The goal is not to feel calm about atrocities. It is to keep them from taking up permanent residence. A practical guide to staying conscientious, staying active, and remaining recognizably yourself.
THIS! This is soooo good. As a retired history educator, I have gone through many phases of despair and “rehabbing” repose. Thank you for this thorough piece. Very helpful. I have been on this road for a while, but this is more comprehensive. I want to be around for grandchildren’s (ranging in age from 2 to 20) future graduations and other special celebrations.
I really do appreciate this and know logically that it is right, but the focus is on political regime. At this point I feel a moving beyond to true existential angst per climate. Any words on that? 🙏
Marcy, this is the right question, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a pat one, because climate dread is its own animal.
Political fear at least has a face and a clock, opponents, elections, things you can name and fight. Climate has none of that. It's slow, faceless, planetary, and it doesn't resolve on any timeline your body can feel. So it lands as something closer to grief than anger, and grief is the right word, because part of what you're carrying is mourning for a stable world you were promised and won't get. That feeling isn't a malfunction. It's an accurate response to a real loss, held by someone paying attention.
One thing worth holding onto: "it's too late" feels like realism, but it's just despair in a lab coat, and it's wrong. Climate was never pass/fail. Every tenth of a degree prevented is suffering prevented. The future isn't saved-or-lost, it's a long dial with better and worse settings, and the dial still turns. Believing it's over is what makes you stop turning it.
The despair comes from scale, a planet-sized problem in a person-sized mind. The cure isn't thinking bigger, it's acting smaller, concretely, and with other people. Join the thing. Not because you alone move the dial, but because doing it in a room with others is the only real antidote to the isolation the problem feeds on.
And let the grief be grief sometimes. Some of this doesn't get fixed, only mourned, and that's allowed. What breaks people isn't the sadness, it's never letting it finish, so it becomes the weather instead of passing through.
Thank you for stating, in such clear terms, what I have felt for the last 10 years. In October of 2016, I withdrew from all news sources and focused on things that brought me satisfaction and enjoyment. That was the distractive therapy I needed. More recently, I have allowed awareness to return, and have been finding myself re-entering that “world of helplessness.” Time to disengage, once again— thanks for the timely reminder.
I am soothed and grateful to have read this and I have forwarded it to everyone I know
Thank you for this ♥️I’m sharing everywhere
Thank you. My day is looking a little brighter after reading this.
:)
THIS! This is soooo good. As a retired history educator, I have gone through many phases of despair and “rehabbing” repose. Thank you for this thorough piece. Very helpful. I have been on this road for a while, but this is more comprehensive. I want to be around for grandchildren’s (ranging in age from 2 to 20) future graduations and other special celebrations.
Thank you.
I really do appreciate this and know logically that it is right, but the focus is on political regime. At this point I feel a moving beyond to true existential angst per climate. Any words on that? 🙏
Thank you for your response. I think it is a combo of grief and fear. I’m nearly 70. I only have so much left. But my adult children? 😞
Regardless, thank you.
Marcy, this is the right question, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a pat one, because climate dread is its own animal.
Political fear at least has a face and a clock, opponents, elections, things you can name and fight. Climate has none of that. It's slow, faceless, planetary, and it doesn't resolve on any timeline your body can feel. So it lands as something closer to grief than anger, and grief is the right word, because part of what you're carrying is mourning for a stable world you were promised and won't get. That feeling isn't a malfunction. It's an accurate response to a real loss, held by someone paying attention.
One thing worth holding onto: "it's too late" feels like realism, but it's just despair in a lab coat, and it's wrong. Climate was never pass/fail. Every tenth of a degree prevented is suffering prevented. The future isn't saved-or-lost, it's a long dial with better and worse settings, and the dial still turns. Believing it's over is what makes you stop turning it.
The despair comes from scale, a planet-sized problem in a person-sized mind. The cure isn't thinking bigger, it's acting smaller, concretely, and with other people. Join the thing. Not because you alone move the dial, but because doing it in a room with others is the only real antidote to the isolation the problem feeds on.
And let the grief be grief sometimes. Some of this doesn't get fixed, only mourned, and that's allowed. What breaks people isn't the sadness, it's never letting it finish, so it becomes the weather instead of passing through.
Thank you for stating, in such clear terms, what I have felt for the last 10 years. In October of 2016, I withdrew from all news sources and focused on things that brought me satisfaction and enjoyment. That was the distractive therapy I needed. More recently, I have allowed awareness to return, and have been finding myself re-entering that “world of helplessness.” Time to disengage, once again— thanks for the timely reminder.
Good one, Tom.
Being fully yourself is a radical act in a world of conformists and sycophants.
Thank you for this. I also forwarded to many loved ones.
Thank you.