Thanks for this brilliant piece. I once used to whistle to quiten hurricanes. I too have felt the futility of all of my power to conjure thoughts into words in a time when words mean nothing at all. I have killed the eco-warrior inside me who faught to use his composting toilet. I have pandered to people bonded to the false security of superstition. I have been seduced by the skin deep glitter of mass consumption. I have lost the hope I once had of harmonising humanity with nature. I have traded it for peace with the people in my life. I now skip up and down my stairs and drive to the supermarket and back in my hybrid car as earthquakes and landslides swallow entire suburbs in my city. I watch quietly as pandemics, droughts and floods drive food prices through the roof, forcing millions of people into near destitution. I call myself someone who once whistled to quieten hurricanes. Someone who sounded the alarm long before the wildfire. Unfortunately, I could not succeed in clearing a large enough opening. A large enough fire break. And all my words combined still do not stack up to the task. So I feel your pain in this blog post. Thanks for sharing.
So, how bad is it if your best piece of writing yet is about the futility of writing? And just so you don’t feel alone - I feel like a personified piece of well paid green wash falling down the memory hole 100% of the time.
You write so many of my frustrations Andy. I am so utterly bemused at why there is not more panic and ask myself daily why more people aren’t more frightened. It’s not like we haven’t been screaming it from the rooftops for decades.
I stay sane by building our resilience locally. It seems my only option now.
After four years futilely measuring and reporting worsening pollution of the shallow unconfined aquifer of the Selwyn District in NZ to the Council with a statutory duty "to maintain or enhance" this region's freshwater quality and quantity, I have realized the futility of having vested interests "protect" the environment from diffuse pollution of their own making. Of course short term economic gains are the sole focus of capitalists
Great read for those weary of saving the world. Reminded me of a piece I had written with related concerns: If Writers are Necessarily Right...Who are the "rongers", so necessarily wrong? https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/musings/wrongers.php
It's easy to fall prey to moral equivalence, so once again Andy, it's cathartic to read your delicious attempt to strip bare the temptation. In a recent conversation with someone unusually aware of the data, they commented, "well, at least your work isn't making things worse." But I'm not so sure and this piece makes that point beautifully. Hope the pool is heated. I think it’s probably one of the fulcrums of this unfolding disaster and the systems of consumerism and philosophies behind it are now fully invested in ensuring that the narrative of sacrifice is as far from the debate as possible. This train of logic always returns me to ruminating on why rationality and knowledge and/or spiritual and religious values are so easily refuted or suppressed when the choice is a quick dopamine hit. Was it always this way? What is it in our biology that allows this behaviour? Are we so firmly hardwired to respond positively to any perceptions of or rewards from short-term gain under almost any scenario because for our evolutionary history, accurate predictions of the future beyond immediate biological cycles were absent? But what about agriculture? That requires a very firm grasp of consequences. How did we achieve foresight in crop and livestock management and why doesn’t this trait transfer? Perhaps it took a few hundred generations for the agricultural practices to transfer into patterned behaviours and there was a heap of natural selection in-between? Are we about to enter a period where, if it wasn’t for the tragic loss of ecosphere function and robustness, we have a second selective challenge to reshape our biology and/or behaviour that could lead to a meaningful readjustment that is as significant as the one that removed farmers that ate all their seed crops or were unconvinced about the inevitability of the seasons? Our best effort at pre-empting this hard lesson is perhaps just the unfortunate cost of our cosmopolitan minds. That we have tried from within our lap pools or from onboard our carbon mountain bikes seems as preposterous as advocating veganism to tigers. Back to work…
Thanks for this brilliant piece. I once used to whistle to quiten hurricanes. I too have felt the futility of all of my power to conjure thoughts into words in a time when words mean nothing at all. I have killed the eco-warrior inside me who faught to use his composting toilet. I have pandered to people bonded to the false security of superstition. I have been seduced by the skin deep glitter of mass consumption. I have lost the hope I once had of harmonising humanity with nature. I have traded it for peace with the people in my life. I now skip up and down my stairs and drive to the supermarket and back in my hybrid car as earthquakes and landslides swallow entire suburbs in my city. I watch quietly as pandemics, droughts and floods drive food prices through the roof, forcing millions of people into near destitution. I call myself someone who once whistled to quieten hurricanes. Someone who sounded the alarm long before the wildfire. Unfortunately, I could not succeed in clearing a large enough opening. A large enough fire break. And all my words combined still do not stack up to the task. So I feel your pain in this blog post. Thanks for sharing.
So, how bad is it if your best piece of writing yet is about the futility of writing? And just so you don’t feel alone - I feel like a personified piece of well paid green wash falling down the memory hole 100% of the time.
You write so many of my frustrations Andy. I am so utterly bemused at why there is not more panic and ask myself daily why more people aren’t more frightened. It’s not like we haven’t been screaming it from the rooftops for decades.
I stay sane by building our resilience locally. It seems my only option now.
After four years futilely measuring and reporting worsening pollution of the shallow unconfined aquifer of the Selwyn District in NZ to the Council with a statutory duty "to maintain or enhance" this region's freshwater quality and quantity, I have realized the futility of having vested interests "protect" the environment from diffuse pollution of their own making. Of course short term economic gains are the sole focus of capitalists
Great read for those weary of saving the world. Reminded me of a piece I had written with related concerns: If Writers are Necessarily Right...Who are the "rongers", so necessarily wrong? https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/musings/wrongers.php
Enjoy
It's easy to fall prey to moral equivalence, so once again Andy, it's cathartic to read your delicious attempt to strip bare the temptation. In a recent conversation with someone unusually aware of the data, they commented, "well, at least your work isn't making things worse." But I'm not so sure and this piece makes that point beautifully. Hope the pool is heated. I think it’s probably one of the fulcrums of this unfolding disaster and the systems of consumerism and philosophies behind it are now fully invested in ensuring that the narrative of sacrifice is as far from the debate as possible. This train of logic always returns me to ruminating on why rationality and knowledge and/or spiritual and religious values are so easily refuted or suppressed when the choice is a quick dopamine hit. Was it always this way? What is it in our biology that allows this behaviour? Are we so firmly hardwired to respond positively to any perceptions of or rewards from short-term gain under almost any scenario because for our evolutionary history, accurate predictions of the future beyond immediate biological cycles were absent? But what about agriculture? That requires a very firm grasp of consequences. How did we achieve foresight in crop and livestock management and why doesn’t this trait transfer? Perhaps it took a few hundred generations for the agricultural practices to transfer into patterned behaviours and there was a heap of natural selection in-between? Are we about to enter a period where, if it wasn’t for the tragic loss of ecosphere function and robustness, we have a second selective challenge to reshape our biology and/or behaviour that could lead to a meaningful readjustment that is as significant as the one that removed farmers that ate all their seed crops or were unconvinced about the inevitability of the seasons? Our best effort at pre-empting this hard lesson is perhaps just the unfortunate cost of our cosmopolitan minds. That we have tried from within our lap pools or from onboard our carbon mountain bikes seems as preposterous as advocating veganism to tigers. Back to work…