emotions

From cancel to propel culture

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Moses Naim, in his book The End of Power, describes a contemporary phenomenon he calls ‘the Gulliver Effect’. In the contemporary landscape of power, a large number of small actors have the possibility to prevent all sorts of things from happening – but there is no actor powerful enough to take resolute action.

I’ve come to understand ‘cancel culture’ as one component of the Gulliver Effect. It may rightly be seen as the downtrodden rising up against oppression, using the tools at their disposal for justice, speaking truth to power. This may well offer a needed emotional outlet to some who deserve it, and rightly condemn abuses of power. Yet the effect is not generalized empowerment, or a greater capacity to coordinate change.

Anger is a consuming passion. Cancelling mobs have a fascinating power. All eyes are glued on social media. Making those channels prime real estate for advertisement. And so, with every cancel storm, shareholders cash in. Behind the shouts of popular anger, can you hear the background chuckle of Zuckerberg, pension funds managers and wealthy boomers. 

It’s not just about money flows: it’s energy spent. It takes effort, and time, to organize a social movement, articulate an alternative worldview, or build a work of art. Anger will drain much of that energy. And then, to soothe the angst, we spend our cash on Uber Eats and Netflix subscriptions. Besides, polarised minds are ill-prepared for the creative efforts of inventing a new world. It’s too much complexity to hold. So, by leaning into the anger, we may well leave a wide empty playing field for large corporates. Once again, I can hear the chuckle of Sillicon Valley tycoons and wealthy boomers in the background.  

So here is a proposal, to counter the Gulliver effect. What if we were to deliberately stop engaging in those anger games, engineered to the benefit of wealthy boomers and billionaires. What if we were to use that energy to create new worlds instead? Easier said than done – well, here is a possible first step. What if, instead of ‘cancel culture’, we were to build a ‘propel’ culture. What if we were to use our brains and hearts and bodies not to destroy what we hate and despise, but praise and uplift what we love and admire?   

This is – in fact – what I propose to do over the coming months or so. Shift the tone to gratitude, identify people I admire, projects I find promising, books and ideas I find inspiring and admirable – and articulate what it is about them that I like. As an act of resistance against engineered malaise.

Corona thoughts – On n’a pas que de l’amour

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From business closures and frustrated dreams to the deaths of dear ones, and general loss of trust in institutions, what will be the emotional impact of COVID-19?

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I grew up listening to a French rock band called ‘Rita Mitsouko’. They were quirky punks, with funky clothes and philosophical lyrics. One of their songs accompanied my teenage years. It went: ‘On n’a pas que de l’amour, ça non, on n’a pas que de l’amour à vendre, ah ouais, y a de la haine.’ For non French speakers out there, the translation goes something like ‘we don’t have only love, oh no, we don’t have only love for sale, oh yes, there is hatred’. Later in the song (still in translation), it goes ‘hatred needs to spread as well, of yes, without brakes… we have to put it somewhere after all’.

That song came up in one of my feeds during a phase of deep lockdown, and triggered reflection. I holds some wisdom in its lyrics (wow, I grew up on good music, haha).

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I’ve been working in start-up and innovative environments for about eight years now. In my experience, those tend to be toxically optimistic. Founders look ahead, and have little capacity to process ‘the dark stuff’. Meditators invite to focus on the positive. Others would rather negativity stay away from the workplace, thank you very much.

Over the years, I have accumulated quite a bit of negative feelings, which positive psychology certainly doesn’t help me deal with. So, I had to figure out how to handle my own shadows, and all the weight of darkness I took on by proxy.

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As part of lockdown 2.0, I tried a little personal project: learn to rest and relax. Part of it, involved a return to meditation. One of the tracks I listened to, ‘deep healing’, invited me to breathe in negative feelings, then breathe them out. This way, they would no longer saturate my body. The process worked for me, but as I let those negative feelings out, I couldn’t help wondering. Where did they go? Who would look after them?

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I found one rather sinister answer. The founder of 8Chan was born with brittle bone disease, and grew up accumulating resentment. He created a space for hatred to grow. If all hatred goes to the same place, it ends up concentrated, and explodes arbitrarily. Service providers have reacted, blocking the site – but it just popped up back elsewhere.

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All the negative emotions triggered by the pandemic and government response, where will they go? Our world is saturated. Positivity, technological development, new ideas, none of this is enough. The dark side encroaches.

One proposal is to look for more space, by flying off to Mars, reducing the global population, or expanding the built and digital environments. But can we get out of our predicament simply by creating more storage space for emotional junk? And is there a risk that we just create vulnerable points, ready to explode?

I wonder though, is there an alternative? Could we create an ecological model for hatred management – one where we learn to digest it, decompose it, recycle what we can – and safely lock away whatever hard nugget remains?

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If you’re curious – here is a link to the song!

Corona thoughts – On mourning

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A few weeks ago, I took many things for granted. That I could go out in the morning and sit in a café for hours, to work or read a book. That I could take a train to Brighton, or Williamstown, and walk along the beach. That I could have spicy Sichuan food, or beer and chips, or a pizza for dinner. Or invite as many friends over as I wanted, for no reason.

I reacted to Covid-19 in three phases. First came smugness, with a touch of denial. I’ve worked in global catastrophic risk for years, this is a mild crisis, why the panic? Then came anger and sadness. The government is taking away my freedom, who made those decisions, on what basis? Finally, I experienced calm acceptance. Things have changed, life continues, though different in its daily form.

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A few years ago, I took many things for granted. That there would be fish in the sea forever, and polar bears, and coral reefs. That, forty years from now, Miami, Mumbai and Guangzhou would be dry land, and I could go visit, if I wanted to. That I could live in blissful ignorance of peak oil, rainforest destruction, and the structure of electric grids. That I could focus on writing or teaching, then expect a peaceful retirement as new generations continued.

That world is gone,  but I have not yet found a sense of calm acceptance.

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On January 9, 2019, I saw this photograph in my Facebook Feed.

The facial expression of this man, and with the caption underneath, made me pause. We have associated success with economic growth, and let our happiness depend on it. Whoever attached their identity to this paradigm will experience loss when considering climate change and its impact, including on the shrinking economy. We do not like to experience loss. Hence, denial.

The middle-aged white man faces the prospect of deep sadness: for we were probably closest to living a perfect life, and so, our dreams might have been crushed most. This comes with enormous emotional burden. Yet how ill-equipped are we to deal with this sadness.

I learned about this phenomenon during a cross-cultural training session: women typically fare better in difficult situations than men. A simple reason to this: most men in leadership positions have never encountered genuine hardships or setbacks. Sure, they worked hard, and didn’t get to their position without efforts and focus. But if they made it, it’s because they passed every obstacle. Success defines their sense of identity

Not so women, used to countless micro-aggressions, endless exposure to unconscious bias. Women do no better than their male counterparts in difficult cross-cultural situations. But setbacks are part of their identity. So, when a negotiation collapses, when hostile behavior starts out of nowhere, when everything falls apart, they can step back, reflect, and try again. Not so male leaders: whatever behaviour has led them to success, they continue. When it stops working, they don’t know what to do. Some experience complete breakdown.

The new ‘white man’s burden’ is this unexpressed sadness. That the world we inherited, the world that we continued building, is dead. That whatever behaviour has led to success up until now no longer works. That we’re at risk of complete breakdown. That we’re stuck in denial.

My hope for Covid-19 is, it is shrinking the economy. It is forcing us to stop and pause. It is causing sadness and suffering. And so, there is hope that it will accelerate the mourning process we need.

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Mindless consumerism is joyful. I like to go to cafes, I like to take a train to the beach, eat spicy Sichuan Food or beer and chips or pizza, and invite friends over for drinks and dinner. This was the attraction of Australia: good weather, wealth and a relaxed lifestyle.

In a chapter of Crowd and Power, Elias Canetti talks about the various forms that human groups can take. He describes what he calls ‘multiplication packs’: groups geared towards production, agricultural collectives amassing corn, wheat, rice, and rejoicing in the harvest. He describes, also, different types of group: what he calls the ‘funeral pack’. They come together to lament the passing of a fellow human – and in that shared sense of extreme loss, find a sense of unity.

We have organized our societies around economic growth: multiplication of resources. Maybe, we need to shift this, and bring back the tragic sense of funeral packs. Have an Easter moment of collective loss, in which we can find a new basis for unity.

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It’s a cool morning of June 2019. I’m sitting at a long table underneath a metal awning in the highlands of Bali. I have joined a ‘creative retreat’ organised by my friends of the School of Slow Media. I just spent the night sleeping in a freezing tent, with two sweaters and a coat. I am having breakfast now, and my friend Ai is sitting next to me.

I tell Ai about a figure I encountered during my spiritual exercises: Joseph of Arimathea. When Christ dies on the cross, as Peter hides and Mary laments, Joseph goes to Pontius Pilate, asking for permission to take down the body of Jesus, and give him burial. Joseph is a practical man. The savior is dead, now there is a body on a cross, and that body must be moved, embalmed, buried. There are concrete steps to take: buy the myrrh and frankincense, buy the shroud, find the tomb, get an authorization from Pilate, find someone to take down the body, embalm it, shroud it, place it in the tomb, close the tomb. Joseph of Arimathea is at the centre of Easter, the shadow figure of Holy Saturday. Not the lamentation of death, not the joyful hope of the empty tomb, but the down-to-earth, pragmatic efforts of burial.

‘I identify with Joseph’, I told Ai, ‘and I think, I’d like to think more about him. I think our times need this figure.’ Then Ai draws a diagram on a napkin, and starts explaining to me: ‘in a paradigm shift, composting work is necessary. Something dies, something emerges. And part of what needs to happen is, elements of the previous paradigm must be broken down, so they can be used in the new.’ We talk for a while about composting, recycling, beetles. And mourning.

Mourning is a process of decomposition. Things used to go together: a face, a voice, an emotion, an organization, a house, a relationship. Dreams, hopes, projections. No more – we must undo those associations. In the same way, when a certain system falls apart – like the civilization we built on a mistaken belief that there would be cheap energy forever, and a stable climate – we must take it apart, so that its elements are available again, to build something new.

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Last year, when a new government was elected in Australia, whose leader denied climate change, I experienced a deep sense of anger and sadness. The mourning process was starting.

I tried sharing an invitation, to come together in mourning: mourning for the world that was, for a world where we could imagine a stable climate, and calmly project ourselves into the future, without fear of apocalypse. What I was proposing was not a plan, not a solution: just a moment of collection, to welcome and share the sense of sadness, embrace the mourning process, in the hope that we could come out the other end, with calm presence, and build something new. Bury the dreams of the past, so that new dreams can come.

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The Gospel doesn’t tell us what happens to Joseph of Arimathea, beyond his contribution to the Easter mystery. Tradition, however, offers a story. Joseph held a cup that received the blood of Christ on the cross. After placing Jesus in the tomb, Joseph leaves Jerusalem. He travels North, all the way to the distant Isle of Britain, where he lived and died in peace, hiding his treasure with him. Yet to future generations, pragmatic Joseph bequeathed a dream, the Quest for the Holy Grail: a promise of eternal life, an inspiration to virtue, the leaven of a new fellowship.

On ‘busy’ – a dialogue

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– It’s been over a month since I last wrote here. I started the year committing to daily practice. But things changed. I started a new role, and have found myself unable to continue, for a while at least. I got busy.

– Hey, I’m catching you here. Weren’t you the one mocking ‘busy’ people earlier? See – now you’ve become busy, like the rest of us.

– Wait a minute. I had a moment of weakness, true, but I think I’m getting out of it.

– OK, so you were busy, now you’re not, what happened?

– Well, here’s a thing I understood. Last week, a friend said the following thing, he said: “I’ve got so much to do! It’s not that there’s anything complex or difficult I have to do, but there’s a lot of small tasks, and I haven’t found anyone who could do them for me fast enough, so I have to spend a lot of my time.” Funnily enough, the previous day, I had lunch with another friend who said the exact opposite: “It’s not that the things I have to do take a lot of time,” she said, “technically, I could do it all very fast. But everything is so complex that I have to spend a lot of time thinking about all the details and the consequences.” They’re very different situations.

– OK, so you found out there’s two types of busy – which one are you then?

– You didn’t quite get my point. I still think ‘busy’ means disorganised, and I think neither of my two friends were actually ‘busy’. One had a lot of small things to do, the other a lot of complex things to think about. But as I said before, I did become ‘busy’ during the last few weeks, and I think I just got out of the hole today. Hopefully, I learnt something in the process.

– I like the honesty. Tell me what you learnt.

– Well, this is what I think happened. I started a new role, in a new field, with new people, working on a new project. There’s a lot I have to understand, new relationships, new strategies, new concepts. Meanwhile, there’s a deadline to the project, and I felt I had to start moving before I could get the full picture. That’s how I became ‘busy’.

– So what you’re saying is, ‘busy’ means moving forward with no clear sense of direction.

– I guess that’s what I’m saying. ‘Busy’ can be be triggered by many small things to do, or it can be triggered by complexity, but in essence, they’re different things. ‘Busy’ is an emotional state of restlessness that makes you start anxiously shifting from one action to the other. Yet none of these actions really feels like a step that gets you closer to the goal – rather, it’s as if the goal was shifting with each new step. It’s not a pleasant state to be in, and if you’re not careful, it can easily start feeding on itself. ‘Busy’ may be one of the circles of hell.

– But you said you got out of it, right? What did you do?

– I guess the most interesting is not how I got myself out of it, but how I realised what was happening. I’ve always trusted my intuition to make decisions, especially when I’m dealing with complex things. If there’s more factors to consider than I can hold, and I have to take a course of action, I believe it’s a wise thing to let my brain detect a pattern.

– But when you’re running around trying to do seven things at once, it’s hard to find a pattern.

– Exactly. Here’s how the sequence unfolded this time. I saw myself getting into a state of emotional confusion, and I took it as an alarm signal. So I downloaded a mental health app called ‘Supebetter’

– I’ve heard of ‘Superbetter’

– It’s cool. I followed some of their suggestions – chugged a glass of water, walked around the block, danced in my room. It helped, but it didn’t fundamentally change anything. One particular suggestion, though, felt incredibly appealing. The app recommended: ‘engage in a hobby’. It resonated with me. I went to the Myer Toy shop, bought myself a world-map puzzle, and started working on it.

– Random

– Maybe, but that’s how things fell into place. Maybe my brain was looking for a solution, and it needed the puzzle to cristallise. It did feel like instinct. Anyway, over the last two days, I spent quite a lot of time on the puzzle. Continents emerged on the floor as I put the pieces together. But they formed independent islands, and I wasn’t sure where to place them in relation to each other. Then this morning, I found the piece between Europe and America – a narrow strait of ocean between Ireland and Newfoundland – and connected the various parts. I looked at the map in front of me, now forming a whole, and I had a flash of emotional insight. This was precisely what I’d been struggling with in my new role – I was trying to find out how the various components fit together, but more broadly, what I needed was to connect them with the rest of my life, and figure out the shape of the whole picture. Suddenly, it felt as if my body had found its balance. I felt a pattern emerge. I couldn’t put it into words, but the restlessness evaporated, replaced with calm and confidence.

– So you’re essentially saying, to get out of ‘busy’, you should stop and relax, and things will get better.

– Maybe that’s all it takes, and let the body finds its bearings. At least it worked for me. Now I’m back to writing in this blog, and I’m even experimenting with form.

– Well, wait until you start work again tomorrow, and you’ll see whether that was an actual shift, or just you feeling better after you got a break.