I'll look into Ghost. In my experience, all platforms find ways to go back on their original commitments. Rents will proliferate and increase until we are unplugged; until then, we produce and consume content to fuel the supercomputers and decrease our agency. We will all do what we must when we have no other choice. The squeeze is accelerating. Boycott and Divest. We're going to need considerably more than 12 steps.
More to say about fear. There's another kind. It would overtake all of humanity if people understood the peril we are in from overshoot, and that could be what saves us. My premise is that awareness of it being life or death should get everyone working together to avert what will happen if we don't do anything.
Your story mirrors in many aspects some of my childhood experiences. Whether as a result or whether it is just innate I have rarely found fear motivating. We often talk about fight or flight responses to fear but not much about freezing. That is my primary response which is not to say I have never pushed through, sometimes with good results but not always.
I have had teachers and mates who have all subscribed to the idea that fear is motivating and perhaps for some it is. "Just do it!" There also has to be a place for understanding, for hand-holding, for taking the long way round if necessary. We need fear - it's meant to ensure our survival - but we don't always make the best decisions in that space.
Fear is being used as a political weapon to push us into accepting false explanations for our predicament and the need for 'someone' to take control of it all. We need an alternative narrative that recognises the real dangers but shines a light on the path we can all walk together and shows that we do not walk alone.
Re Substack: 'Tout lasse, tout passe, tout casse" as my dad was fond of saying. It all just happens much quicker now!
I feel you. Sometimes fear just catches up. Your work from what I hear/read has you probing and daylighting the unseen. You disrupt the narratives destroying the planet and are part of our re-imagining different ways of being. Fear is sooooo normal now. I like to think that to feel is to release, which helps us keep going, soldiering on if you pardon the metaphor. ☀️
Oh, and I trust where you take your work. I've been considering Ghost for a while. Rebecca Solnit chose that over this, altho she is still pretty active in fb land.
As ever .. Thankyou Rachel. Somehow you are tuned to keep striking so many notes that resonate in this emerging shift in collective consciousness. We are grateful for you and many others who are answering the call to share together in a most healthy and regenerative manner.
Thank you for this. As always, personal and embodied stories hit hardest and make the case most strongly. It makes for a powerful metaphor.
I could feel my own gut tightening as you described the scenario. I'm not great in open water, and though I've done some work to overcome the worst of it, there's still an irrational fear in my body that is truly debilitating at times.
You were so right to be afraid in that situation. Many years ago I was in an identical one, deep inside a cave with a famous duck-under. We were six that went through murky water to the other side, only to find the far exit was also under water and we were trapped. And it was really hard to find the underwater passage from the other side - just like in your partner’s case. Fortunately we all made it back out alive but it was way too close. Six people could have drowned there that day. Cave diving is incredibly dangerous and the margins for error are exceedingly slim. You don’t have to have any shame whatsoever for not joining your partner. Fear exists for a reason and while we shouldn’t let it always control our lives, we should listen to it and respect what it has to say
The first time I can remember being really afraid I was 5 years old. I had to get through my fear because I was alone with my younger brother. I couldn't freeze. In the last 60+ years I have had plenty of other times when I was viscerally afraid. For a long time the times I froze were when I was alone, the times I pushed through I was responsible for someone else. Eventually, I found there were two things that could help me get through fear (and shock). The first, was drawing on the fact i had survived things before. My self talk would be along the lines of this will pass, you will get to the other side of this. Dont think about whats on the other side, its an unknown. Deal with that when it happens. This applies especially to those sudden, unexpected situations, and include major scares that could potentially be life threatening, or events thsf turn your whole world upside down. The second, and this applies to an unravelling climate, so a more generalised situation we know is heading our way, is being prepared and learning as much as you can, think about the likely impacts but recognise that there will be things you don't expect and can't prepare for, have a few contingency plans but recognise none of them might work, but be flexible enough to change, adapt, reincorporate you ideas into a whole new plan, multiple times if necessary.
Both these strategies give you agency. That doesn't make fear disappear, but it puts it in the back-seat long enough to move forward.
I'll look into Ghost. In my experience, all platforms find ways to go back on their original commitments. Rents will proliferate and increase until we are unplugged; until then, we produce and consume content to fuel the supercomputers and decrease our agency. We will all do what we must when we have no other choice. The squeeze is accelerating. Boycott and Divest. We're going to need considerably more than 12 steps.
More to say about fear. There's another kind. It would overtake all of humanity if people understood the peril we are in from overshoot, and that could be what saves us. My premise is that awareness of it being life or death should get everyone working together to avert what will happen if we don't do anything.
Will follow you through the cavern and to Ghost
Your story mirrors in many aspects some of my childhood experiences. Whether as a result or whether it is just innate I have rarely found fear motivating. We often talk about fight or flight responses to fear but not much about freezing. That is my primary response which is not to say I have never pushed through, sometimes with good results but not always.
I have had teachers and mates who have all subscribed to the idea that fear is motivating and perhaps for some it is. "Just do it!" There also has to be a place for understanding, for hand-holding, for taking the long way round if necessary. We need fear - it's meant to ensure our survival - but we don't always make the best decisions in that space.
Fear is being used as a political weapon to push us into accepting false explanations for our predicament and the need for 'someone' to take control of it all. We need an alternative narrative that recognises the real dangers but shines a light on the path we can all walk together and shows that we do not walk alone.
Re Substack: 'Tout lasse, tout passe, tout casse" as my dad was fond of saying. It all just happens much quicker now!
Really visceral writing, brave too.
I feel you. Sometimes fear just catches up. Your work from what I hear/read has you probing and daylighting the unseen. You disrupt the narratives destroying the planet and are part of our re-imagining different ways of being. Fear is sooooo normal now. I like to think that to feel is to release, which helps us keep going, soldiering on if you pardon the metaphor. ☀️
Oh, and I trust where you take your work. I've been considering Ghost for a while. Rebecca Solnit chose that over this, altho she is still pretty active in fb land.
‘Ghost’ is new to me, but it soon won’t be. I’ll follow you there, too.
As ever .. Thankyou Rachel. Somehow you are tuned to keep striking so many notes that resonate in this emerging shift in collective consciousness. We are grateful for you and many others who are answering the call to share together in a most healthy and regenerative manner.
Thank you for this. As always, personal and embodied stories hit hardest and make the case most strongly. It makes for a powerful metaphor.
I could feel my own gut tightening as you described the scenario. I'm not great in open water, and though I've done some work to overcome the worst of it, there's still an irrational fear in my body that is truly debilitating at times.
You were so right to be afraid in that situation. Many years ago I was in an identical one, deep inside a cave with a famous duck-under. We were six that went through murky water to the other side, only to find the far exit was also under water and we were trapped. And it was really hard to find the underwater passage from the other side - just like in your partner’s case. Fortunately we all made it back out alive but it was way too close. Six people could have drowned there that day. Cave diving is incredibly dangerous and the margins for error are exceedingly slim. You don’t have to have any shame whatsoever for not joining your partner. Fear exists for a reason and while we shouldn’t let it always control our lives, we should listen to it and respect what it has to say
The first time I can remember being really afraid I was 5 years old. I had to get through my fear because I was alone with my younger brother. I couldn't freeze. In the last 60+ years I have had plenty of other times when I was viscerally afraid. For a long time the times I froze were when I was alone, the times I pushed through I was responsible for someone else. Eventually, I found there were two things that could help me get through fear (and shock). The first, was drawing on the fact i had survived things before. My self talk would be along the lines of this will pass, you will get to the other side of this. Dont think about whats on the other side, its an unknown. Deal with that when it happens. This applies especially to those sudden, unexpected situations, and include major scares that could potentially be life threatening, or events thsf turn your whole world upside down. The second, and this applies to an unravelling climate, so a more generalised situation we know is heading our way, is being prepared and learning as much as you can, think about the likely impacts but recognise that there will be things you don't expect and can't prepare for, have a few contingency plans but recognise none of them might work, but be flexible enough to change, adapt, reincorporate you ideas into a whole new plan, multiple times if necessary.
Both these strategies give you agency. That doesn't make fear disappear, but it puts it in the back-seat long enough to move forward.
Thank you as ever for your honesty. Fear can indeed be crippling