Thanks Sarah. Maybe it is coming later - the insight.
What you say makes sense - and so what.
For the last 5 years I've dedicated my working life/purpose to reducing carbon emissions - as an activist. It's not done in the hope we can maintain a certain standard of living, or successfully avoid untold suffering (of humans and other species) - that may or may not happen (and, as you say, getting more unlikely as time moves on).
For fuck sake, what I'm doing could be making the situation worse - maybe the best way to minimise emissions is for economic/social/population breakdown to happen as soon as possible and what I'm doing is just prolonging/promoting more emissions until that happen and the outcome be worse than would otherwise by the case. My take is to not take myself or what I do too seriously (which makes it more fun if nothing else) and not try to predict anything (especially about the future) - just do the next best thing I can do to try and reduce emissions - disrupt/pressure fossil fuel industry and politicians.
Happiness is about relationships and purpose. We are here for such a short time. Get out there and do whatever you can to nurture worthwhile relationships and purpose.
Hope not required - and largely meaningless given anything can happen. Have one year old and four year old grandchildren who I love dearly and see and care for nearly every day. I don't despair about their future. It's likely to be a tough gig - but who knows. Action is the antidote to despair - and not let hope get in the way.
gosh John, I've gone through the same questioning. There are some voices in the climate movement arguing we should speed up collapse to save the remaining carbon budget and resources. Others are arguing any remaining budget should not be put to transitioning to renewables, but to making human life more bearable in this period.
This brutal honesty invites us into a reckoning away from illusions we pridefully cling to, and back to the core of our shared humanity. Maybe then we'll take living seriously, and embrace all of life with humility, awe and surrender.
Sarah, this is magnificent. Your instinct of doing this way are correct. We need this now. Not in 12-18months after a publishing house can take it on. I love that you have made this an organism that will grow from the robustness of the community.
I’ve been reading your most recent book and been trying to curb some of my habits along the way. One of my biggest challenges with reducing clothing waste and that consumption habit has been changing my work circumstances and having to accordingly change dress codes (or working in retail in the past where it’s strictly enforced you are wearing what is current to the store, which means I’ve built up ten years worth of clothes for full time work I no longer need or wore). Then further the fact I have been all the sizes between an Australian 4 and a 16 over my adult life with pregnancy, health challenges, an eating disorder etc. I work from home now so what I wear matters less and can be repeated over and over, I don’t buy many clothes unless I encounter having to change size, or to replace something I’ve worn throw. My question is how do you reduce your clothing consumption around forced purchase and change circumstances such as these?
Hi Sarah, I have 'watched from afar' as your journey rolled on. This question of 'hope' is the biggest idea I am working on in my personal journey. I seriously cannot see anything positive emerging from this divisive, isolating emotion.
I am 77 and a year ago a simple ladder accident ended up with Traumatic brain Injury which affects me still. However the good news is that when faced with a 'hopeless' problem, things begin popping if you are open to it. Living a 'hopeless; life is a process that is ongoing, but I can say that I and my supportive partner have witnessed the changes in attitudes as a result of the accident, and the easiest way to describe it is that I have been 'rebooted'.
That is why I resonate with what you are writing. It took my accident to jog my mind out of the classic 'want, want, want' attitude that our society has sold us all on as the way ahead.
Forty year of spiritual 'work' never opened me like this did. The mere idea of being able to enjoy sitting without thinking became, with the help of an ever present ego, just another want that was never fulfilled.
I don't know if this is helpful to you but for me, it's all about letting go of the machine I used for 77 years because I was terrified of what big bad future awaited those who didn't try hard, harder and even harder. The point is tat no amount of spiritual practice got me to feel safe enough to do nothing. It took an irrreversible event to remove 'me' from my 'ego-brain long enough for something else to be seen. I too am totally bereft about climate change, and I have no faith in those lovely but deluded individuals claiming to have answers. Sitting in a place of no answers has been my only breakthrough - and it ain't over yet.
I love this, Ian. I also think (*though you can't say these kinds of things too far and wide) that some of us do get hit with a condition that STOPS us for very good reasons. I, too, had to do long slabs in the unknowing wilderness to KNOW the answers (or that there are no answers).
Wow. I started reading, wanted to stop, and then felt a responsibility to see it through and follow the desire to be deeply and squarely in the place of reality.
Can you find space in the book to add in the ideals/concepts/experiences of trust and what happens when we've repeatedly been lied to, deceived, hoodwinked, and left with a baffling sense of I can't trust the politicians (so I won't bother voting), I can't trust the experts (so I'll stop listening), I can't trust that my actions matter (so I'll stop recycling). I feel like trust has a place in this discussion and would love love to see how you'd weave it in from your lens and experience.
Quote for the book:
"Sweet dreams are made of these, who am I to disagree, I traveled the world and seven seas, everybody looking for something." Annie Lennox (it's my most favourite song and came on while I was typing this!)
Sara - I’ve seen friends struggle with this trust piece (particularly during the pandemic) and unfortunately they’ve spiralled into a place of bitterness and are almost circling the wagons now.
I suspect that helping people to navigate the disillusionment will be a large piece of the moving forward puzzle.
Yes, trust feels core - I was struck in Johnathon Haidt's new book "The Anxious Generation" that he pinpoints the significant change in childhood over the past 30 years as starting at a point where the adults stopped trusting each other.
I’m a new subscriber and I’m so glad I joined. I am a cancer survivor and this first chapter feels reminiscent (a parallel of but on a micro individual scale) of the period during cancer diagnosis and/or treatment when you’re waiting to learn if what the doctor can do, or has done, is going to save you. You are holding hope, some will be looking up all the alternate therapies that might help. You have people saying “you’re gonna be fine” not based on facts, just toxic positivity; others will say nothing. In my case treatment worked but if it didn’t I feel as though this chapter is where I would be at. Each person would handle this loss of hope in their own way. I look forward to the next chapter and seeing where this goes.
I’m glad you’ll be using this analogy. When I first woke up to the severity of the crisis, it felt like I slipped into a parallel universe - like we have mass terminal cancer but everyone else is avoiding that fact. It’s been quite an (ongoing) process of making peace with that and returning to the only thing that’s actually important - to love as well as I can.
Shoulders dropped down, lungs expanded with air... Your words on hope went directly to the gut. Not a punch, but rather a 'thank god I'm not alone' kind of warming. The grief that sits on the backside of that flip is real but made much gentler with your writings, this community, and this fabulous start to a book I am so incredibly grateful for, even before I've read it. Both reading and audio were wonderful, thank you for the effort to share both. Well done Sarah. It reads well and the use of punchy one liners or one worders after a mic drop is engrossing for the reader , well for me at least :) Can't wait for next chapters.
Such a beautiful act of generosity to articulate for us where we are now so we are not alone and can ‘hold hands’.
I feel it deeply. Thanks for all your research, honest truth telling and deep conversations.
I feel strong and at peace.
It’s affirming.
I wrote my architecture thesis about sustainable living in 1993. Bought up 2 children plastic free, a frugal 1940s style life. We make stuff, built our home ourselves. A simple life, love, shelter food on the table.
Spent decades advocating for Nature, for Indigenous, for cycling infrastructure, for Independent candidates, for sustainability, for neurodiversity
Ran EcoGrief sessions for XR 5 years ago and arrived at acceptance.
I had made myself very sick fighting so hard.
2 traumatic head injuries from fainting while cycling hard - low blood pressure, hashimotos, inflammation, high cortisol.
I’m super sensitive, intuitive with pattern recognition skills which makes it harder in this desensitised world.
I can’t keep fighting.
Your words are a lifeline to me.
I want to be of service. I’m looking after myself so I can be here for others.
I’m know how super privileged.
The movie ‘Melancholia’ encapsulates for me. The anxious sister who can’t face modern life and the futility of it all finds strength and courage when faced with true adversity.
Time to direct our care and wisdom solidly, calmly....we can be the message with a radical knowingness, not from a frantic need to fix.
The pattern recognition stuff...that sings to me. I would describe myself this way. Obsessed with seeing links and connects and themes. Was like it as a kid and loved maths.
Bravo! Beautiful. I particularly like the Liam Neeson section, you have drawn out the nuance of where and how you have lost hope which feels really important. You know I have been sitting with this for months as well - the JM quote "Do we cling to [hope] righteously because it is crucial, or because we favour the comfort of positivity?" Still feels like it has medicine in it for me to unpick.
Your intro with pandoras box - it occurs to me that the geological presence of fossil fuels on earth for us to discover and use and misuse seems like the ultimate trick box. A trap that was set millennia ago.
I also like your juxtaposition of Hope/Relief, not hope/despair or similar, that is very powerful. xo
Yep I've been to talks where hope was still a thing. And then I went to hear Rupert Read talk about the Climate Majority Project and it was the only time - other than listening to you Sarah- that I heard someone say it's now past midnight and there's no going back. So the job now is to gently help people deal with the emotional fallout to that realisation. Which is a big part of the CMP's work, especially in schools. And start thinking about how we cope with what is already coming out way: resilience, fairness, and the end of capitalism. No answers in what Ive written but maybe some hope around the fact that there are individuals and groups now starting from the 'we're f******d; what do we do about it's perspective.
TBH I find so e of their language too academic ( it's why I love your writing!) but their work helping people come out of the other side of despair feels important to me and a sea change in approach.
Hi all, thank you Sarah for bringing all this together with a great community. Clearly so much resonance for people. Truth is the antidote for fantasy which is what so much blind hope has been founded on, so great framing! I edit my husband’s academic research writings on climate technologies so familiar with the ways that figures not stacking for effective transition to renewables, alongside neoliberal think tanks doing everything within their considerable power to block and confuse situation including of course the current nuclear ‘fix’ ridiculousness. When people ask me if I have hope , I ask what for? Sometimes I think we throw hope and hopelessness around in a bit too general way, as if there is only this binary response, when clearly so many good and rewarding reasons to commit to action for honouring and restoring life systems. But yes these questions you raise are such core issues to sit with along the way. Thank you.🙏
Our modern way of living is unsustainable and has never sat right with me. We are doing it wrong. Processed food, big pharma, abusing our natural resources etc. A lot of people are anxious and depressed. I don't know how dire the consequences are going to be but maybe letting it burn and starting again, doing things differently wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen.
Another thought on Chapter 1 - the Stockdale quote - my brain is screaming (!) a reposte - Viktor Frankl and his logo therapy. Surely there's something about finding meaning from our pain or grief here; and those who survived the holocaust through that? Is there something there about why we are environmental activists? And what that will evolve to? [By the way, brilliant post from Gabrielle Pitt on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gabrielle-piot_cest-la-journ%C3%A9e-mondiale-de-lenvironnement-activity-7203999017612013568-ef21?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop) which has helped to change my mindset about the terminology 'environment' - she argues that although we need to use such terms, they hide the fact that we are in fact part of 'le Vivant' (living life). We are 'in the system' as my friend Catherine Renaud also reminded me as she drew my attention to this. So, first we acknowledge there is no hope. We grieve that. Then, as my eldest son has also reminded me, we will be part of a new version of living life and so, is the new hope (?!) that we will somehow find a way to be part of whatever that new living life is AND that we will be there for all living beings with love and grace?
You raise something here - the wrestle I do with including wisdom/info from previous books. I quote Frankl quite a lot in Wild and Precious and so feel I need to bring in new wisdoms.
I know some authors repeat their older content ad nauseam. I'm not sure I can...
Of course always! Thank you for the nudge. A cross reference to your earlier book. Those who have it can go looking. Those who don't might choose to get a copy!
There’s a great book by Tim Hollo “Living Democracy: the end of the world as we know it” which points to the emerging new way of being. Inspiring stuff.
As my thoughts grazed over your words, the words of Greta Thunberg came to mind: "Our house is on fire".
And I felt that there is no hope for the house, sadly our house is on fire and it will burn down.
That does not mean we should do nothing; we should not put down the hose, we should not turn away. We owe it to the burning house, our burning house, to see it, to feel it burn and to acknowledge the loss.
But also, we can choose what to do next, what to do with this reality.
Relief follows acknowledgement, and makes room for action.
Thanks for sharing, Sarah, a great and relevant read. Hope is a four-letter word - and a while ago I found relief in dropping it. However maybe "dropping it" seemed a hard statement. Reforming the word might be better. Getting up every day and focusing on a contribution to make for that day, however small, could be hope in action. It is hard to do but winding the enormity back to a micro level that is in our control could be a way we can make a difference individually. And it is many individuals that make up a collective.
Joanna Macy talks of being “hope free” and I think that’s where I’m at after years of coming to terms with this. Initially it felt like learning we have a mass terminal illness but that everyone else would continue to avoid that fact until the end. Now I’m committed to living and loving as best I can, whatever the future may hold. Have you read “Heading for Extinction” by Catherine Ingram? It’s brutal but beautiful and has some great quotes. And I also point you towards the Deep Adaptation Facebook community which is very wise and beyond hope in the best possible way! I feel that spirituality (engaged Buddhism in particular) is going to be key to resilience. I don’t mean bypassing reality with spiritual platitudes but leaning into a felt sense of something greater - a bigger perspective. That’s why I love Joanna Macy’s work.
There’s the original “Deep Adaptation” paper written by Jem Bendell which spawned the Facebook group and there’s also a separate Deep Adaptation Forum (on another platform - can’t remember what) which I’m not in. Jem is rarely active in the FB group these days but there are plenty of wise people in there…
Thanks Sarah. Maybe it is coming later - the insight.
What you say makes sense - and so what.
For the last 5 years I've dedicated my working life/purpose to reducing carbon emissions - as an activist. It's not done in the hope we can maintain a certain standard of living, or successfully avoid untold suffering (of humans and other species) - that may or may not happen (and, as you say, getting more unlikely as time moves on).
For fuck sake, what I'm doing could be making the situation worse - maybe the best way to minimise emissions is for economic/social/population breakdown to happen as soon as possible and what I'm doing is just prolonging/promoting more emissions until that happen and the outcome be worse than would otherwise by the case. My take is to not take myself or what I do too seriously (which makes it more fun if nothing else) and not try to predict anything (especially about the future) - just do the next best thing I can do to try and reduce emissions - disrupt/pressure fossil fuel industry and politicians.
Happiness is about relationships and purpose. We are here for such a short time. Get out there and do whatever you can to nurture worthwhile relationships and purpose.
Hope not required - and largely meaningless given anything can happen. Have one year old and four year old grandchildren who I love dearly and see and care for nearly every day. I don't despair about their future. It's likely to be a tough gig - but who knows. Action is the antidote to despair - and not let hope get in the way.
gosh John, I've gone through the same questioning. There are some voices in the climate movement arguing we should speed up collapse to save the remaining carbon budget and resources. Others are arguing any remaining budget should not be put to transitioning to renewables, but to making human life more bearable in this period.
I agree...we fight, we care, we do what we do
oops...sent too soon...
we do what we do TO BE HUMAN.
This is what I'm focusing on, trying to nurture relationships and forming meaningful connections. And figuring out ways to be of service.
YESSSS
Well written and easy to follow, thank you Sarah.
This brutal honesty invites us into a reckoning away from illusions we pridefully cling to, and back to the core of our shared humanity. Maybe then we'll take living seriously, and embrace all of life with humility, awe and surrender.
This is my ...hope!
Sarah, this is magnificent. Your instinct of doing this way are correct. We need this now. Not in 12-18months after a publishing house can take it on. I love that you have made this an organism that will grow from the robustness of the community.
I'm so glad you think so! The growth factor is very key to my own survival in all this, too!
I’ve been reading your most recent book and been trying to curb some of my habits along the way. One of my biggest challenges with reducing clothing waste and that consumption habit has been changing my work circumstances and having to accordingly change dress codes (or working in retail in the past where it’s strictly enforced you are wearing what is current to the store, which means I’ve built up ten years worth of clothes for full time work I no longer need or wore). Then further the fact I have been all the sizes between an Australian 4 and a 16 over my adult life with pregnancy, health challenges, an eating disorder etc. I work from home now so what I wear matters less and can be repeated over and over, I don’t buy many clothes unless I encounter having to change size, or to replace something I’ve worn throw. My question is how do you reduce your clothing consumption around forced purchase and change circumstances such as these?
Completely agree Jo.
Hi Sarah, I have 'watched from afar' as your journey rolled on. This question of 'hope' is the biggest idea I am working on in my personal journey. I seriously cannot see anything positive emerging from this divisive, isolating emotion.
I am 77 and a year ago a simple ladder accident ended up with Traumatic brain Injury which affects me still. However the good news is that when faced with a 'hopeless' problem, things begin popping if you are open to it. Living a 'hopeless; life is a process that is ongoing, but I can say that I and my supportive partner have witnessed the changes in attitudes as a result of the accident, and the easiest way to describe it is that I have been 'rebooted'.
That is why I resonate with what you are writing. It took my accident to jog my mind out of the classic 'want, want, want' attitude that our society has sold us all on as the way ahead.
Forty year of spiritual 'work' never opened me like this did. The mere idea of being able to enjoy sitting without thinking became, with the help of an ever present ego, just another want that was never fulfilled.
I don't know if this is helpful to you but for me, it's all about letting go of the machine I used for 77 years because I was terrified of what big bad future awaited those who didn't try hard, harder and even harder. The point is tat no amount of spiritual practice got me to feel safe enough to do nothing. It took an irrreversible event to remove 'me' from my 'ego-brain long enough for something else to be seen. I too am totally bereft about climate change, and I have no faith in those lovely but deluded individuals claiming to have answers. Sitting in a place of no answers has been my only breakthrough - and it ain't over yet.
Maintain the rage!
Ian
I love this, Ian. I also think (*though you can't say these kinds of things too far and wide) that some of us do get hit with a condition that STOPS us for very good reasons. I, too, had to do long slabs in the unknowing wilderness to KNOW the answers (or that there are no answers).
x
Stay tuned for future chapters to this rough effect
Wow. I started reading, wanted to stop, and then felt a responsibility to see it through and follow the desire to be deeply and squarely in the place of reality.
Can you find space in the book to add in the ideals/concepts/experiences of trust and what happens when we've repeatedly been lied to, deceived, hoodwinked, and left with a baffling sense of I can't trust the politicians (so I won't bother voting), I can't trust the experts (so I'll stop listening), I can't trust that my actions matter (so I'll stop recycling). I feel like trust has a place in this discussion and would love love to see how you'd weave it in from your lens and experience.
Quote for the book:
"Sweet dreams are made of these, who am I to disagree, I traveled the world and seven seas, everybody looking for something." Annie Lennox (it's my most favourite song and came on while I was typing this!)
I did a Friday assembly dance to this at Sutton Primary in year 5.
The trust issue - leave it with me.
Sara - I’ve seen friends struggle with this trust piece (particularly during the pandemic) and unfortunately they’ve spiralled into a place of bitterness and are almost circling the wagons now.
I suspect that helping people to navigate the disillusionment will be a large piece of the moving forward puzzle.
Hi Brooke - ummm...sad to hear about your friends and a big yes to navigating the disillusionment. I like that language!
Also, AL, my most favourite song ever too!
Yes, trust feels core - I was struck in Johnathon Haidt's new book "The Anxious Generation" that he pinpoints the significant change in childhood over the past 30 years as starting at a point where the adults stopped trusting each other.
I have to read that book!
I’m a new subscriber and I’m so glad I joined. I am a cancer survivor and this first chapter feels reminiscent (a parallel of but on a micro individual scale) of the period during cancer diagnosis and/or treatment when you’re waiting to learn if what the doctor can do, or has done, is going to save you. You are holding hope, some will be looking up all the alternate therapies that might help. You have people saying “you’re gonna be fine” not based on facts, just toxic positivity; others will say nothing. In my case treatment worked but if it didn’t I feel as though this chapter is where I would be at. Each person would handle this loss of hope in their own way. I look forward to the next chapter and seeing where this goes.
The next chapter should sing to you. I make the parallel with being told you have a terminal illness. And, hoorah, for surviving! x
I’m glad you’ll be using this analogy. When I first woke up to the severity of the crisis, it felt like I slipped into a parallel universe - like we have mass terminal cancer but everyone else is avoiding that fact. It’s been quite an (ongoing) process of making peace with that and returning to the only thing that’s actually important - to love as well as I can.
I was thinking on the same lines. But I feel that if I give up on hope I will need to tackle grief and I'm just not ready for that.
that's fair enough...or maybe the conversation here will help
Yes. I think I’ve been fluctuating between hope and grief for awhile, slowly coming through that…. Mostly with the help of Sarah and this community.
Not sure what’s on the otherside though.
Interesting you should say that. I think I’m already grieving but haven’t been able to name it for what it is.
there's a word for it - anticipatory grief.
Shoulders dropped down, lungs expanded with air... Your words on hope went directly to the gut. Not a punch, but rather a 'thank god I'm not alone' kind of warming. The grief that sits on the backside of that flip is real but made much gentler with your writings, this community, and this fabulous start to a book I am so incredibly grateful for, even before I've read it. Both reading and audio were wonderful, thank you for the effort to share both. Well done Sarah. It reads well and the use of punchy one liners or one worders after a mic drop is engrossing for the reader , well for me at least :) Can't wait for next chapters.
I love the one liners after the mic drops. Powerful. Gave me permission to agree out loud rather than just in my head.
I need this.
Such a beautiful act of generosity to articulate for us where we are now so we are not alone and can ‘hold hands’.
I feel it deeply. Thanks for all your research, honest truth telling and deep conversations.
I feel strong and at peace.
It’s affirming.
I wrote my architecture thesis about sustainable living in 1993. Bought up 2 children plastic free, a frugal 1940s style life. We make stuff, built our home ourselves. A simple life, love, shelter food on the table.
Spent decades advocating for Nature, for Indigenous, for cycling infrastructure, for Independent candidates, for sustainability, for neurodiversity
Ran EcoGrief sessions for XR 5 years ago and arrived at acceptance.
I had made myself very sick fighting so hard.
2 traumatic head injuries from fainting while cycling hard - low blood pressure, hashimotos, inflammation, high cortisol.
I’m super sensitive, intuitive with pattern recognition skills which makes it harder in this desensitised world.
I can’t keep fighting.
Your words are a lifeline to me.
I want to be of service. I’m looking after myself so I can be here for others.
I’m know how super privileged.
The movie ‘Melancholia’ encapsulates for me. The anxious sister who can’t face modern life and the futility of it all finds strength and courage when faced with true adversity.
Penë, we are a "type".
Time to direct our care and wisdom solidly, calmly....we can be the message with a radical knowingness, not from a frantic need to fix.
The pattern recognition stuff...that sings to me. I would describe myself this way. Obsessed with seeing links and connects and themes. Was like it as a kid and loved maths.
yes to hand holding, being seen, validated and virtual hugs if required
thanks too for the reminder about 'Melancholia'. ... the 8 mins opening music score is brilliant and weighted
https://open.spotify.com/track/2e9glBdNmeBxqstbaZrBEc?si=f88b684beaca42d0
Bravo! Beautiful. I particularly like the Liam Neeson section, you have drawn out the nuance of where and how you have lost hope which feels really important. You know I have been sitting with this for months as well - the JM quote "Do we cling to [hope] righteously because it is crucial, or because we favour the comfort of positivity?" Still feels like it has medicine in it for me to unpick.
Your intro with pandoras box - it occurs to me that the geological presence of fossil fuels on earth for us to discover and use and misuse seems like the ultimate trick box. A trap that was set millennia ago.
I also like your juxtaposition of Hope/Relief, not hope/despair or similar, that is very powerful. xo
the juxtaposition is actually hope/truth per the next chapter!
Greek myths have so many applications...or more to the point, morals are universal!
Yep I've been to talks where hope was still a thing. And then I went to hear Rupert Read talk about the Climate Majority Project and it was the only time - other than listening to you Sarah- that I heard someone say it's now past midnight and there's no going back. So the job now is to gently help people deal with the emotional fallout to that realisation. Which is a big part of the CMP's work, especially in schools. And start thinking about how we cope with what is already coming out way: resilience, fairness, and the end of capitalism. No answers in what Ive written but maybe some hope around the fact that there are individuals and groups now starting from the 'we're f******d; what do we do about it's perspective.
Am looking into CMP
TBH I find so e of their language too academic ( it's why I love your writing!) but their work helping people come out of the other side of despair feels important to me and a sea change in approach.
I'll try to iv him on Wild.
Hi all, thank you Sarah for bringing all this together with a great community. Clearly so much resonance for people. Truth is the antidote for fantasy which is what so much blind hope has been founded on, so great framing! I edit my husband’s academic research writings on climate technologies so familiar with the ways that figures not stacking for effective transition to renewables, alongside neoliberal think tanks doing everything within their considerable power to block and confuse situation including of course the current nuclear ‘fix’ ridiculousness. When people ask me if I have hope , I ask what for? Sometimes I think we throw hope and hopelessness around in a bit too general way, as if there is only this binary response, when clearly so many good and rewarding reasons to commit to action for honouring and restoring life systems. But yes these questions you raise are such core issues to sit with along the way. Thank you.🙏
so many of the issues we face are about reducing complexity down to binary options
Hope for what? I love your response Sally, thanks for a new perspective.
Yes this can start up some very interesting and nuanced conversations I find
Our modern way of living is unsustainable and has never sat right with me. We are doing it wrong. Processed food, big pharma, abusing our natural resources etc. A lot of people are anxious and depressed. I don't know how dire the consequences are going to be but maybe letting it burn and starting again, doing things differently wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen.
Yes, as I've asked previously, what is actually dying here? And is it so bad that it dies?
That is exactly what came to mind when you were talking about losing hope of “fixing” things.
Another thought on Chapter 1 - the Stockdale quote - my brain is screaming (!) a reposte - Viktor Frankl and his logo therapy. Surely there's something about finding meaning from our pain or grief here; and those who survived the holocaust through that? Is there something there about why we are environmental activists? And what that will evolve to? [By the way, brilliant post from Gabrielle Pitt on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gabrielle-piot_cest-la-journ%C3%A9e-mondiale-de-lenvironnement-activity-7203999017612013568-ef21?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop) which has helped to change my mindset about the terminology 'environment' - she argues that although we need to use such terms, they hide the fact that we are in fact part of 'le Vivant' (living life). We are 'in the system' as my friend Catherine Renaud also reminded me as she drew my attention to this. So, first we acknowledge there is no hope. We grieve that. Then, as my eldest son has also reminded me, we will be part of a new version of living life and so, is the new hope (?!) that we will somehow find a way to be part of whatever that new living life is AND that we will be there for all living beings with love and grace?
PS your son's insight is brilliant. please tell him so !
I will!
I'll check out the link, but to your Q re what climate/environmental activism will evolve to, yes!
You raise something here - the wrestle I do with including wisdom/info from previous books. I quote Frankl quite a lot in Wild and Precious and so feel I need to bring in new wisdoms.
I know some authors repeat their older content ad nauseam. I'm not sure I can...
I understand and am still thinking "yes but". However it is of course yours to decide 😉 😊
or "yes, and"
Of course always! Thank you for the nudge. A cross reference to your earlier book. Those who have it can go looking. Those who don't might choose to get a copy!
I've added this very idea into the notes! Thx for the idea
There’s a great book by Tim Hollo “Living Democracy: the end of the world as we know it” which points to the emerging new way of being. Inspiring stuff.
Thank you. I'm going to an amazing bookshop in July. Will add this to my list
Thank you Sarah 🙏
As my thoughts grazed over your words, the words of Greta Thunberg came to mind: "Our house is on fire".
And I felt that there is no hope for the house, sadly our house is on fire and it will burn down.
That does not mean we should do nothing; we should not put down the hose, we should not turn away. We owe it to the burning house, our burning house, to see it, to feel it burn and to acknowledge the loss.
But also, we can choose what to do next, what to do with this reality.
Relief follows acknowledgement, and makes room for action.
The house will burn down.
"Yes, and... "
Thanks for sharing, Sarah, a great and relevant read. Hope is a four-letter word - and a while ago I found relief in dropping it. However maybe "dropping it" seemed a hard statement. Reforming the word might be better. Getting up every day and focusing on a contribution to make for that day, however small, could be hope in action. It is hard to do but winding the enormity back to a micro level that is in our control could be a way we can make a difference individually. And it is many individuals that make up a collective.
I agree. I also think JUST the act of being engaged counts.
Ooh I love that - reforming hope! I think this describes what I'm feeling.
Joanna Macy talks of being “hope free” and I think that’s where I’m at after years of coming to terms with this. Initially it felt like learning we have a mass terminal illness but that everyone else would continue to avoid that fact until the end. Now I’m committed to living and loving as best I can, whatever the future may hold. Have you read “Heading for Extinction” by Catherine Ingram? It’s brutal but beautiful and has some great quotes. And I also point you towards the Deep Adaptation Facebook community which is very wise and beyond hope in the best possible way! I feel that spirituality (engaged Buddhism in particular) is going to be key to resilience. I don’t mean bypassing reality with spiritual platitudes but leaning into a felt sense of something greater - a bigger perspective. That’s why I love Joanna Macy’s work.
Yep, Catherine and I have become friends via our correspondence.
And Jem (who founded Deep Adaptation) is a guest ton Wild soon.
Stay tuned for an upcoming chapter "This is going to have to be spiritual" x
Glad to hear that you're friends with Catherine and that Jem will be a guest! And great about the spiritual chapter :)
I was going to ask about Deep Adaptation and if it was recommended by others. Is it only via FB? Will look forward to the Wild ep on this
There’s the original “Deep Adaptation” paper written by Jem Bendell which spawned the Facebook group and there’s also a separate Deep Adaptation Forum (on another platform - can’t remember what) which I’m not in. Jem is rarely active in the FB group these days but there are plenty of wise people in there…
yes, I think he's distanced himself from the group