"I understand what you say, but it seems to me that an appreciation of the nature of the crises is necessary for sensible strategy, and I don't know how to engage that intellectually without having emotional reactions. " My fear is that if we don't discuss it, those of us struggling with these emotions will fade away from collective action. So, instead of this kind of discussion necessarily leading to political paralysis, I think it can prevent paralysis in some people."
My friend didn't contest my analysis: "I don't advocate for my emotional response, but it is what it is."
Though he didn't argue with me, I didn't feel as if I had won an argument. Emotions are what they are, and we don't "win" by telling people what they should feel. It's enough of a struggle to understand what I feel and why I feel it; I don't think I'm qualified to dictate to others what they should feel. In dealing with multiple crises on all fronts -- economic, political, cultural, and ecological failures that pose a significant threat to human life as we understand it -- it's folly for any one of us to imagine we figured out the right approach, or that there is a single right approach, or that there is any right approach at all.
The only thing I'm sure of is that, to quote singer/songwriter John Gorka, "the old future's gone." The future of endless bounty for all, which some once imagined would be the product of the application of human reason to problems of the world, is not the future we face. How can we open a conversation about what's coming when so much is unknown and so many resist? Rather than pontificate, I will end with the reflections of an elder:
"I'm about to celebrate my 70th birthday. I live in a rural intentional community, close to land that feeds us and supports us. I've lived long enough now to be very aware of how different the world has become, how the cycles of nature are off kilter, how the seasons and the climate have shifted. My garden tells me that food doesn't grow in quite the same patterns, and we either get weeks of rain or weeks of heat and drought. This is the second year in a row that our apple trees do not have apples on them. But most people get their food in grocery stores where the apples still appear, and food still arrives, in season and out, from all over the world. This will soon end, and people won't understand why. They don't see the trouble in the land as I and my friends do. I grieve daily as I look on this altered world. My grandchildren are young adults who think their lives will continue as they have been. Who will tell them? They can't hear me. They, and many others, will have to see the changes for themselves, as I have. I can't imagine that anything else will convince them. My grief for the world, and for them, is compounded by this feeling of helplessness because there is no way we can have the collective action you speak of when the "collective' is still in denial. Thank you for listening."
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