Apologies in advance
Hello readers, thanks for turning your eyeballs this way.
Lately I’ve been feeling the urge to write something a bit more personal. I’m not sure it fits with the “beat” of whatever this substack is, but I’m making some room for it here, because it’s hard to stay professional all the time. Because professionalism is really a kind of self-censorship, and I’m not sure why but I’m a little afraid to step outside of it. But let’s give it a try.
It’s been a fallow couple of weeks for my brain. Chalk it up to early onset Seasonal Depression. Some days I’ve cursed every driver of every car that streams past me down the slushy autumn road, pushing their foot on every pedal that sends yet more gas into the air. Days I’ve felt buried under the rubble of modernism, crushed by the weight of a century of mistakes.
It’s hard to broach the existential dread that comes with knowing and accepting the reality and weight of the climate crisis. Some of us know it, but try not to look straight at it. Others have heard the broad strokes of it, and may worry a little, but decide (perhaps for their own good) not to concern themselves with it, while a small minority choose to flat-out deny that it’s real.
Some of us are staring through our fingers into the abyss, in the morbid hope that it might acknowledge us.
These past few weeks have been a real challenge for the climate news ingester. We’ve seen major oil companies further shred any semblance of a hint of a veil of responsibility, while our government funnels billions towards them under the guise of carbon capture technology that doesn’t work. Clean energy, conservation and rewilding projects that we know are effective languish in the meantime. Now scientists are telling us their own predictions were too conservative, and unpredictable failures in our ecosystem are causing breakdown to accelerate. All the while Hurricanes tear into the south of the US, floods abound everywhere, and fossil-fuelled genocide continues unabated.
How do we not fall into nihilism. How does the world remain so disconnected.
It’s like we are ants, incapable of altering our own patterns. Following pheromone trails, digging holes and chewing out branches. It looks like intelligence—a lot’s happening—but it turns out it’s actually very dumb.
Will we simply consume everything we can until we can’t?
I see a lot of posts about the importance of not giving up, not going to sleep, of connecting with nature and getting back to the core of things. I like how it sounds, but it feels so abstract. What does ‘not giving up’ mean? What, for that matter, would ‘giving up’ mean for someone who’s barely influencing a fight? I’d quite like to go to sleep. Sleeping means we can dream (I think someone famous said that). But this feels more like sitting awake, waiting, bracing for the wave to hit. What else can most of us do? It’s inescapable.
I suppose that’s it. Wait for evolution to rein us in. We’ve finally found the line. Stepped over the boundary. Will she put us in our place?
Some days I perceive the whole concept of ‘climate communication’ as the sound of middle-class wheels spinning in place. Something to occupy the mind and conscience of those of us too comfortable to really get involved in the political reality. But that’s uncharitable. Political reality means conflict, violence too, eventually.
So we’re left to formulate some kind of twisted philosophy in order to live in the world, carry on with life, maintain a belief in the future and still know what we know. Perhaps that’s what is meant by not giving in.
Like I said, a fallow few days for the old noggin, writing from a bleaker state. But I’m feeling a little more positive as I hit ‘post.’ (Is my mood my reality, or does reality create my moods? Both. It’s both.)
From the top of the hill near our flat, you can see all of Glasgow. Some mornings the whole valley is swamped in fog, and it’s hard to make out the faintest shapes of the spires that punctuate the city. Other mornings it’s so bright and clear that you can see all the way to the Trossachs, the first snow glistening from the mountains beyond.
Thanks for reading.
Here’s a song that perfectly encapsulates everything I just wrote. In fact, don’t bother reading my ramblings, just listen to Jeff:
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