These long, wet, gray days of late winter, it is easy to feel gloomy and depressed — especially when we confront daily headlines that suggest that, as poet W.B. Yeats once wrote a century ago, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…/The best lack all conviction/While the worst are full/Of passionate intensity…”
“Things fall apart…”The stable climate which we always have taken for granted is growing increasingly erratic and destructive all over the world due to rising CO2 emissions; our fossil fuel-based infrastructures (both physical and financial) are increasingly fragile and subject to forces beyond our control (floods, droughts, shortages, the war in Ukraine, etc.); the social consensus upon which a healthy democracy depends has eroded, and the forces of toxic extremism, polarization, and fascism are growing both here and throughout the world — and so forth.
So how do we cope? In my view, we all have the choice of four attitudes toward our global predicament: denial, delusion, despair, or…determination. Only the latter is adaptive.
Most of us, of course, are in deep denial. We prefer not to “go there” and instead focus on business as usual. This is a perfectly normal response to ominous, converging forces well beyond our control. But it makes us vulnerable when things deteriorate further.
A lot of us, including some very brilliant and capable people, are still delusional. They truly believe that if we invest enough in renewables and technological innovation, we can turn this thing around, and create a glistening, entirely electrified techno-utopia, free of fossil fuels. In these dreams, they overlook an inescapable fact: available net energy — the energy you have left after the energy you invest to get that energy — is the foundation of every economy, and so our miraculous technological and agricultural infrastructure (that now must feed 8 billion people) is utterly reliant on abundant net energy — which is only available from fossil fuels. After all, we cannot build solar panels out of solar energy, nor wind turbines out of wind energy. We can only bring such technologies up to scale through massive prior infusions of readily available net energy — that is, fossil fuels.
This fact has driven many, especially the young, toward despair — quite understandably. My generation (the Baby Boomers) has, after all, effectively stolen the future we have always promised our children and grandchildren, by ignoring the implications of what scientists have known about global heating from fossil fuel emissions and ecological deterioration from pollution and “growth” for the last 50 years or more.
But despair likewise is not a viable option: if we assume nothing can be done, nothing WILL be done, and our rage and despair will consume us in a downward spiral…
So what’s left? Determination. This means taking off our blinders and looking directly into our predicament, and then making wise, adaptive decisions — right now — for the increasingly chaotic future we now face.
This begins with cultivating equanimity. For this, I have two simple slogans, one for adherents to Western spiritual traditions, and one for adherents to Eastern traditions. (These are different cultural languages for the same insights).
The slogan for those on the Western Path (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) is this: NO MATTER WHAT, TRUST GOD.
The slogan for those on the Eastern Path (Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, etc.) is this: NO MATTER WHAT, BREATHE, OBSERVE, and LET GO.
The first creates a healthy attitude of faith (trust in God, no matter what). The second is a time-honored, healthy practice for overcoming anxiety. Though from opposite sides of the planet, they work very well together.
To be continued. (Next time: translating equanimity into adaptive action, by growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness).
Written by Tom Ellis
I am a retired English professor now living in Oregon, and a life-long environmental activist, Buddhist, and holistic philosopher.