#contemplations

Back in spring the corona-break sparked the imagination of many: A modern world marked by speed and doing is called to "slow down". For the first time in my life I'm not asked to maximise my own self-interest but to "sacrifice" it for the sake of "us".

Now the "break" is back. Not really on making money - but on our social lives. Sacrifice social life in order to save biological and economic life. Are these different dimensions of LIFE really distinguishable from each other?

Simultaneously, the next threats to life as we've got to know it in the last .. (how many years exactly? 20? 30? 100?) are just around the corner.

And so is the next deliverable. Somewhat depraved of meaning. It lingers. I let it sit there. It looks at me like the cats I live with now. I never know what they want from me. Eventually I try something like giving them food or opening the door so they can leave. I do pretty much the same with these deliverables in a way. Eventually I do what needs to be done. Because.. well whatever. It feels good.

Lately I talked to some activists of the climate strike. Highly engaged people. No battle they’re not fighting. Inner work, outer work, inner patterns of patriarchy, outer referendums against laws. They sometimes feel close to a burnout. Even though the fire(s) they sit on feels more like it’s going to burn them through than out. I think I mean it in a very positive sense. Even when they talk of all that they do as “way too much” they are still filling the atmosphere with a sense of meaning I miss in my life. At least partly.

I got to think, what will a humanity look like in 300 years? After humans have had to do nothing other than take care of the environment in order to survive in it for 200 years? What will be burned into the collective memory and psyche of a humanity that has had to regenerate the very fundaments on which life on earth depends upon?

I end up thinking that our “job” of the moment might be to re-learn what we wanted to kill: death and dying.

Wild Silence
It’s as if
the flag in the winds
trapped and tied
would know
where to go

but once released
unsettled and wild
free to go
up and up
now lost
to the winds
untied.