Try Deep and Light Instead.

It’s quite difficult to stay cheerful. Especially in times that demand big changes, whilst we are fed a pitch-black picture of the future that awaits us, as humans continue to dump pollutants into the air, water and the land. Doom and gloom all around. Climate change movements like Extinction Rebellion hurl one heavy doom story after another into the world via television and social media. It appears contagious, even in the safe bubble of LinkedIn, I see people posing the question ‘what will I say to my child when she grows up and asks: “mummy, daddy, what did you do when you knew about the dangers of climate change?”’

Don’t get me wrong, it is not to downplay the severity of events such as extreme weather events (Italy and Spain now), depleted agricultural soils, extinct insect and animal species and the role of non-natural climate change.

Nature are we

I too think we are screwing up the world and try to do my bit — however small — but I don’t find the doom and gloom helpful. Not anymore. It bogs us down at the bottom of a big swamp, and prevents us from moving forward. Instead of doom and gloom, I prefer to see a different story: deep and light.

Deep, by learning as modern, technologically influenced, human beings that we are innately connected to the natural world. As our distant ancestors already knew us to be. We are part of the great web of life and nature is not something outside us, but nature is us. Since the industrial revolution, however, there has been a myth that nature exists only to be exploited and dominated. “But,” says Indian scientist, philosopher and eco-feminist Vandana Shiva, “if we wage war against the biodiversity of our forests, then we wage war against ourselves.”

Power, money, greed and unlimited growth have alienated us from the natural world.

Looting

The rulers of the modern world, Big Agro, Big Tech and Big Pharma, have a vested interest in perpetuating this myth. As long as we buy it (literally!), the war against the health of the planet and, by extension, ourselves, can rage on. Power, money, greed and unlimited growth have alienated us from the natural world. By making the connection that we are part of the web of life, of a most complex and impressive ecosystem, we may start to realise that we are plundering it. That we are on the wrong track. Led by the big multinational companies and our own desire for their products.

The doomsday stories circulating on social media these days mostly just make people anxious or numb. Especially young people, wondering what kind of future awaits them. And they make them angry, which incidentally can be a good force for activism. But until we make a shift in consciousness and realise that we ourselves are nature (and the funders of the multinationals) and thus are actually financing and waging a war against ourselves, we don’t stand much of a chance as humanity.

Feeding fears

No matter how many famous artists and big names get involved in the ‘climate battle’. As long as we do not move away from the doom stories and the associated alarmism, I think we are mostly feeding fear, while resistance to real necessary changes continues to grow. And shouldn’t there be an alternative before we tear something down?

XR The Netherlands, last weekend’s protest / website XR

Not that environmental and climate movements should stop their actions, but there is a considerable danger that the polarisation in today’s society will further increase. This is already observable, mainly online, where I find the resistance to movements like Extinction Rebellion remarkably high. Just look at the Dutch actress Carice van Houten who is getting an amount of dirt poured over her now that she has recently joined the actions of Extinction Rebellion in the Netherlands. 

An ugly social climate surrounds climate activists, mainly instigated by people who think it’s all just idiotic. And the doom stories about societies collapsing and the climate hell we would all end up in, are not helping at all. We urgently need a new story. One with deep meaning that is lived lightly. A depth that is not dark and heavy, but rather still wonder, peaceful reflection and grateful celebration. And that is light. It is also an individual consciousness process. Even on a spiritual level too.

I wrote more extensively on this in an earlier article about deep ecology , the philosophical-ecological movement that sees humans as part of the eco-system rather than separate.

The futility of existence

Deep and light I see in the documentary series Our Universe – viewable on Netflix. It is one of those series that depicts the magic of the universe, about the development of planet Earth and the fragility of existence at various scales. From the lives and struggles of mammals like ourselves on this little blue dot, to the lives of stars such as our sun without which there would be no life at all.

Each episode centres on a particular animal, starting with Wachini, a cheetah. The series shows that universe and animal are inseparable. Made up from the same substances. Just as we humans ultimately are. The series puts us humans and our planet, in its place. Its insignificance prevails, yet it is our home , the only one where we know life is possible. So there is something much bigger than our home. Something much bigger than life. This zooming out which the series does in a spectacular way is strangely reassuring. Not to lull you to sleep, but to show that it is all much more complex and that life on this planet is essentially a huge miracle. Or rather a very complex tiny miracle..

Insight

The steps we ourselves can take to make our living environment better and healthier, including ourselves, oddly enough, do not fall into insignificance with the mysterious, big picture. It has value because, after all, we are connected to it. Not only that, we ARE it. In today’s rat race, there is no room for this realisation. Nor do we as children learn it at school. You can only come to this realisation, it seems, in periods of rest. Or when you come into contact with for example permaculture, where the principles of connectedness and working with nature instead of against it are paramount and also put into practice. 

It provides a different perspective on our existence. It may not save the world, nor even save your life, but it will make your experience of this tiny complex miracle and that of those close to you both deeper and lighter. And who knows, maybe even further away, because our choices of what we eat, wear and do will work through into the bigger picture.  And if we do it lightly, there is that much more chance that it will work through into the actions of others.

More and more people are realising that they can vote with their forks. Every day. Just this week a huge abattoir in Germany shut down because of a decline in meat consumption.

Act of resistance

It is, as it were, a silent revolution. So that silence out there, people’s silence about the ecological degradation and plundering of our planet and about climate change, doesn’t always mean they are diving away with heads deep in the sand, it’s also, for many, an act of resistance. For example, more and more people are realising that they can vote with their forks. Every day. Just this week a huge abattoir in Germany shut down because of a decline in meat consumption. You don’t have to make a lot of noise blocking roads and defacing works of art. But of course even veganism can be made heavy, or angry, with the most terrible reports about the bio-industry — and these are not even predictions for the near future, this is happening now and has been going on for decades.  

Models predicting the near future remain abstract and worst-case scenarios are eagerly shared. They provide a pitch-black picture of our future on this planet. Climate psychologists are popping up like mushrooms as more and more (young) people seek them out. I do wonder what kind of advice they offer when you’re sitting there on the sofa, depressed from all the world and climate news. ‘Look at it with a different perspective.’ ‘Try taking some distance.’ Or ‘take your own role in this a little less seriously’. All three, I hope. 

And also something along these lines:

“Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One “settles down” into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one’s self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” (fragment by the English journalist G.K. Chesterton, 1874-1936).

You’d want to frame these profound and timeless words and keep them as a medicine against today’s doom and gloom.

Con Amor,

Eva

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