Tag: climate change

What would Marcus Aurelius tweet?

For my sins, I recently stumbled back onto Twitter. The first casualty of social media is peace of mind—but since I’m also reading about stoicism, which places tranquility as the highest good, I’ve resolved not to use social media to amplify messages of distress and outrage. And boosting these messages is something I used to do quite a lot. It’s not that I’m suddenly indifferent to social and political causes. I passionately believe in many of them. However, it’s not clear that constant fear, worry, and anger are helping us.

For example, in the case of the climate crisis, significant warming seems like a fait accompli. That doesn’t mean we should roll over and let emissions skyrocket but there’s a difference between writing to raise awareness and hosing people down with rage and anxiety.… Continue reading...

Mindfulness of ruined worlds

Contemplating the beauty and serenity of Sable’s ruined world gave me some comfort. On one level, if and when Earth is finally desolate it might at least be peaceful, mysterious, and interesting to its surviving scavenger tribes. There’s something awe-inspiring about thinking on that timescale.

Would the denizens of a post-apocalyptic world be awake to the strange beauty of their situation? Probably no more than we are here and now. But if we could relate to our environment as we do such Ozymandian science fiction, with curiosity and fascination, accepting the world on its own terms, we’d probably be a lot happier.

This might be one of the things mindfulness can do for us. We take notice at the level of simple sensory experience—seeing a crumbling building, hearing a seagull, feeling a cool breeze—all without bending these perceptions into a story about me.… Continue reading...

Haiku on Twitter

I’ve recently been writing some haiku on Twitter. I like the concision and concreteness of the form. But I especially like that a haiku is a place where my interests in poetry, nature, and Buddhism converge. I’m particularly interested in using the form’s traditional focus on nature to highlight the climate crisis. There is a disconnect between the ancient worldview of the world as eternal and cyclical, and the precipice at which we now stand.

… Continue reading...

Urgency to live

How should we live, considering that human history–as we’ve known it so far–may be coming to an end? If the ice caps melt, if the Amazon burns, if the world becomes a hot and desperate place we will lose the narrative of progress and security upon which our choices and values are based. What is the point of our commercial and cultural endeavours when this civilisation is so far out of balance?

Impermanence is nothing new, of course, but previously it was easier to turn a blind eye to the precariousness of life. We could believe the world would always be there, much as ever it was. There have always been parents, governments, schools, employers, and advertisers who are all too ready to give us a game to play to keep us busy.… Continue reading...