It's still an invitation
I suspect many readers of this newsletter may underestimate how literally I intend its title: What do we do now that we’re here?
The truth is that this time last year, I was so unmoored by watching the world fall apart, so profoundly let down by my former identity as a certainty-seeking journalist, and so uninterested in pursuing the presumed future I had been working towards basically since high school, that I genuinely had no idea what I was supposed to do with my privileged little life anymore.
Single-mindedly pursuing success in my online career seemed dumb and akin to continued self harm. Hoping the political and economic system would get better if I just committed to the performative and caustic online activism of the moment made me feel nauseous. Just giving up on all that and becoming more inwardly focused on my own personal development, spirituality, and comfort felt like it came up short, too.
If 2020 was the unravelling, then 2021 has been the decomposition, the breaking down of old belief systems, the last bits of grieving before green shoots can start to emerge. And today, writing this last newsletter of the year, I’m as surprised as anyone to report I can see the tops of some of those shoots.
Note that the question posed by this newsletter project is not: “How do we change the world now that we’re here?” That question is too big, and my day-to-day energy too sparse, to even countenance that. But I’ve noticed this year that living in a way that honors yourself and your natural rhythms, accompanied by cultivating a curiosity and relationship with your immediate surroundings, has many curious side effects. The more you do those kinds of things, the less you feel you’re swimming upstream, and the more you can engage with the world as it is — including what needs fixing — instead of giving up in a state of exhaustion at the end of every week.
This feels especially true right now, entering our third year of perpetual and mind-bending destabilization. I want to emphasize that I feel this way not in spite of outside events — not because I’m ignoring them for my own self care — but because I’m making decisions about how to live my life that take them into account.
You’ve seen these themes reflected in all of the conversations I’ve published for paying subscribers: With Margaret Klein Salamon, we talked about how making space to fully reckon with the enormity of the climate emergency — and the hard feelings that arise — means you get an energy boost because you’re no longer living a double life. (That interview is un-paywalled for all readers). With Avni Trivedi, we talked about how paying attention to how things feel in our physical bodies can lead to better decisions about how we live our lives and result in handing less of our autonomy over to capitalism.
With Simone Stolzoff, we talked about the de-centering of work/career from our lives, and the many beautiful, generative things that makes space for. And with Tyson Yunkaporta, how embedding yourself with the places, humans, and non-humans in your physical community is literally what you, as a human being, are made to be doing right this moment — indeed all personal and collective development starts right there. (This last interview is now un-paywalled, too. It’s a good one.)
There are principles embedded in each of these conversations that, when put into practice, may manifest differently in each life. In mine, those green shoots look like having energy for activities, projects, and opportunities that don’t concern my career or personal advancement — something I promise you I did not possess one shred of energy for two years ago. It means scheduling significant portions of my life for rest over other things, which means I have more time to feel inconvenient or difficult feelings, which in turn makes me feel less anxious throughout my daily life.
I feel less interested in toxic online discourse and more able to find compassion for people I disagree with politically, even if it’s still a struggle. I spend more time with people who aren’t hyper-functioning ambitious super-achievers, which reminds me that I really don’t have to be that way, either. I learned that not all adult responsibilities are a bottomless energy drain you should avoid if you’re trying to optimize your efficiency and claw your way to the top; some responsibilities, like adopting a black cat with two white toes (!) can give you far more back in return.
What all this adds up to, I think, is not a life that is any more successful, easy, impressive, or any less filled with doubt and strife. But one that’s more meaningful. One that holds a lot, but also leaves enough space for you to feel it all, too. One that gives you enough energy to see the world not as an apocalyptic hellscape in which we’re all doomed — which, as someone pointed out to me recently, is an extremely lazy worldview — but rather as something a lot more complex, heartbreaking, but also engaging and beautiful.
It allows you to see the state of the world for what it still, ultimately, even now, is: an invitation.
Things I Enjoyed Reading
Seems to me that this is the kind of activism we need more of: Hyper-local, strategic, tangible. Forget the culture wars and discourse — pick one thing, find out who makes money off it, and go for it. [The Guardian]
Usually it’s a bad sign if you don’t really know what a story is about until halfway through. In rare cases, it’s the sign of a great story. [Airmail]
Something I now spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about: The inner lives of cats. [The Guardian]
Cooking from Georgia O’Keeffe’s hand-written recipes. [The New Yorker]
“Days, months, and years all make sense as units of time…” but the seven day week makes no natural sense. [The Atlantic]
I love how this author explains how hard living off the grid is, but then finishes by saying he’d recommend it. [VICE]
On the nascent field of “collapsology,” which recognizes “that a belief that we can continue as before is akin to a utopian viewpoint.” [LitHub]
Things I Enjoyed Listening To
Didn’t know until I watched this that I identify as a “city quitter.” [Tedx]
The case against loving your job is very convincing to me. [Ezra Klein Show]
I’m am loving Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks: Embrace Your Limits, Change Your Life. This interview with the author is a great précis on how the best productivity advice is to center the fact that life is finite and one day you’ll die. [Is This Working?]
Paid Newsletter Interlude
This will be my last edition of 2021, and I’m taking a few weeks off because, as you might have gathered, this is a very pro-rest newsletter. Thanks to everyone for reading this year, and thanks especially to paying subscribers. I’ll be back with the first Q&A of the year (with Wintering author Katherine May!) for paying subscribers on January 14.
If you’ve been considering becoming a paying subscriber to the newsletter, for the rest of this month, annual subscriptions are 25% off. Your support not only helps me do these interviews, but it also gives me the time and space to think and write these free monthly essays. I really appreciate it.
Word Soup
“Some of you say ‘joy is greater than sorrow’ and some of you say ‘nay, sorrow is greater.’ But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.” —Kahlil Gibran
"Style is a very simple matter: it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words. But on the other hand here am I sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can't dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm. Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it.” —Virginia Woolf
As always, thank you for reading. If you enjoy this newsletter, it helps a surprising amount if you forward it to a friend or two, or share it on social media using the button below. If you’d like to upgrade to the paid version, click here. I also love hearing from readers, so don’t be shy! Hit reply or email rosiespinks@gmail.com.