Thread by @flyingteacosy

Hey, so I wanna talk a bit about dealing with existing in a time where we can see the planet getting, frankly, irreparably fucked befote our very eyes? Cause I know this is a thing that is pretty much constantly on my mind and it is HARD to manage to keep keeping on.

I feel terrified. Depressed. Overwhelming grief. I wonder what's the point in planning for a future, if we don't know that we'll even have one? And paralysed by the immense scale of it all. It's the entire planet. It's everywhere we know life is.

And at the same time, everyday life goes on as normal. And I go about my day wanting to shake everyone- like, how are we just having coffee in the break room right now?! How are we mucking about with spreadsheets?!

So I want to say explicitly: sometimes these days I find it almost impossible to get out of bed and start my day. Cause I wake up overwhelmed with grief for literally everything I love in this world.

I wanna say that in case that's you as well sometimes? We're not alone?

And okay. There are a few things that make it a little more bearable, for me at least. So I'm gonna share them, in case they help you too? And please, feel free to add to this. I think we need all the help we can get.

1. We have been told all our lives that we- humanity- are to blame for the destruction of our environment, climate and world. This is not true.

These things are the fault of a small number of powerful sociopaths and the economic/legal systems that allow them to act with impunity

Yes, some of our actions contribute. But- hey, remember that bit in the Good Place where they point out that it's almost impossible in our current system to act in a way that doesn't have shitty knock-on effects? Yeah. That. The structures are stacked against us doing good.

And of course we've been told foe decades that the way to do better is through consumer choices. When the structures within which we consume are built to obfuscate the reality of how the things we need are produced! Shit is stacked WAY against us and We. Did. Not. Stack. It.

That's not to say we can't and shouldn't act to do better. We should! But fuck, this shit has been in motion from centuries before we were born. We are witnesses to it and we are the only ones who can change it but this mess? You and me? It's not our fucking fault.

It's hard enough to live with grief for the entire world. But add guilt? Add guilt, and I don't know about you but that paralyses me.

I did not choose this. Neither did you. It's caused by a system built to exploit us and our world alike. We are WITNESSES.

The world isn't being destroyed because you used a plastic straw or aren't 100% vegan. The world is being destroyed by the systems that make it so damn hard to live without harming it further.

That helps me to go on. Partially by removing that paralyzing guilt. And partially because, without that guilt, I can start to access a righteous rage about what has been done and is being done to us all.

Another thing that helps me? Eat The Strawberries.

tao-how.blogspot.com/2011/02/eat-st…

We may have only a few years or decades left. And yet: here we are. Me. You. Everyone we love. Everything we care about. These moments we are alive matter as much as any other moments ever lived. And we get to take joy in them.

If every year could be the last that the entire world is the way we know it? Gawd, drink in every moment of beauty, joy, love, peace. Love it as deeply as you possibly can. Now is real, now matters, and the beauty of the present is no less beautiful for its fragility.

I'm trying hard to do this. I've been having the most gorgeous summer, you know? And I can feel scared for our future and at the same time appreciate this now with everything I've got.

And then there's this: it can feel desperately unfair that we have been made to watch the destruction of so much we love in this world. That this is the time we were given.

But everything we grew up in prepared us for this. More than anyone in history, we are prepared.

And that's not cause of anything in our nature. It's just: we grew up into this time, so we understand it better than anyone could. If anyone has a chance of making change for the better, it's us.

That's all I got.

It's not our damn fault.

Love one another while we still can.

If anyone can survive, it's us.

Oh also? It is a weird source of comfort to me that my dog will almost definitely get to live out his whole life before shit really gets unliveable. Like. My dog is gonna be Fine?

And? If we have to live through an apocalypse, we'll livetweet it. And be a little less alone.

the-eternal-screm.tumblr.com/post/112619910…

OH AND I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS!

Please don't underestimate the power of fiction to make the unbearable bearable.

Some books that Helped Me:

Ok @nkjemisin's Broken Earth series is literally set after the end of the world and it is.. warm? And hopeful? I mean, blisteringly fucked up but everyone in it is working to survive and also working together? (More or less. It's complicated!)

Very few series have left me with as much hope for creating genuine warmth and meaning in hostile universes as #BeckyChambers's Wayfarers books. They're full of so much love, and communities built between the cracks.

And okay any list of books to read to deal with living through an apocalypse would be nothing without #OctaviaButler.

Right, my dog is demanding I play with him and. Well. See a few tweets up. I'm gonna Eat The Strawberries by continuing to try to teach my dog Fetch (or from his perspective: he gets to catch a LOT of treats)