KMO is reposting this C-Realm Vault episode from 2019 because it captures a transitional moment that eventually fed into the project now called Getting Over Collapse.

The conversation with Doug Lain took place in late September of 2019—back when we were all still living in the carefree twilight of our pre-COVID innocence, blissfully unaware that the next few years would deliver a crash course in narrative management, institutional legitimacy crises, and global weirdness.

The episode opens with a bit of backstage context. KMO had recently traveled to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to record a professionally shot, on-camera interview with John Michael Greer about the  ...