This edition is a kind of reflection or representation of how I cope when things get too much, in the world and in my head. For the world has just gone to a new level of “too much” in the past 48 hours.
When tensions build I steady myself. As I write in The Beast:
How do I steady myself? Mostly I pulse. Which is to say I will balance the rigid, resentful ugliness I feel (in my head, or around me) by going out and finding humanity funny and just a bit cute. Then I pulse back to the (noble! important!) wrestle with the ugliness. Back and forth. And life goes on.
You know how you can watch a dog or a baby doing their funny little dog or baby stuff from your Tall Human vantage, and their little actions down below flood your system with warmth? It’s like that. But I try to do it with humans broadly. I mentally pull back from the cinema screen to get Tall Human-ish and this forms an antidote….and thus steadies my bowl of water (if you can follow my mash-up of metaphors!).
From further back in the theatre I can see the full picture, that we are indeed funny little things waddling around awkwardly doing our best, reaching out for attention, fucking up, reaching out more, unable to quash our ridiculous selfish tendencies, unable to balance said selfishness with our equally tenacious desire to connect and love and give. Cute.
And how do I do this?
I often put on headphones and listen to wild, connecting music (here are my Wild and Connecting Spotify playlists) and head out walking, preferably at sunset when the world feels raw and vulnerable because the light slants differently on faces.
I sit at airports and in doctor’s waiting rooms and imagine all the people as seven-year-olds. It’s good to feel the ache of their original, innocent being.
I enjoy riding in a cab in the rain in large cities and watching people in pubs, through steamy windows, being all vulnerable in their need to connect. Which reminds me of that lonely Edward Hopper painting.
What about you…how do you get further back in the theatre, how do you ensure you keep loving humanity in times when the world is behaving pretty crook?
PS. This podcast might help
yeah a plug…
Upfront, I will flag my Wild podcast episode this week is with a top international political scientist who answers my question, why are so many leaders in 2022 such dodgy and awful humans? Brian Klass goes deep with me into why leaders tend to be, yep, narcissistic psychopaths. His answer, formulated after interviewing more than 500 despots, cultists, war criminals and …the daughter of a cannibal...gives insight, too, into why our Prime Minister Scott Morrison is such a prolific lier. This ep drops at a pertinent time, right?
Briefly, on the Ukraine front…
a climate perspective.
I grew up with an acute awareness of the sword of Damocles that is nuclear annihilation hanging over my head. I prepped for the moment the bomb dropped. I discussed evacuation plans with my family at dinner (we all agreed it would be best to drive direct to the site of impact and be wiped out fast). I read books like Children of the Dust. You too?
The threat is again upon us. There is so much to get on top of to honour the humanity at stake in Ukraine. For now I will simply plant this: As with just about every threat we now face, this conflict is about fossil fuels and is linked to the climate crisis. Bill McKibben, veteran climate commentator and New Yorker columnist shared this:
To this end, some Joe Rogan joy
i know, weird.
I listen to a lot of podcasts about the climate. My friend Drew alerted me to this one. It’s particularly enjoyable because the guest, climate scientist Andrew Dessler, is such a delight. Also because his answers, mostly in response to the guest on the previous episode who tried to convince Joe that global warming is not caused by humans, are the best I think I’ve heard. I also found it kind of cute how naive and clueless Joe is on climate. He was gobsmacked repeatedly. Wow, 100% of CO2 emissions are caused by humans. Gosh, by 2050 the ocean will contain more plastic than fish, by weight. F*ck, it's seriously all that conclusive and serious?? How awesome if he got behind climate like he did Ivermectin.
Hark, a “vibe shift”!
podcasts and my green shorts* return
The dude who brought us normcore has declared we are about to enter a new vibe. Normcore? What? That was a vibe a few years back that saw young people getting about in mum jeans worn with New Balance sneakers and Tevas (think middle-aged tourist). Normcore embraced a beige sameness in a world where “authenticity” and “difference” is a pipe dream. I mean, who can stand apart in hyper-connected world of 7 billion humans?
And this new vibe? The dude - Sean Monahan - predicts we are about to return to early-aughts indie sleaze. I know the era well. Monahan paints it for us: “American Apparel, flash photography at parties, and messy hair and messy makeup.” Plus, a return to a more fragmented culture. “People going off in a lot of different directions because it doesn’t feel like there’s a coherent, singular vision for music or fashion,” he says. Monahan also sees Substack and podcasts as the new mediums. I feel much the same (re new mediums…the rest I care little for). I fear/resent the Metaverse and so am also moving into this more considered platforms where I am not beholden to The Zuck.
*Where do the green shorts come in? I bought them at American Apparel in the early days of normcore. The chain has since shut. Perhaps it will revive with the vibe shift..
Birds aren’t real! Wake up!
i can’t help but love this Gen-Z ironic contribution
I’ve touched on my love of Gen-Z and also on the new irony here. The Birds Aren’t Real phenomenon is both in action.
Conspiracy theories are whack and so hard to wrestle and tame. Gen Z-ers are particularly baffled and dismayed by them and by the whacks who push them. How else to respond but with irony and aburdism?
And so it was that 23-year-old college dropout Peter McIndoe came out declaring birds aren’t real. They are in fact, he bellows, deadpan, drone replicas installed by the U.S. government to spy on Americans. Do your research, sheeple!
Hundreds of thousands of young people have joined the movement, wearing the tees, swarming rallies and spreading the slogan. It went viral… and it got reported on as fact by media.
I’ve been following it all for a bit and I really recommend Taylor Lorenz’s coverage of it. You might like this podcast. The Bird Brigade have used the movement to tear down horrible stuff that they feel powerlass against. In September, shortly after a restrictive new abortion law went into effect in Texas, Birds Aren’t Real members showed up at a protest held by anti-abortion activists at the University of Cincinnati. The Bird Brigade began chanting, “Birds aren’t real” which soon overpowered the anti-abortion activists, who left.
Some of the “truthers” explain: “Most conspiracy theories are fueled by hate or distrust or one powerful leader, but this is about finding an outlet for our pain.” The movement is “more about media literacy.” Another told the New York Times: “My favorite way to describe the organization is fighting lunacy with lunacy.”
Frankly, I’m not sure anyone has come up with a better way to fight the lunacy!
A helpful insight for helping people in pain
i came across this wisdom recently
A Rabbi described a woman with a brain injury who would sometimes fall to the floor. People around her would rush to immediately get her back on her feet, before she was quite ready. She told the Rabbi, “I think people rush to help me up because they are so uncomfortable with seeing an adult lying on the floor. But what I really need is for someone to get down on the ground with me.”
What a metaphor for helping anyone in a tough spot, hey? Get down on the ground…
I’ll have to leave it all here this week. I’m in transit, doing a speaking tour for a corporate and I’m trying to keep my head clear. As some of you know, I earn my coin from doing these jobs. Feel free to connect if your business would like to have me come chat.
I do a few flavours of chat, “how to have a career based on values”, “navigating the climate crisis and greenwashing (which I’m about to present for a new University of Cambridge course) and so on. You can read more here.
Let’s stay on top of the Ukraine crisis together…
Sarah xx
Dear Sarah--how I steady myself nowadays has been thanks to my flip phone. I threw away my smartphone. All my friends and family don't get it/are mad/don't understand. But it has changed my life. I actually see, hear, think, and feel what humans are meant to see, hear, think, and feel. Life is not as overwhelming as we think it is. I urge more people join.
We lived on a hillside in KY and my Dad who was a successful business man had a certain melancholy. There was a ledge behind our house and an outcropping of fossils. Mostly acorns and such. He loved his fossils and liked to find new ones. It spoke to him of another time and another place. In those days perhaps we could not see that far down the road. (We only got 3 channels of the TV and the reception was not that good). The stones reminded him of a distant time and a future hope. I have one of the fossils with his initials carved in it. It is my most precious gift. However, I'm not sure I could have gotten my Dad to hug a tree but he did put me in the health food store business when I needed help. I really like your posts. I will continue to follow.