Small Expectations

I started sketching out a post for the big blog today, but it needs more cogitation.

Last month my workplace announced a restructure that will see at least 200 people lose their job. Last week was the latest IPCC report. This morning we woke to find the Taliban in Kabul's Presidential suite. Around midday a COVID curfew was reinstated in my home city of Melbourne, along with a two week extension of the "lockdown" orders. I don't really expect either of these to be lifted before the end of the year.

The last of which is broadly the point I was thinking about. This situation feels like deja vu from exactly the same time last year — the main difference being that it's Sydney with COVID cases in the hundreds, rather than Melbourne. How I'm dealing with it all both mentally and (related) physically, however, is quite different. Last year was bad. I was mildly depressive and didn't realise it for a few months. I was unfit, drinking too much, listless. Lucky for me I was able to slip down to Hobart for Christmas and after snapping grumpily at my family and pulling every muscle in my body playing with the nephews for a few days I realised how bad things had gotten.

This year has been better, and the recent run of particularly "bad news" has helped me realise how I've changed. I mean sure, I decided that my midlife crisis would be embracing anarchism, but that's not the whole thing. If I'm going to be suddenly living in a place that has Police-enforced curfews and only leave the house once a day for exercise, how should I spend my time? "Getting angry on Twitter about things I can't control" seems like it should be low on the list of priorities, yet it seems to be a favoured pastime for many. And the problem isn't (just) Twitter.

Indeed, all the things I listed above are related, albeit at first glance that seems unlikely. People continue to live their lives and set their expectations as if their "imperial mode of living" (in Brand and Wissen's phrase) is reasonable, "fair", and will continue indefinitely. There's a deep socio-political crisis going on which is well beyond my skills and knowledge to explore properly, but it seems impossible for liberalism (whether of the neo, classical, or any other variety) to stagger on much longer. So weird things happen, like people writing opinion pieces in traditional and social media declaring that it is outrageous that they cannot continue their lifestyle of flying in jets twice a year between cities on opposite sides of the globe, or twice a month between cities on the same continent. Not because we've finally come to grips with what's needed to prevent the climate crisis becoming even worse, of course. No this is because of COVID travel restrictions. The whole thing has really shown how unprepared our societies are psychologically for the big lifestyle changes any serious attempt to attenuate the worst impacts of climate change.

But the imperial mode of living isn't just about using resources in a colonial way. What we have is an imperial mode of thinking. This is what kept "western" governments in Afghanistan for two decades spending billions on making the Afghans really, really hate them. And it's what makes average Australians think they need to have an opinion on the geo-politics of the area. It's what lets people fantasise about simply swapping out petrol-engine cars for fully electric cars and then declaring we are at one with nature. Bio-diesel jet planes, wind-powered sweatshops... Anyway you get the picture.

The problem here is expectation. Or rather, that Buddhist idea of attachment to things. People in Australia are angry and sad because their reality is not matching up with their expectations. Journalists will always make this worse because "Surprised Pikachu IPCC Says Climate Change Bad, Wake Up Call for Government" attracts more eyeballs than "IPCC releases watered down fantasy that our lifestyle can be maintain, only greener". The Australian government is in a self-induced coma when it comes to climate, and has been whilst the klaxons blared into their ears for the last two decades. A "wake up call" is hardly going to make any difference.

I'm still thinking through exactly how to strike the right balance, but it seems to me that the only way to stay vaguely sane in this world is to have high standards and low expectations. John Birmingham wrote a piece the other day about some emergency surgery he had:

I did not so much fear the worst as simply expect it. That’s an old quirk. I anticipate the worst and dare the fates to disappoint.

This seems healthy. Make plans, but expect they'll fall through. How many aphorisms do we have about this? Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Don't count your chickens before they hatch. Somehow they've become things that peopele used to say before us moderns arrived. Untouchable with our modern conveniences and medicines and sprays that kill 99.99% of germs. Except as any web infrastructure engineer will tell you, 0.1% is more than most people realise, especially if it hits just when you didn't want it.

I'm waffling, but that's the point of this gemlog, to help me think things through. The thing I'm mostly still unsure of is how to strike the balance between having low expectations on the one hand, and retaining healthy self respect and the energy to strive for a better society and world on the other. I don't mean "accept any old shit that happens to you", nor do I mean "slip into nihilistic torpor". It's about understanding your "span of control", or what you do and do not have agency over. But I guess there also needs to be something about how to extend that agency into areas you want to have influence over. Or how to link up your span of control with others'. I'm not quite sure. Perhaps it's simply about being more mindful of prioritising. But then I really got a lot out of listening to Simon on reforestration (Live Like the World is Dying), with his musings on the ability to have large effects with small actions. Really what I think I want to say is that you can't save the world, nor save your world, and you shouldn't try. But maybe you can make your part of the world less shit. And you should definitely try doing that. Enjoy what you have, and do it more fully. Forget what you thought you could have when it becomes clear you can't. Expect less. Appreciate more. All that Slow Living shit.

=> Simon on reforestation | The Imperial Mode of Living | Lockdown, mortality and imaging artefacts