council taxes are being salted offshore by councils that think themselves a business and plead poverty every year.
your income tax that you expect to be used wisely by the government that recieves them but we now suffer a government that thinks its above those it answers to and can do what it likes.
people should not fear there government, government should fear the people.
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I've been foolishly financially, and I'm struggling to pay back the money I've borrowed - probably I'm in a negative equity situation with my home.
The final salary pension scheme I thought would fund my retirement has been terminated.
And now the government has used my money to bail out the people I owe money, and they're going to tax me to get it back ! I'll be paying twice over, and nobody is going to help me.
Why should our tax money be used to bail out the banks ? Let them go into receivership like any other business and lets return to the real world.
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It would seem a nice idea to let them go the way of the dodo, but what then? nothing would have value. The pound in your pocket just a shiny trinket from better times. I do feel very sorry for you Secret Love my dads in the same boat but hes trying to sell his house and very disgruntled at the money being thrown down the drain.
How long at this rate before the goverments of the world can no longer borrow the money from its own coffers to support the failing banks. Were still playing about with would be money most yet to be earn't and collected via taxes, isnt that what brought us to this point?.
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Mark
I am worried as I am self employed in the health sector; my client numbers have steadily been dropping as I am not a 'need to have' but a 'want to have' and when people are struggling to put food on the table, it appears insensitive to recommend they need to look after themselves with my treatments at this stressful time. SO: I am thinking of getting a part time job...but so are millions of others who, one has to admit, probably have better office skills than myself....and all the time worried about my meagre savings in banks whose futures are now looking extremely dubious...so the govt takes my money to help out others who then give it back ot me...this is either madness or the perfect way to use our money: haven't figured out which!
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Is it really unhealthy to worry about your life, where it is going and what you expect from it? I think this is all very healthy.
In my view depression is a real emotion experienced by perfectly healthy people whose only defect is that they have lost focus on their lives. When I am down I go for a long walk and it helps to sort me out. It took me a long time to learn that simple cure.
Many people feel trapped in unsatisfactory lives. To a degree they have accepted the package that the media, public values and fashion impose. Most do not have the funds to emulate that life-style. Some borrow money to try and purchase that type of life and just end up deeper down than before.
The solution is to find a social context that suits and which does not necessitate an illusion. This might create tensions with relatives and so-called friends but life has to be a dynamic or you die. We are all different but we all need each other: we just need to get the context right.
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The end of certainty . BBC blog 1 Mark Easton
?The end of certainty? begins with the tenets of science ? the ability to predict and control the levers of power by numbers. The removal of which unleashes fear.
We see the currently in global climatic change, ?the carbon economy?, of the planet?s capital resources forests, coal/oil and minerals where human exponential growth and consumption is as mindless as bacteria in a soup. We fear our inability to do anything about it.
We see this currently in the collapse of global financial markets previously reassured by the ?science of economics? and the computational power of markets. We put numbers to human activity. The destruction of the confidence of the ?number crunchers? released the perils of fear.
We see this currently in global Islamic fundamentalism and the war on global terrorism and the fearof the subsuming power of Western materialism and loss of mystical power.
We see this in mental health ? where we demonise the mentally ill because we fear the possible collapse of our own minds.
?There has been a marked fall in community capital ? the web of family and social connections that can act as a safety net when times get tough?
?As we hurriedly prepare for the storm, we must not let our eyes become so hypnotised by numbers that we forget about people?.
We fear what we do not know and fear triggers a basic, physical response ? ?fight or flight? ? metabolic systems change - and physical actions are taken.
Social inclusion is vital to offset fear. Arguably, fear is major constituent in the induction of psychotic states in the vulnerable in serious conditions such as schizophrenia. ?Remove the fields of fear and harvest a meaningful future.
?tell me? and I?ll forget
?show me? and I may remember
?involve me? and I?ll understand
This is not helped by the CSIP Anglia TV clip which reinforces the public image of a miserable ?layabout? on a couch, like a Roman emperor being enticed to indulge in self serving interest. Like a teenager unwilling to face the reality of the hard graft of work.
This clip is just flashed up without any explanation what it is about - unlike the caption which introduces the clip in this blog ?The MHF has just released an excellent television ad offering straightforward advice to those who feel overly-anxious or depressed?.
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This is not the end of certainty, it's the clear and irrefutable proof.
Our current system relies on the exponential expansion of wealth. This feat is achieved through continually increasing the resources that we use. You cannot have infinite expansion from finite resources.
Economic collapse is a mathematical certainty and the longer our governments try to keep the system out of equilibrium, the more wealth we use just to stand still and the worse the inevitable crash will be.
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It's a odd situation certainly. Only a few months ago, banks were posting huge quarterly profits, which implied they had actual, tangible, funds. Where have those funds gone now?
There's an idea in this country that there's nothing wrong with credit, that if you can afford the repayments, then why wait until you can afford to pay for something all at once? The prevailing wisdom for many years was to take a mortgage on the one thing you really couldn't afford in one go, your house, and save up for everything else. Credit had a fairly bad name and was associated with mail-order catalogues and loan sharks. Then came the credit card and all of a sudden, people who would never have previously considered paying on the never-never, believed that they deserved the lifestyle improvements promised by credit. Buy now, pay later screamed the TV adverts! Still, there were those sensible people (like myself) who refused to believe credit was acceptable - I buy only when I can afford it but now it seems I'm like the proverbial family of squirrels who worked hard all summer to have enough for winter. For some reason I'm now obliged to help out all the bunnies who ran around having fun all summer...
Make no mistake, all you people who believe your disposable income can be measured by the maximum amount you can afford to repay on your credit card are just as much to blame as the banks or anyone else. It took two to tango, and as much as they wanted to lend, you wanted to borrow. Just remember that as my taxes are used to help rescue a system whose demise you had a leading role in.
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#phykell
It's a odd situation certainly. Only a few months ago, banks were posting huge quarterly profits, which implied they had actual, tangible, funds. Where have those funds gone now?
There never was any money there never was any funds it was all on paper, the profits calculated from the figures on the paper .Percentages paid and then some one asked for real time payment in the stuff we know as money alas there was none so it began the rock at the top of the hill was pushed and all the money on paper being erased with each role of the rock, it will get to the bottom of the hill but it will take a lot of real money to cushion its landing.
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