Thanks Sarah, I really appreciate you offering. I'll pass it along if any of them seem like they might be curious, but I'm not sure if many or any of them seem like they would be in a place to be receptive to the kinds of discussion you have here and in your podcast. I think for all the students I've really gotten a sense from they still…
Thanks Sarah, I really appreciate you offering. I'll pass it along if any of them seem like they might be curious, but I'm not sure if many or any of them seem like they would be in a place to be receptive to the kinds of discussion you have here and in your podcast. I think for all the students I've really gotten a sense from they still very much have that black-and-white thinking... there are two options, an acceptable, liveable world of below 2C and a dystopian hellscape. So I think for a lot of them any perspective that isn't optimism and hope for this <2C world is a vision of total despair that they immediately shut off to. I'll go on planting little seeds, and wherever I feel like there's an opportunity to guide them towards this kind of community I want to try to. It feels like that's not enough a lot of the time, but you can't force people to suddenly be open to an idea, it's such a gradual process and I suppose that's something I just have to learnt to be ok with. I think the perspective of looking at people and societies and seeing it as all just so beautiful, imperfectly, heart-achingly human is one that really helps me in these moments. We're all just bumbling through, trying to make sense of everything. It helps me to reframe the frustration when I find myself wishing people I encounter were more open to less comfortable perspectives.
I was thinking of your post from October first where you articulate your context and your experience of loneliness and helplessness. Your honesty made such a huge impression on me. I realize that my comments are unsolicited, and please know that I say this from the perspective of someone who only knows your situation from the outside and from what my imagination pieces together from what you've described (and from my experience reaching middle age after almost two decades of teaching in my own profession). I guess that I can't help but think that when we engage in this work of information sharing or of engaging in conversations with others about the soul shaking realities of our circumstances, we are engaging in something far, far bigger than ourselves. I really trust that the folks you are teaching and in whom you are planting seeds will perhaps encounter someone who will water those seeds, and another who cultivates and tends. And that there will be growth and learning and maybe even action in a way that individual can truly encounter it in their own thinking and in the context of their own life. But right now, it can feel as though we are doing so little. I can hear how much you want to give, and I hope so much that you have the opportunity to pour your heart authentically and transparently into your role as an educator soon.
Thank you Madeleine, your responses to me posting this along with everyone elses have made me feel really heard and I appreciate that a lot. I agree as well that you do have to find a way to keep planting those seeds with the belief that your contribution to that person's journey is just a drop in an ocean you'll never be able to truly see the impact of... I think so much of being able to build that outlook for me is trying to be less attached to outcomes and see more of the reward in the process itself, which definitely feels like something that Sarah has talked about before. That idea that regardless of how things turn out, regardless of whether my students ever become more open to the ideas I'm encouraging and regardless of whatever happens in 100 years time with the climate, that we lived our values and connected with those around us and found joy in it. Easier said than done, but a goal well worth aspiring to!
yes - and Kahlia 'a drop in the ocean' can be substituted for 'a light in the dark'... Even while it may not be seen unless it happens right in front of us, that light is powerful.
Thanks Sarah, I really appreciate you offering. I'll pass it along if any of them seem like they might be curious, but I'm not sure if many or any of them seem like they would be in a place to be receptive to the kinds of discussion you have here and in your podcast. I think for all the students I've really gotten a sense from they still very much have that black-and-white thinking... there are two options, an acceptable, liveable world of below 2C and a dystopian hellscape. So I think for a lot of them any perspective that isn't optimism and hope for this <2C world is a vision of total despair that they immediately shut off to. I'll go on planting little seeds, and wherever I feel like there's an opportunity to guide them towards this kind of community I want to try to. It feels like that's not enough a lot of the time, but you can't force people to suddenly be open to an idea, it's such a gradual process and I suppose that's something I just have to learnt to be ok with. I think the perspective of looking at people and societies and seeing it as all just so beautiful, imperfectly, heart-achingly human is one that really helps me in these moments. We're all just bumbling through, trying to make sense of everything. It helps me to reframe the frustration when I find myself wishing people I encounter were more open to less comfortable perspectives.
I was thinking of your post from October first where you articulate your context and your experience of loneliness and helplessness. Your honesty made such a huge impression on me. I realize that my comments are unsolicited, and please know that I say this from the perspective of someone who only knows your situation from the outside and from what my imagination pieces together from what you've described (and from my experience reaching middle age after almost two decades of teaching in my own profession). I guess that I can't help but think that when we engage in this work of information sharing or of engaging in conversations with others about the soul shaking realities of our circumstances, we are engaging in something far, far bigger than ourselves. I really trust that the folks you are teaching and in whom you are planting seeds will perhaps encounter someone who will water those seeds, and another who cultivates and tends. And that there will be growth and learning and maybe even action in a way that individual can truly encounter it in their own thinking and in the context of their own life. But right now, it can feel as though we are doing so little. I can hear how much you want to give, and I hope so much that you have the opportunity to pour your heart authentically and transparently into your role as an educator soon.
Madeleine, that is a gorgeous message.
Thank you Madeleine, your responses to me posting this along with everyone elses have made me feel really heard and I appreciate that a lot. I agree as well that you do have to find a way to keep planting those seeds with the belief that your contribution to that person's journey is just a drop in an ocean you'll never be able to truly see the impact of... I think so much of being able to build that outlook for me is trying to be less attached to outcomes and see more of the reward in the process itself, which definitely feels like something that Sarah has talked about before. That idea that regardless of how things turn out, regardless of whether my students ever become more open to the ideas I'm encouraging and regardless of whatever happens in 100 years time with the climate, that we lived our values and connected with those around us and found joy in it. Easier said than done, but a goal well worth aspiring to!
yes - and Kahlia 'a drop in the ocean' can be substituted for 'a light in the dark'... Even while it may not be seen unless it happens right in front of us, that light is powerful.
So true. It’s really, really hard work. May moments of deep joy be yours.