December 17
Thursday night, Yanthor and I had an imprumptu late night talk. During our discussion, he mentioned that he often gets the impression from reading my site that I live a life filled with anger and resentment at the world. Since I don't generally perceive myself this way, I've been doing a bit of self-examination in an attempt to discern:
- Do my web writings tend to focus disproportionately on the negative, thus giving readers a skewed picture that does not accurately reflect my thinking?
- Do I harbor more bitterness than I myself am consciously aware, which then seeps out in my posts?
Glancing at posts from the past couple weeks, I see a number of items that could be viewed as "negative". The news about the Fed hiding information on the money supply. The dangers of biodiesel. A link to an article about the institutionalized abuse of children by our society. My more recent post contemplating my own future might be seen as negative in the first few paragraphs, but I think it finished on a very positive note. (Indeed, from the very beginning, I intended to build toward the potentially happy news: that here is a school I might actually want to go to.)
If the cumulative effect of the news and commentary I highlight gives people the impression that "everything is all going to hell, there's no hope", then I have failed in conveying my message. If it causes people to think, "Well that guy sure is angry and bitter, what's his problem?", then I'm not communicating the point effectively enough. Or maybe there are moments when I myself fall into the trap of being outraged and stomping around in futile gestures, and I need to get past that.
This does not mean I'm going to omit or sugarcoat bad news in an attempt to be more "positive". But I do think I need to be more vigilant in using the "bad news" to explicitly point the way toward positive action, both for others and myself. To use a quote of which scottgalvin.com recently reminded us, "Anger is a gift." --Zack de la Rocha.
(Even that has a certain fallacy; though anger has its place, there comes a time when you need to move past anger to embrace the power of love. Ick, that sounds like a cheesy cliché doesn't it? But it's true.)
I would use David C. Korten as an example of somebody whose writings evidence that while he is well aware of the direness of the situation, he uses that knowledge to propel positive change.
Now, on that note...
Transition Culture
A blog I recently started following called Transition Culture focuses on the historic opportunity we face with the coming of Peak Oil. Rather than taking "the sky is falling, we're all going to starve" approach, the writings here are about what people can and are doing to deal with this massive challenge. In a recent post, he wrote:
I have come to see that I am in a tiny minority who is able to digest "bad news" and turn it into action. Mot people simply don't respond in that way, and I no longer believe that it is simply because they don't care. As one contributor to TransitionCulture.org wrote, "many of the books I have read on peak oil should have a razor blade in a pocket on the back sleeve". This is not to say that we should not aim to raise awareness and talk about the issues, but at same time, simply presenting people with bad news and expecting them to respond by engaging boldly and imaginatively is unrealistic in the extreme.
So how might we inspire, rather than depress people and cause them to tune out?
Tom Atlee writes of creating what he calls an "alternative story field". This is in essence creating new myths and stories that begin to formulate where we want to go. He identifies a couple of novels, such as Callenbach's 'Ecotopia' and Starhawk's "The Fifth Sacred Thing". He also talks of the potential power of bringing together activists, creative writers and journalists, to form 'think tanks' that create new stories for our times. Perhaps in a town when we start doing Energy Descent work, we should also be looking to draw in the novelists, poets, artists, storytellers. [...] This is best summed up in one of my favourite quotes, from poet Gary Snyder, "it is best to think of this as a revolution, not of guns, but of consciousness, which will be won by seizing the key myths, archetypes, eschatologies and ecstasies so that life won't seem worth living unless one is on the transforming energy's side".
I know I tend to feel more inspired and emboldened when in the company of others who are working toward positive transformation. Conversely, I'm most likely to become depressed and adopt a defeatist mindset when it seems like I'm the only one in the world who gives a damn. So maybe the first step is to let people know that there are others out there who really "get it". Such a moment came for me when I came across Ran Prieur's website, but others might find different sources more inspiring.