Dear community,

Welcome to the new and improved Planet: Critical. I'll go over housekeeping, including how to sign in etc, at the end of today's newsletter. First, let me explain more deeply why the move felt important.

I am finally back in Western Europe. Every time I return to this corner of the world, I am met with an increasing sense of bittersweet grief. Despite all its flaws and tragedies and ugly legacies, I love Europe. I love the winding alleyways and the ancient forests and the arteries of freshwater which bubble through the moss. I love the town squares and the farmer's markets and the groups of old men drinking coffee together in the middle of the afternoon. I love the Mediterranean ocean and the verdant hills and the quiet. I love how ancient the rituals feel, and how obstinately the locals defend them. I know the stones were mined with violence, and the towns raised with stolen wealth, and I know that this theft is part of why the world today is crumbling around us. And yet, provincial Europe is the last Western defence of that which we all seek: community. The smaller the locale, it seems, the more vibrant its buzzing networks of people working together to make their lives meaningful. For this reason, I love Europe. And for this same reason, every time I return, having missed it, I grieve its future, knowing full well that so much of its architecture depends on the continuation of the invisible violence of extraction and energy dense fuels. One of the places I love most in the world is surviving on borrowed time.

In October, I found myself on two small islands on opposite sides of the world within a very short space of time. At the beginning of the month I visited the Pacific Island nation of Samoa, scoping out the influence of Chinese industry in the newly-elected government. During the visit, I had the opportunity to visit Savai'i, the larger and wilder of the two islands which make up Samoa. Despite its size, it homes less than 50,000 people, all of whom live in small, coastal villages which the island's single road connects in a loop. In the villages, governance decisions are taken locally, with the local Matai—the chiefs of each family (of which there can be many)—dealing with local disputes and enacting justice, such as the temporary banishment of residents. Samoa is unusual in that this rule of village law is enshrined in the nation's constitution and law, giving the Matai legal power as well as cultural and social power.

Importantly, the vast majority of the land in Samoa is customary land, meaning it cannot be bought or sold as it belongs collectively to families who have a legacy of working it to live. Customary land rights is the legal title used for the indigenous right to land all over the world, and it is too often ignored, abused or exploited. Samoans are fiercely protective of their customary land, their villages, and their culture. Part of why they are so well protected, legally, from the influences of globalisation is that when the White Europeans first arrived on their shores as colonisers, bringing with them the threat of a Christian Hell, the Samoans refused to give up their local governance structure, despite adopting Christianity. The Matai, and their cultural democracy this system affords, has an unbroken rule on the island for many, many generations.

The people of the Pacific Islands are often characterised as happy, welcoming people, yet even I did not expect the warmth I encountered in every face. Children waved in delight as we passed through villages, feasts were cooked up for our presence, and teenagers happily escorted us as we explored, chopping at vines and branches that hung in the way of our path. Time seemed to slow on the island; I was away, for the first time all year, from my computer. I went to bed early and slept late every day. I learned how to identify a mango tree and knock the ripe ones down with a long stick. I watched a 50-year-old man scale a coconut tree to fetch us fresh coconuts to quench our thirst. I learned how to shave, gut and butcher a pig. I learned how to weave baskets. I bathed in the startling cool of a freshwater pool, looking out at the ocean. I learned to tolerate the mosquitos. I helped work the land and delighted in the cool breeze which curled through the fale in the heat of the afternoon. I quieted, deep inside. I imagined not having to leave; a life of planting and harvesting in volcanic soil so rich that trees throw themselves up towards the sky in just a few months. The day came to return to what we call civilisation and I felt the tug in my belly that I was walking the wrong way.

Some weeks later, after a long journey back home, I hurried to the Greek island of Crete. Crete is much larger than Savai'i, and its settlements much older, with concrete roads connecting the island's huge hubs and small villages which climb up into the mountains. The trees here are olive, not mango, and the pigs are butchered in secret, not in the back garden. But after just a few days I was astounded by the cultural similarities: we were greeted with mountains of food, any mention of plans were supplemented with local advice and help, locals were delighted to speak with us, welcoming us to what so quickly felt like home. Through both villages, on either side of the world, ran the threads of love, knowledge, history, story and willingness. Both are built and maintain themselves on the connections that people weave, and so fundamental is this knowledge to their cultural DNA that to reject offers of help does not offer hosts genuine respite but amounts to a deeply sensed rudeness which threatens the very way of life.

I often say on the show that human beings have organised themselves in thousands of different ways throughout our history, but I now feel compelled to caveat that while the rituals and outcomes of such organising may look different, the infrastructure is fundamentally similar: Human beings live together, and we live best when that togetherness is founded on a collective generosity of spirit. Problems shared are problems halved and opportunities shared are opportunities doubled. In fact, nothing is worth having that cannot be shared, and time spent nurturing the connections with those with whom we break bread is the best investment we can make.

Being on these two islands in such a short space of time, and witnessing what is achingly human, gave words to the desires and distates which have been forming on the tip of my tongue all year: I am tired of the noise; I want to retreat into the woods and listen; I want to hold hands.

Before visiting the islands, my first experience of retreating into the woods and listening was writing this book, the first draft of which is now completed and with my editor. Writing it has been an incredible and illuminating experience. Digging as deep as I could intellectually and emotionally, and taking the time to weave something together over the course of a year, has been the most enriching professional experience of my life. I do not wish to return to surface-skating and hustling after that—and that was the vacuum which I felt Substack was increasingly becoming. I am exhausted by "content", so much of which is vacuous. I am exhausted by the sense of keeping up when my own philosophy insists we all need to slow down. I am exhausted by the false sense of competition with peers I admire that algorithms create. I am exhausted by the meaningless and just how much attention it demands.

I know I'm not the only one who is exhausted. I know so many of you are, just as everyone I know and love is. Keeping up is impossible, and yet there is nowhere to turn. We are witnesses to history, and yet, as ghosts will tell you, witnesses are history's victims, too. More than ever, I feel that the only thing to be done is to reach out to one another and deepen the relational infrastructure of being human. We need to slow down, dig deep and listen. We need to take the time necessary to weave that which can hold us. Everything can disappear in just one moment. Despite this risk, this great inequity, life continues to reach, to grow.

In the spirit of everything I wrote above, I am aiming to be less rigid with Planet: Critical. You may hear more from me some weeks and less from me others, or perhaps the frequency will stay the same. Let me know what you think by commenting below.

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Thank you for being here,
Rachel