Inspired by the art of Charley Harper, Chris Sanders, and Harriet Torpey
I think our media, TV & social, have conditioned us to expect neat, tidy answers to any problems that arise. Every popular sitcom or TV drama or blockbuster movie ends with a solution that leaves us feeling morally satisfied. (Advertising, too!) That’s not how real life goes, but we are so conditioned to this comfortable pattern that it feels unfair or ineffective to contemplate a real-life challenge without assuming there is a tidy solution out there to be found, if only we talk to the right people and study the right things. This conditioning is also dangerous when it tricks us into feeling that we have actually experienced, contemplated and resolved difficult challenges - which in turn numbs us the next time we encounter that challenge.
Below, two essays that have dominated my thoughts lately.
What to Do with Climate Emotions
A candid, honest essay. The headline caught my attention because it seems like everyone I talk to “nowadays” is feeling anxious, confused, untethered, grieving about - everything. It’s not a feel-good article, per se, in that it doesn’t offer clarity or “the solution” - but sometimes it’s helpful just to hear others articulate words that ring so true.
A few excerpts that struck me:
“In the West, they’re just endlessly processing, going to therapy for their emotions, going to the parks that we don’t have and thinking about the earth, and journaling about it,” ... “People say this new generation has ‘eco-anxiety,’ that they’re worried about the future, and I’m, like, ‘Dude, we’re worried about today.’ ” The [teenage] sisters recounted scenes from the night Typhoon Ulysses struck, in November, 2020 [in the Philippines]. ... “When you’re seeing, live, you’re people drowning—that’s not climate anxiety,” Isabella said. “We were watching people screaming in the rising water, looking for their kids. We were crying. You do have to process those emotions, but, in the moment, you don’t have time. You’re in survival mode. ...” Natasha added that Westerners always seemed to be looking for a linear course of action, “to figure out how to feel, then figure out how to act, then act. But here, we just act, and we feel things during, we feel things after, and then we act again.”
“Lankard, who is now in his sixties, has a thirteen-year-old daughter, and I asked him how having a child had affected the way he thought about climate change. Lankard told me that, when he held his daughter for the first time, he realized that the decades of activism behind him had been driven by anger and frustration, by a sense of having been injured. He grasped then that his emotional motivation would be different. He would do the work in front of him because of the love he has for his daughter, who reminds him, simply by being here, that there is no way around the future.”
I read through several of the links suggested by the author, none of which led to feelings of comfort. (Well, there are journaling workshops & 10 step programs…)
This quote stuck with me - from Sid Smith, a speaker in one of the linked videos: “My purpose is … to leave you feeling optimistic about the dawn of a new human future. But we can’t get to the dawn until we’ve gone through the dark night. And it doesn’t help us if we go chasing after the fading light of the day that’s coming to an end.”
What to Do with Climate Emotions
A candid, honest essay. The headline caught my attention because it seems like everyone I talk to “nowadays” is feeling anxious, confused, untethered, grieving about - everything. It’s not a feel-good article, per se, in that it doesn’t offer clarity or “the solution” - but sometimes it’s helpful just to hear others articulate words that ring so true.
A few excerpts that struck me:
“In the West, they’re just endlessly processing, going to therapy for their emotions, going to the parks that we don’t have and thinking about the earth, and journaling about it,” ... “People say this new generation has ‘eco-anxiety,’ that they’re worried about the future, and I’m, like, ‘Dude, we’re worried about today.’ ” The [teenage] sisters recounted scenes from the night Typhoon Ulysses struck, in November, 2020 [in the Philippines]. ... “When you’re seeing, live, you’re people drowning—that’s not climate anxiety,” Isabella said. “We were watching people screaming in the rising water, looking for their kids. We were crying. You do have to process those emotions, but, in the moment, you don’t have time. You’re in survival mode. ...” Natasha added that Westerners always seemed to be looking for a linear course of action, “to figure out how to feel, then figure out how to act, then act. But here, we just act, and we feel things during, we feel things after, and then we act again.”
“Lankard, who is now in his sixties, has a thirteen-year-old daughter, and I asked him how having a child had affected the way he thought about climate change. Lankard told me that, when he held his daughter for the first time, he realized that the decades of activism behind him had been driven by anger and frustration, by a sense of having been injured. He grasped then that his emotional motivation would be different. He would do the work in front of him because of the love he has for his daughter, who reminds him, simply by being here, that there is no way around the future.”
____________
What can I do? If there is not one idea that reconciles everything in “one fell swoop”, one most important action, is it worth pursuing smaller ideas with partial solutions? How can I become a “good” ancestor? I often have visions of the “future people” living on the land we are currently stewarding. I see them collected in certain areas for certain reasons. One activity that we have begun is growing more food, planting more trees, with hope that the seeds and trees will survive beyond our time here and feed those future people or other future beings. (And there I go, feeling I cannot share a messy thought without wrapping it up with a tidier thought)
