Serialisation format is perfect. I am an impatient little creature and tend to rush through books that I love without fully processing the content. You have allowed me to sit with this and that is everything. Thank you. Time to ponder is an extra gift.
Simultaneous gut punch and sigh of relief from me.
Yes, this feels right. And true.
I often talk about radical acceptance and I guess it’s the same kind of idea. Stop sticking our heads in the stand. Stop denying and fighting the reality. It is what it is. We are where we are. Let’s know that and live fully alive.
Yes to all of it....and....what I get stuck on as I read these truths is how I think about my adult children. Honestly, there's guilt and fear for what they'll face, and such sadness. I want to plead with them not to have children of their own because of what I ( all of us here?) see coming.
I know that's not something you've touched on yet Sarah, and may not plan to. But it feels like you've given us all permission to respond with truth. And that's mine.
On a lighter note, I love the opportunity this format is giving us to have a conversation and be a part of a community of truth - if that's not too grandiose!
This is an ongoing conversation with my adult kids (having kids of their own), I had to broach the subject very subtly. I have only been able to extend the conversation to what we're really facing with one of them.
I resonate with this Jane. Both of my 20-something boys announced that they’re not having children and I went through weeks of guilt about being too truthful during their upbringing. I was ‘hoping’ that modelling a life/career in climate action would offset the negative aspects of being different to their friends/ social circles. Time will tell. And they are yet to fall in love which will bring a whole new dimension to making plans for children.
I grew up with truth being discussed. I can only say I'm grateful. My brothers and sister and I all grew up to be activists in one way or another. I don't think you need to feel guilty....parents are only one source of inspiration for kids. And if you're sturdy and measured with your stance, joyful too, that is going to count for a lot.
Thanks, Sarah. Honestly the feeling of being an outsider (for a gal who has enjoyed her fair share of popularity growing up) has been one of the hardest aspects of deciding to be a change maker. It is hugely isolating and has been the cause of a lot friction in relationships over the years. I've mellowed as I've become older and more compassionate. I can't control anything anyway, so just focus on being me now.
That's huge Emma-Kate. I haven't even had the conversations yet with my son and worry about doing so because of his existing mental health issues. My daughter is more aware, and we talk, and then I hold back because after some really shitty times her life finally seems to be opening and bringing her joy. I'm much more able to have the difficult truth conversations with friends and acquaintances than with those I love deeply. I'm hoping , I think, that listening and reading and sharing here will help me with this...
Yeah, I have to pick my moments now with my boys. I hate being a kill joy, and it's really hard not to cry in front of them when confronted with truth after truth after truth. Note, the crying could also be peri-menopause - ha!
The audio works well as is, no need for anything more fancy.
When I read hard-copy I tend to underline as I go, finding points that hit me, hurt me, make me think. Those things that find my edges and find me at my edge, standing on the precipice and making me wobble with resonance and consciousness... Sarah, I reckon I could have underlined most of this chapter!
"There it is. And here we are. And this is big and serious and, wow, we’re all here together and the emotion is massive and nothing prepared me for being in this moment in history."
I love this. Knowing truth is freeing, and it frees us to love one another. I realize that I go on and on about humility, but I feel that humility is really connected in a foundational way. There's this beautiful innocence about this place of being confronted by truth and being at the end of our personal capacities and instead of being a place of death, it is a place of a new kind of life, of re-learning, of being taken out of ourselves into something bigger than ourselves and yet finding our very "self" in that place at the same time. It is deeply orienting and healing. I wish I could articulate this in a way that makes more sense, as it is something that I feel almost more than I can think.
Also looking forward to that chapter. Humility often visits me when I am ready to say I have no hope… because I don’t actually know what will happen in the future, and to say I do feels awfully arrogant, and part of the problematic paradigm of the omniscient human being. But then I immediately wonder if I am letting myself off the hook (of not feeling something I need to feel or of taking hard actions I should be taking) if I embrace and relax into a stance of humility.
Wow Sarah! You've captured it and you've expressed it. All the threads and quotes nail it. I want to share this chapter and the previous two with my activist friends who move into and out of despair. And I will. My reflections in my journal this morning were so close to the sentiment of what you've written here. My subconscious is obviously tuning in! I wrote a 'futuristic' poem a few days ago that I realised was based on 'hope' as you described it (It's called clear eyed and determined'). And this morning, before I read this chapter, I was thinking my new futuristic poem should be called 'Out of our comfort zones' reading your chapter has confirmed this! I've not listened to your audio yet. Reading you has been galvanising enough for now!
For me it happens through conversations with people who are engaged in making stuff happen alongside me: village eco groups, charity organisations, Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and the conversations we enable with others on Climate Cafés and events that we organise. It feels like slow work but boy is it heartfelt. Who else is coming on Restore Nature Now march in London this Saturday?!
Thanks Sarah, this is all working perfectly for me. I'm happy to let it all unfold and personally don't need to know what's up ahead. Your writing style works really well for my brain and I too feel I have a large capacity to hold brutality. I'm happy to sit in a bit of chaos trusting that you will eventuality tie it all together.
Audio is great, whatever makes it easier for you. As the chapters become more involved and complex, having them in written and audio form will help me with my processing. I don't need perfect audio for that.
On writing - I would love to know how you go about teasing out your core themes/threads/mantras with a subject so all encompassing?
So many feels and thoughts on these three chapters, I think it will take the rest of the week to process them properly and sort them into a coherent form.
Beautiful Sarah ! this takes us to a solid truthful place that invites fully engaged living exactly where we are. All 3 quotes are perfect. Looking forward to seeing how this theme develops further, so rich.
Mm, thank you. New subscriber here, 22 years old and winding my way through a year of deep soul questioning. I identify with that feeling of relief others were sharing, and I'd add to that and say I feel a sense of permission. Permission to get a bit weird and wild ~ to actively step outside the boundaries of any kind of "normal" life, to sweep aside the kinds of things I've been taught to value and pursue. It feels like an exhale. Like - okay, give it all you've got. Game on.
Admitting and accepting that everything has changed and nothing will ever be the same = permission to start doing things differently. We're not teetering on the cliff anymore - we're in freefall. Complete surrender. And I guess it feels more radical - more real - than hope.
Hi Abby, welcome! Yes, permission!!! me too. I'm so interested you feel the same at 22. Strange question - but do you feel in any way that you're going to miss out on living the "conveyor belt" life if you do the freefall? Or super glad you get to side-step it?
Mm, I wrestle with that constantly! I’ve been sidestepping for several years now - left high school at 16 (despite excelling academically / topping classes - ie, a seemingly unusual decision!), chose not to pursue a university education, etc. I’ve found that’s begun to feel harder over the years, watching my peers now graduating university, buying houses, getting engaged (!!), when I’m usually kicking around small-scale creative projects or living out of a car. I know it’s not my path, but I suppose there’s a sense of loss there, a small kind of grieving, and a constant grappling with feeling left behind and aimless.
So, do I grieve it? Yes. Does it feel hard? Yes, nearly always. Do I feel like I’m missing out? No, never. I think to jump back on the ‘conveyor belt’ would feel like a small surrender, an insistence on ignorance, an option without any depth or truth. It doesn’t really feel like a viable option anymore, on both a personal and global level, to me.
I'm loving how innovative and different you've made this whole process.
I was lying in bed last night contemplating your previous post and thinking how your writing has an almost poetic aspect to it, which I find quite embracing. I also realised that (probably unknowingly) your writing was loosely following the formula for a good funeral/life celebration. I only learnt earlier this year there was a formula, who knew? Briefly, the first third is the truth (and as you say, often brutal), the second is about softening with humour and engagement while the final third is somewhat uplifting with the intention that people leave feeling better than when they arrived.
It feels pretty appropriate for this subject matter!
I agree with Celeste that "acceptance" (of a brutal and very inconvenient truth) is another way to describe this. I think someone else mentioned previously that it is like when you receive a (life threatening) medical diagnosis and you need to work through all the big feelings (have a big tanty, throw the toys out of the cot) but then you realise that you need to take the next step rather than lay on the floor in a big mess. To stay there would be to accept defeat and stop living!
I just finished Clive Hamilton’s new book and he’s in a similar place. He calls it shifting to adaptation (while not abandoning calls for mitigation, recognising the window to change is closed). It’s awful but really brought a big shift in thinking for me. It puts the focus for me on the local - demand more of our local governments. There are no excuses for bad, maladaptive development policies at the city or local council level any more. We all have power at this level. It’s a different feel from trying to influence international big mitigation levers or trying to vote out dinosaurs at the national level. So a shift of pragmatism, maybe less acceptance than what you have described, but I have found it activating.
It’s interesting, it’s a mea culpa but doesn’t go further. Like a public confession that he’s shifted his stance and now wants a focus on adaptation; but doesn’t talk about how. Which is a shame because there is an incredible kaleidoscope of stuff going on in this space and I find it all - dare I say it - hopeful…
Thanks Sarah, the serialisation is working well I think. The quote: "the hunch that we are onto something important about being human." is a glorious line. It can be applied to so much, but it also raises many questions, which I'm sure you'll flesh out in your book.
I liked the line ‘born in a troubled time’. But then it made me think - is our time more troubled than world wars, depressions and other crises that have come before?
I feel the main difference between then and now is those periods had strong political leadership to steer them through, despite the mistakes. They were willing to lead as needed, where I feel our leadership is weakened by their own self interests.
I also feel they were told the truth in the headlines in those periods whereas news and journalism is treated so differently now. Truth doesn’t seem to mean much anymore. And that’s why we are craving it so badly as a society, like your friend noted.
I also wonder if you can also weave in the truth telling that is (slowly!) happening for Aboriginal communities - where we are having to go back in order to move forward? The Yoorook Commission here in Victoria is a really interesting take on truth and the acknowledgement of previous wrongdoing... I think we need that in the climate space too.
Tell the truth as to who is really to blame for our current situation, and that individuals are doing the best they can with the shitty cards they have been dealt.
I agree re the leadership! Both spiritual and political leadership was available. What makes things categorically more troubled is that we are missing this, indeed the leadership is nefarious.
I’d also be interested in exploring the intersection between climate and Indigenous rights. I think the climate movement made a huge mistake in focusing too heavily on the scientific / technical response to the challenge and I often wonder where we’d be if we prioritised a rights-based approach to the challenge. The transition we are going through requires a huge cultural shift - from a money-based/individualistic one to a shared/collective culture. First Nations have a lot to offer in respect to governance structures and ways of being.
Maybe it is the lens I'm coming from, but I am particularly excited about this because it feels like a spiritual experience to be able to participate in something like this, as this book is born and ideas are shared. I wonder if any antidote to despair is inherently spiritual in some way as it serves to connect people in an act of learning, sharing, etc. It moves us past ego into a place of humility. Richard Wagamese writes that the byproduct of humility is to share, which is beautiful and lifegiving.
Serialisation format is perfect. I am an impatient little creature and tend to rush through books that I love without fully processing the content. You have allowed me to sit with this and that is everything. Thank you. Time to ponder is an extra gift.
ah good. I think I'll do some chunks in a flurry or as longer chapters...others as short and sharp.
Same same - I’ve never experienced it before, but I love it . I’m really really reading it , with no rushing to see what comes next.
Haven’t commented before but feel the need to echo others sentiments. This serialisation format is perfect Sarah. ❤️
Welcome to the comments section Tori!
‘What you need is a willingness to realise you’ve been born in a troubled time’ a wonderful quote I needed today. The audio is good, use it.
Simultaneous gut punch and sigh of relief from me.
Yes, this feels right. And true.
I often talk about radical acceptance and I guess it’s the same kind of idea. Stop sticking our heads in the stand. Stop denying and fighting the reality. It is what it is. We are where we are. Let’s know that and live fully alive.
let's move on! let's grow!
Yes to all of it....and....what I get stuck on as I read these truths is how I think about my adult children. Honestly, there's guilt and fear for what they'll face, and such sadness. I want to plead with them not to have children of their own because of what I ( all of us here?) see coming.
I know that's not something you've touched on yet Sarah, and may not plan to. But it feels like you've given us all permission to respond with truth. And that's mine.
On a lighter note, I love the opportunity this format is giving us to have a conversation and be a part of a community of truth - if that's not too grandiose!
I aim to touch on having kids, yes.
and...not too grandiose....
as I commented somewhere else in this thread - truth is an attitude
This is an ongoing conversation with my adult kids (having kids of their own), I had to broach the subject very subtly. I have only been able to extend the conversation to what we're really facing with one of them.
I resonate with this Jane. Both of my 20-something boys announced that they’re not having children and I went through weeks of guilt about being too truthful during their upbringing. I was ‘hoping’ that modelling a life/career in climate action would offset the negative aspects of being different to their friends/ social circles. Time will tell. And they are yet to fall in love which will bring a whole new dimension to making plans for children.
I grew up with truth being discussed. I can only say I'm grateful. My brothers and sister and I all grew up to be activists in one way or another. I don't think you need to feel guilty....parents are only one source of inspiration for kids. And if you're sturdy and measured with your stance, joyful too, that is going to count for a lot.
Thanks, Sarah. Honestly the feeling of being an outsider (for a gal who has enjoyed her fair share of popularity growing up) has been one of the hardest aspects of deciding to be a change maker. It is hugely isolating and has been the cause of a lot friction in relationships over the years. I've mellowed as I've become older and more compassionate. I can't control anything anyway, so just focus on being me now.
I'll try cover this a little more.
Thank you 🙏🏼
That's huge Emma-Kate. I haven't even had the conversations yet with my son and worry about doing so because of his existing mental health issues. My daughter is more aware, and we talk, and then I hold back because after some really shitty times her life finally seems to be opening and bringing her joy. I'm much more able to have the difficult truth conversations with friends and acquaintances than with those I love deeply. I'm hoping , I think, that listening and reading and sharing here will help me with this...
I think many would relate to this distinction
Yeah, I have to pick my moments now with my boys. I hate being a kill joy, and it's really hard not to cry in front of them when confronted with truth after truth after truth. Note, the crying could also be peri-menopause - ha!
Thank you Sarah 🙏
The audio works well as is, no need for anything more fancy.
When I read hard-copy I tend to underline as I go, finding points that hit me, hurt me, make me think. Those things that find my edges and find me at my edge, standing on the precipice and making me wobble with resonance and consciousness... Sarah, I reckon I could have underlined most of this chapter!
"There it is. And here we are. And this is big and serious and, wow, we’re all here together and the emotion is massive and nothing prepared me for being in this moment in history."
Game on.
I love that we're all here together....
I love this. Knowing truth is freeing, and it frees us to love one another. I realize that I go on and on about humility, but I feel that humility is really connected in a foundational way. There's this beautiful innocence about this place of being confronted by truth and being at the end of our personal capacities and instead of being a place of death, it is a place of a new kind of life, of re-learning, of being taken out of ourselves into something bigger than ourselves and yet finding our very "self" in that place at the same time. It is deeply orienting and healing. I wish I could articulate this in a way that makes more sense, as it is something that I feel almost more than I can think.
I have a chapter called humility
at this stage....yet to write it
I am really looking forward to reading that chapter. I’m finding these conversations here to be like oxygen for my heart and soul.
Also looking forward to that chapter. Humility often visits me when I am ready to say I have no hope… because I don’t actually know what will happen in the future, and to say I do feels awfully arrogant, and part of the problematic paradigm of the omniscient human being. But then I immediately wonder if I am letting myself off the hook (of not feeling something I need to feel or of taking hard actions I should be taking) if I embrace and relax into a stance of humility.
I think it's important we're fulling human, doing the back and forth and challenging ourselves!
I don’t know if Rumi’s poem helps to put words to this feeling / place, but it’s what I thought of instantly while reading your comment:
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn't make any sense.”
I love this. Thank you so much. I just want to lean on this poem for awhile and be held by its beauty.
Wow Sarah! You've captured it and you've expressed it. All the threads and quotes nail it. I want to share this chapter and the previous two with my activist friends who move into and out of despair. And I will. My reflections in my journal this morning were so close to the sentiment of what you've written here. My subconscious is obviously tuning in! I wrote a 'futuristic' poem a few days ago that I realised was based on 'hope' as you described it (It's called clear eyed and determined'). And this morning, before I read this chapter, I was thinking my new futuristic poem should be called 'Out of our comfort zones' reading your chapter has confirmed this! I've not listened to your audio yet. Reading you has been galvanising enough for now!
feeling galvanised, noble, ready to leave the comfort zone is a really great feeling. Where do we see it celebrated, relished today?
I think one way truth and leaving comfort zones is celebrated & relished is when activists use stand up comedy
For me it happens through conversations with people who are engaged in making stuff happen alongside me: village eco groups, charity organisations, Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and the conversations we enable with others on Climate Cafés and events that we organise. It feels like slow work but boy is it heartfelt. Who else is coming on Restore Nature Now march in London this Saturday?!
Thanks Sarah, this is all working perfectly for me. I'm happy to let it all unfold and personally don't need to know what's up ahead. Your writing style works really well for my brain and I too feel I have a large capacity to hold brutality. I'm happy to sit in a bit of chaos trusting that you will eventuality tie it all together.
Audio is great, whatever makes it easier for you. As the chapters become more involved and complex, having them in written and audio form will help me with my processing. I don't need perfect audio for that.
On writing - I would love to know how you go about teasing out your core themes/threads/mantras with a subject so all encompassing?
So many feels and thoughts on these three chapters, I think it will take the rest of the week to process them properly and sort them into a coherent form.
great question...I might write more fully on this in upcoming post
Thanks Sarah, this would be much appreciated.
Beautiful Sarah ! this takes us to a solid truthful place that invites fully engaged living exactly where we are. All 3 quotes are perfect. Looking forward to seeing how this theme develops further, so rich.
Mm, thank you. New subscriber here, 22 years old and winding my way through a year of deep soul questioning. I identify with that feeling of relief others were sharing, and I'd add to that and say I feel a sense of permission. Permission to get a bit weird and wild ~ to actively step outside the boundaries of any kind of "normal" life, to sweep aside the kinds of things I've been taught to value and pursue. It feels like an exhale. Like - okay, give it all you've got. Game on.
Admitting and accepting that everything has changed and nothing will ever be the same = permission to start doing things differently. We're not teetering on the cliff anymore - we're in freefall. Complete surrender. And I guess it feels more radical - more real - than hope.
Hi Abby, welcome! Yes, permission!!! me too. I'm so interested you feel the same at 22. Strange question - but do you feel in any way that you're going to miss out on living the "conveyor belt" life if you do the freefall? Or super glad you get to side-step it?
Mm, I wrestle with that constantly! I’ve been sidestepping for several years now - left high school at 16 (despite excelling academically / topping classes - ie, a seemingly unusual decision!), chose not to pursue a university education, etc. I’ve found that’s begun to feel harder over the years, watching my peers now graduating university, buying houses, getting engaged (!!), when I’m usually kicking around small-scale creative projects or living out of a car. I know it’s not my path, but I suppose there’s a sense of loss there, a small kind of grieving, and a constant grappling with feeling left behind and aimless.
So, do I grieve it? Yes. Does it feel hard? Yes, nearly always. Do I feel like I’m missing out? No, never. I think to jump back on the ‘conveyor belt’ would feel like a small surrender, an insistence on ignorance, an option without any depth or truth. It doesn’t really feel like a viable option anymore, on both a personal and global level, to me.
We would have been friends at 22.
There are a lot of people in this community who feel same and regret not making the same decision decades ago.
I'm loving how innovative and different you've made this whole process.
I was lying in bed last night contemplating your previous post and thinking how your writing has an almost poetic aspect to it, which I find quite embracing. I also realised that (probably unknowingly) your writing was loosely following the formula for a good funeral/life celebration. I only learnt earlier this year there was a formula, who knew? Briefly, the first third is the truth (and as you say, often brutal), the second is about softening with humour and engagement while the final third is somewhat uplifting with the intention that people leave feeling better than when they arrived.
It feels pretty appropriate for this subject matter!
I agree with Celeste that "acceptance" (of a brutal and very inconvenient truth) is another way to describe this. I think someone else mentioned previously that it is like when you receive a (life threatening) medical diagnosis and you need to work through all the big feelings (have a big tanty, throw the toys out of the cot) but then you realise that you need to take the next step rather than lay on the floor in a big mess. To stay there would be to accept defeat and stop living!
Funeral formula - I like it.
I guess what we are really talking about here is death, after all.
I love this too! It’s hospice for the old system. And…. let’s put more energy into midwifing the new one.
Yes, absolutely!! Bring it on..
I just finished Clive Hamilton’s new book and he’s in a similar place. He calls it shifting to adaptation (while not abandoning calls for mitigation, recognising the window to change is closed). It’s awful but really brought a big shift in thinking for me. It puts the focus for me on the local - demand more of our local governments. There are no excuses for bad, maladaptive development policies at the city or local council level any more. We all have power at this level. It’s a different feel from trying to influence international big mitigation levers or trying to vote out dinosaurs at the national level. So a shift of pragmatism, maybe less acceptance than what you have described, but I have found it activating.
Clive has been brutal on this for some time. I might get him onto Wild. Is the book good?
It’s interesting, it’s a mea culpa but doesn’t go further. Like a public confession that he’s shifted his stance and now wants a focus on adaptation; but doesn’t talk about how. Which is a shame because there is an incredible kaleidoscope of stuff going on in this space and I find it all - dare I say it - hopeful…
good to know... I can ask him about this.
He’s so prolific! Published a book on elite privilege the month before this one, Living Hot, came out.
Thanks Sarah, the serialisation is working well I think. The quote: "the hunch that we are onto something important about being human." is a glorious line. It can be applied to so much, but it also raises many questions, which I'm sure you'll flesh out in your book.
It's one of those threads...I'm dropping the crumbs on this one early and it will continue to pop up as we go
Sure will
I loved that line too.
I liked the line ‘born in a troubled time’. But then it made me think - is our time more troubled than world wars, depressions and other crises that have come before?
I feel the main difference between then and now is those periods had strong political leadership to steer them through, despite the mistakes. They were willing to lead as needed, where I feel our leadership is weakened by their own self interests.
I also feel they were told the truth in the headlines in those periods whereas news and journalism is treated so differently now. Truth doesn’t seem to mean much anymore. And that’s why we are craving it so badly as a society, like your friend noted.
I also wonder if you can also weave in the truth telling that is (slowly!) happening for Aboriginal communities - where we are having to go back in order to move forward? The Yoorook Commission here in Victoria is a really interesting take on truth and the acknowledgement of previous wrongdoing... I think we need that in the climate space too.
Tell the truth as to who is really to blame for our current situation, and that individuals are doing the best they can with the shitty cards they have been dealt.
I agree re the leadership! Both spiritual and political leadership was available. What makes things categorically more troubled is that we are missing this, indeed the leadership is nefarious.
I’d also be interested in exploring the intersection between climate and Indigenous rights. I think the climate movement made a huge mistake in focusing too heavily on the scientific / technical response to the challenge and I often wonder where we’d be if we prioritised a rights-based approach to the challenge. The transition we are going through requires a huge cultural shift - from a money-based/individualistic one to a shared/collective culture. First Nations have a lot to offer in respect to governance structures and ways of being.
I totally agree.
My sense many Indigenous Peoples are patiently waiting for us to catch up
Also, First Nations leadership- how can we step aside / down to make space for it?
Also, the audio works well no need to do any dicking round with audio files etc
roger
Maybe it is the lens I'm coming from, but I am particularly excited about this because it feels like a spiritual experience to be able to participate in something like this, as this book is born and ideas are shared. I wonder if any antidote to despair is inherently spiritual in some way as it serves to connect people in an act of learning, sharing, etc. It moves us past ego into a place of humility. Richard Wagamese writes that the byproduct of humility is to share, which is beautiful and lifegiving.
I like that reflection - anything that is antidote to despair is inherently or necessarily spiritual...look out for a chapter on this in a few weeks.