Writing while the world burns

When I sat down to write this morning, my head was planning a very different article. Here’s how it began

There’s a sense of steadiness that comes from seeing bluetits pair up, from standing on my doorstep watching them wheel from hazel to lilac. A continuity. There is disquiet too – everything is, as ever much earlier than I am used to and this disquiet need to be addressed but for now, for this second, I am going to enjoy the birds being birds. 

My intention was to write about being content, about finding joy in the small things (which I’m still a huge fan of). Reading and research for the article means I cannot inhabit this comfortable place with good conscience. Finding joy in the small things is not a get out of jail free card that allows me to ignore the big things. Perhaps this is why, in yesterday’s Creative Tuesday round-up post I talked about a latent gloom, a sense of pointlessness. I’m a writer with a chronic illness, I sit in my room, peck at my keys, hope someone will read my words. I occasionally make people smile. I occasionally write work that makes people feel less alone. I occasionally write poems that expose the injustices wrought by the press. None of this seems enough.

Still from Grimes’ NFT at Team Lab Planets Tokyo

Writing while the world burns

Typing this often used (but oh so accurate) phrase into google brought a mass of results. It seems I am not alone in my feeling of powerlessness. One article that caught my eye is this piece by Lauren Elkin in which she describes a slow journey into climate activism and her own misgivings about the impact her work can really have. I read about her response to the film My Extinction and her own non-violent direct action in beginning her Edinburgh International Book Festival event with this quote by Ursula K.Le Guin

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.

Reading this gives a quiet hope. Quiet hope will not solve things but it can support solution and most importantly raise awareness. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve spoken to people about parliamentary legislation I consider to be common knowledge only to be met by shocked faces and outrage. The power that mass media has is not a new topic but the real level impact it has on our thoughts is insane. People are either drawn in by lies or so repelled by them that they switch off and focus on their own immediate world. It's hard not to swerve swerved to the latter action. Sometimes everything seems so big that all I can do is make something nice for dinner and watch the birds. The sad, simple fact is that this is not going to be enough for much longer. Change has to happen and it has to happen soon. There are so many injustices and wrongs I find it hard to know where to hang my hat (hello again, need to focus) but I have to believe that doing something is better than doing nothing.

What I have to do as a writer is hang on to this hope that placing my thoughts and values on a page for all to see can have a positive impact, can foster change. Even if just one person reads about projects like the East African Crude Oil pipeline and discovers the small but meaningful actions we can take to help stop it then something positive has come.

The danger is that each of these things comes with the small voice of inadequacy, the sense that sitting at my desk signing petitions is not enough. I’m so blindsided by the fear of virtue signalling so worried that I’m nothing more than a keyboard warrior that the temptation is to do nothing. I would hazard a guess that that is the impact those behind the creation of these phrases and attitudes would like. If we all think our actions are pointless, we will all cease to place our thoughts in a place where they can be shot down. Protest becomes moot, action becomes the preserve of those who can easily be framed as unecessarily disruptive and the hope that any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings becomes so small that it is easier to do nothing than risk foolish disappointment.

I’ll finish with this quote from Elkin:

Quoting Ursula Le Guin at a literary event is small potatoes next to chaining yourself to a pipeline. But it might generate its own kind of chain, a word chain, that can galvanize the reader into their own forms of rebellion.