Hard truths about tough times Kathrin Winkler Wed, 11/18/ 2020 – 02:00
I’m struggling.
Back in the working day, I had a reputation as someone who always offered to my team a positive presentation or hopeful outcome to belief bad news. A Pollyanna, perhaps. It wasn’t deliberate. In fact, I didn’t recognize I was doing it until a elderly designer on my team told me, “You’re ever so[ expletive deleted] positive, it stimulates me just wanted to puke.”
I wasn’t trying to spin the truth, either. When there is change — that is, nearly always — parties often imagine the worst possible outcomes and the most deplorable inducements by those in power. People help bring one another down as they wallow in the panic and exasperation, and sap their own and each other’s energy. I was just trying to get people to consider alternative likelihoods, to help them find their motive, stay focused and know that their work was valued. Play devil’s advocate to their negativity. And maybe reassure myself, a little, more.
My husband considered the accusation was funny, though. Because when I was at home and I wasn’t feeling the load of responsibility for the team, I gave my own negativism free rein. The angel on one shoulder went to work; the monster on the other came home.
The thing is, I’m home all the time now.
I’m impatient to those used ‘fighting the good fight.’ They( you !) are undeniably heroes. But it’s not enough. And we’re not often telling the whole truth.
I’m not sure how to stamp exactly how I feel. Impatience is a big part of it. We’re plainly not done enough fast enough to address climate change and systemic societal questions. I can see attest with my own gazes every time I walk out the door( masked, of course) and encounter the homeless contending on the street.
But I’m also impatient with those “fighting the good fight.” They( you !) are undeniably heroes. But it’s not enough. And we’re not often telling the whole truth.
That’s creating a cognitive dissonance in me that is literally retaining me up at night. I know we have to show optimism, but I too interpret us forestalling the bare facts. Parties talk about “stopping”( or worse, “stopping and reversing”) climate change. The more circumspect just say “addressing” climate change. But in addition to the climate damage that already has occurred, more is locked in even if we were to stop emitting today.
Will the next generation feel disclosed if we “win” the fight and things retain getting worse anyway?
People do need hope and to feel that they have agency — that what the hell is do interests. Every degree of world temperature rise that we avoid shortens the long-term risk. No is important that, I know we cannot stop behaving and foster others to join us. I don’t know how to square this clique.
As for enterprise — I’m feeling reasonably helpless. Not that I tell people that. I absolutely planned it when I intensely say how important it is that they vote, stir thoughtful decisions about what to buy and from whom, think about the sources of their food, grow their articulates against injustice.
But it precisely doesn’t feel like enough. Once I get going on a task, I’m all in. But when I settle down to work, I find it hard to get started. That’s simply me, of course. There are still people out there doing critically important things — innovating in technology and business, moving for role, causing others and changing minds. Thank goodness for them. But we’re not all remarkable, and I imagine I’m not alone.
I am also experiencing massive foiling from the Manichaean nature of public discourse on, well, everything. Truth is gray, but we only discuss black and white. Both sides tick me off. Op-ed slice in the Wall Street Journal interpret reduced emissions during the most stringent lockdown as proof that major personal relinquish is required to ensure that we( “the greenies”) act on climate. The sustainability society argues that we can impel the changes we need without sacrificing.
As usual, the truth is somewhere in between( depend, I repute, on how you characterize “sacrifice” — and “happy, ” for that matter ). For me, the pandemic has highlighted what’s really valuable: human tie-in; kindnes; state; safety.
But yeah, there are things people will have to give up. They are principally things that won’t certainly draw them joyful in the long run, but that can feel pretty good about in the moment( flying off to the tropics, to purchase a new auto, chomping down on a juicy burger, going to the movies ), and abdicating some of those will feel like a sacrifice for countless.
Yet, I’m outraged with selfishness. There’s a woman in our house who complains that, when the sun is at a certain angle, she can’t get the temperature in her unit below 71 grades Fahrenheit. Climate change is making air conditioning a matter of life and death in some parts of the world, but 71 stages in Seattle? Sheesh. Talk about privilege.
Maybe I’m time afraid to be optimistic; afraid of a huge disappointment. Scared. Not that I’m not hopeful — I fervently hope things can only be achieved, and is rapidly, in the right direction. I’m only reluctant to expect it. The political place isn’t helping.
I don’t know the answers. I dislike not knowing the answers. It attains me grumpy.
I do find real moments of rapture. They come from my friends, my colleagues, my family and nature. From feeling and beauty. From gratitude for all that I have been given in life. So, I am coping. I hope you are, too.
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I’m impatient with those ‘fighting the good fight.’ They( you !) are undeniably heroes. But it’s not enough. And we’re not often telling the whole truth.
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