Yes, regeneration is exactly how this should work. Regeneration is a core property of all living systems, and extraction is the logic of cancer. We may not feel we have many choices in this system, but we really do have more choices than many of us realize, across many dimensions of our lives. Thank you for writing this with such clarity.
YES! Thank you! I was walking around earlier this week thinking about how all I want is to do real, embodied things (cook with real ingredients, care for my kids, make art, read books, spend time with friends, take care of my neighbors - can't that be enough for a whole life?) and almost chided myself for being so "radical" and then realized, "hey, living the way we did *forever* as humans is not radical!" The constant extraction via private equity, enshittification (I'm in the middle of that book right now, it's excellent), and all other modes of being/thinking/feeling inherent in late stage capitalism are literally just ideas and we can reject them. Now, we've of course all been hypnotized for decades to accept things the way they are (wealth supremacy, meritocracy, financialization, etc.) so...easier said than done... but still, I think we're in a turning point of consciousness (as your essay so beautifully and clearly lays out) and we just have to keep practicing embodied, care-filled lives and I think we're going to move in the right direction. Slowly, deliberately, one small change at a time. Then tipping points.
Reading Indigenous authors always keeps me grounded in the big picture of a healthy Earth - human ecosystem guided by love and reciprocity. "Sacred Instructions" by Sherri Mitchell was a lovely recent read that gave me new perspectives. I just started "Becoming Kin" by Patty Krawec.
Reading about solutions within the current paradigm also gives me hope. You might like "Doughnut Economics" - I read it last year and thought about sending copies to all my policymakers. Hey guys, regenerative economics, let's implement this! There are plenty of brilliant thinkers who have the ideas, we just need to wrestle the power to be able to implement them.
Thank you for your part in raising consciousness! Though you'll never know the extent to which these ideas catalyze new perspectives and small changes, I have no doubt your work is creating ripples that will help to foster the beautiful, non-extractive world that comes next.
Loved this piece. Thank you!! In case it isn’t already on your list- adding “The Serviceberry” by Robin Wall Kimmerer to the indigenous authors writing about this topic. “All flourishing is mutual”.
I keep trying to understand this moment in history. From Chicago, deeply resonate with your points and analysis.
Tressie McMillan Cottom offers a similar antidote to this time, healing will happen locally in community , outside the systems of extraction and in public spaces, institutions preserved truly
for all (eg the importance of libraries, post offices, the DMV) and with our neighbors.
Tech has sent us into our homes with every imaginable service that keeps us exposed to a global world but isolated from each other.
As Jason Reynolds said on an OnBeing podcast on the pandemic in particular: “I think I learned that once we were forced to use our machines, we realized the value of human touch. I think as an older millennial, I think my generation and down desperately needed to re-engage with that idea, that the machines, we love them and we spend so much time on them until we had no choice but to. And then we were begging for a hug, begging for a hand hold, anything to be in the presence and to feel the presence of a human body, skin thirst, this idea that we were all starving for some sort of human interaction."
YES to the Tressie McMillan Cottom insight. I’ve been feeling drawn to libraries, community spaces, neighborhood gardens, even certain more egalitarian religious community spaces for this reason. These spaces are good for our nervous systems, but also so important for healing, solidarity, and non-extractive belonging.
You said it so eloquently. It feels like the only alternative in a world of extraction is to create systems based on things undervalued by extraction: care, play, love, friendship -- the things that are most important to some of us.
I used to go to that salad place on my office days (I work fully remotely), and it was a highlight. Suffice to say, I got sever burnout at that job, and am in recovery. My best days are those when I hear no news (Radio 3 Unwind has been on a lot in the house for the past 6 months), when I see some familiar strangers about town, walk the dog with a friend, sit down for dinner with my husband.
We do what we can with what we’ve got, we don’t need to save the world. We do need to know our neighbours, look after the vulnerable people around us, and keep ourselves safe and sound. And tbh, avoid going to London at all cost…
And we’ll find new ways to work. I found this video essay rather hopeful:
Thanks for this, Rosie – it is one of those pieces that articulates exactly what I've been seeing/thinking but haven't quite identified. I just saw a lecture by Sunil Amrith, author of The Burning Earth, and I haven't read it yet but I have a feeling it will be very relevant to these themes. You might want to check it out!
Also, Wendell Berry, Wendell Berry, Wendell Berry! Everything I read by him is absolutely startling at how relevant it feels when it was written...fifty years ago??
Thank you, Rosie, for thinking about and putting the finger on extraction. I never associated that word with a process that is eating us alive, but it all makes such sad and sobering sense. It seems extraction may have a culmination point, which regeneration can trump (though I loathe to use that word.)
In the days of Tumblr those images of Goths looking sad eating ice creams in the sun - I think we need a new iteration of people in despair eating Farmer J salads. Thank you Rosie for laying it out so clearly as usual. I wasn't smart enough to get through that Substack article but I think I get the gist - AI removes our incomes so how can capitalism sustain itself. What a mess, no wonder those moments of coming back to my home, my garden, my kids, my simple and pleasant interactions with strangers feels so good.
I am a relatively new subscriber and have not read your pieces for too long, but I genuinely cannot wait to pre-order your book when the time arrives. Feel like I’m reading from a soul sister or something! Even if that’s cringe!
The logic of distraction holds up well. I notice how it turns people into passive consumers with only one purpose - providing the money they are extracting. As Ms. Spinks correctly posits, the way to defeat the extractors, or as they are called in the song Solidarity together, the greedy parasites, is to do things ourselves. The part of the logic of extraction I have noticed is how passive people seem to be in general. I have noticed how they don't question authority. How they have absorbed misinformation online without even realizing it. A big part of the logic of extraction is the overlords intentionally overwhelming people's ability to think independently.
This is all interrelated. Good article. I enjoyed reading it.
Grateful for all of this—the way it connects so many disparate causes of our modern (and often salad-related) melancholia, and reveals the rotting logic of extraction underneath. And the resistance inherent in seed-starting. If I believe in any form of salvation it’s that one.
Yes, regeneration is exactly how this should work. Regeneration is a core property of all living systems, and extraction is the logic of cancer. We may not feel we have many choices in this system, but we really do have more choices than many of us realize, across many dimensions of our lives. Thank you for writing this with such clarity.
YES! Thank you! I was walking around earlier this week thinking about how all I want is to do real, embodied things (cook with real ingredients, care for my kids, make art, read books, spend time with friends, take care of my neighbors - can't that be enough for a whole life?) and almost chided myself for being so "radical" and then realized, "hey, living the way we did *forever* as humans is not radical!" The constant extraction via private equity, enshittification (I'm in the middle of that book right now, it's excellent), and all other modes of being/thinking/feeling inherent in late stage capitalism are literally just ideas and we can reject them. Now, we've of course all been hypnotized for decades to accept things the way they are (wealth supremacy, meritocracy, financialization, etc.) so...easier said than done... but still, I think we're in a turning point of consciousness (as your essay so beautifully and clearly lays out) and we just have to keep practicing embodied, care-filled lives and I think we're going to move in the right direction. Slowly, deliberately, one small change at a time. Then tipping points.
What's giving me hope these days:
James Talarico winning the primary in Texas! Have you heard him speak?? Truth and justice may just be making a foothold in America: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Blph_2RSBno&t=18s&pp=2AESkAIB
Reading Indigenous authors always keeps me grounded in the big picture of a healthy Earth - human ecosystem guided by love and reciprocity. "Sacred Instructions" by Sherri Mitchell was a lovely recent read that gave me new perspectives. I just started "Becoming Kin" by Patty Krawec.
Reading about solutions within the current paradigm also gives me hope. You might like "Doughnut Economics" - I read it last year and thought about sending copies to all my policymakers. Hey guys, regenerative economics, let's implement this! There are plenty of brilliant thinkers who have the ideas, we just need to wrestle the power to be able to implement them.
Thank you for your part in raising consciousness! Though you'll never know the extent to which these ideas catalyze new perspectives and small changes, I have no doubt your work is creating ripples that will help to foster the beautiful, non-extractive world that comes next.
Thank you for these book recommendations! I love this comment
Loved this piece. Thank you!! In case it isn’t already on your list- adding “The Serviceberry” by Robin Wall Kimmerer to the indigenous authors writing about this topic. “All flourishing is mutual”.
Love this: "all I want is to do real, embodied things" Why does it feel so radical to want this? Thank you for saying it's not.
I agree! So simple and reassuring to hear.
Yes to all of this. The red string guy in me bows to the red string guy in you x
We are all him!
This was EXCELLENT. Thank you
I keep trying to understand this moment in history. From Chicago, deeply resonate with your points and analysis.
Tressie McMillan Cottom offers a similar antidote to this time, healing will happen locally in community , outside the systems of extraction and in public spaces, institutions preserved truly
for all (eg the importance of libraries, post offices, the DMV) and with our neighbors.
Tech has sent us into our homes with every imaginable service that keeps us exposed to a global world but isolated from each other.
As Jason Reynolds said on an OnBeing podcast on the pandemic in particular: “I think I learned that once we were forced to use our machines, we realized the value of human touch. I think as an older millennial, I think my generation and down desperately needed to re-engage with that idea, that the machines, we love them and we spend so much time on them until we had no choice but to. And then we were begging for a hug, begging for a hand hold, anything to be in the presence and to feel the presence of a human body, skin thirst, this idea that we were all starving for some sort of human interaction."
YES to the Tressie McMillan Cottom insight. I’ve been feeling drawn to libraries, community spaces, neighborhood gardens, even certain more egalitarian religious community spaces for this reason. These spaces are good for our nervous systems, but also so important for healing, solidarity, and non-extractive belonging.
I've never thought directly about how libraries settle my nervous system but they absolutely do! Maybe that's why I like working in them.
Thank you Rosie. Always enjoy hearing your take on things!
Btw, “any job created in the 20th century will be replaced by AI” Nassim Taleb
Loved this, thank you for articulating so plainly what we are all experiencing but struggle to put words to!
You said it so eloquently. It feels like the only alternative in a world of extraction is to create systems based on things undervalued by extraction: care, play, love, friendship -- the things that are most important to some of us.
I used to go to that salad place on my office days (I work fully remotely), and it was a highlight. Suffice to say, I got sever burnout at that job, and am in recovery. My best days are those when I hear no news (Radio 3 Unwind has been on a lot in the house for the past 6 months), when I see some familiar strangers about town, walk the dog with a friend, sit down for dinner with my husband.
We do what we can with what we’ve got, we don’t need to save the world. We do need to know our neighbours, look after the vulnerable people around us, and keep ourselves safe and sound. And tbh, avoid going to London at all cost…
And we’ll find new ways to work. I found this video essay rather hopeful:
https://youtu.be/f7iloI8V6Z8?si=H1g9FuKyQxL57OO3
Thanks for this, Rosie – it is one of those pieces that articulates exactly what I've been seeing/thinking but haven't quite identified. I just saw a lecture by Sunil Amrith, author of The Burning Earth, and I haven't read it yet but I have a feeling it will be very relevant to these themes. You might want to check it out!
Also, Wendell Berry, Wendell Berry, Wendell Berry! Everything I read by him is absolutely startling at how relevant it feels when it was written...fifty years ago??
Dude, you blew my mind 🤯 ❤️
Thank you, Rosie, for thinking about and putting the finger on extraction. I never associated that word with a process that is eating us alive, but it all makes such sad and sobering sense. It seems extraction may have a culmination point, which regeneration can trump (though I loathe to use that word.)
In the days of Tumblr those images of Goths looking sad eating ice creams in the sun - I think we need a new iteration of people in despair eating Farmer J salads. Thank you Rosie for laying it out so clearly as usual. I wasn't smart enough to get through that Substack article but I think I get the gist - AI removes our incomes so how can capitalism sustain itself. What a mess, no wonder those moments of coming back to my home, my garden, my kids, my simple and pleasant interactions with strangers feels so good.
It wasn't even Farmer J that I was writing about, but the fact that there are currently multiple extractive salad chains to choose from says it all!
I am a relatively new subscriber and have not read your pieces for too long, but I genuinely cannot wait to pre-order your book when the time arrives. Feel like I’m reading from a soul sister or something! Even if that’s cringe!
Thank you for reading!
This is so spot on. Regeneration follows the "laws" of nature; extraction does not. Extraction could lead to some form of extinction at some point.
The logic of distraction holds up well. I notice how it turns people into passive consumers with only one purpose - providing the money they are extracting. As Ms. Spinks correctly posits, the way to defeat the extractors, or as they are called in the song Solidarity together, the greedy parasites, is to do things ourselves. The part of the logic of extraction I have noticed is how passive people seem to be in general. I have noticed how they don't question authority. How they have absorbed misinformation online without even realizing it. A big part of the logic of extraction is the overlords intentionally overwhelming people's ability to think independently.
This is all interrelated. Good article. I enjoyed reading it.
Grateful for all of this—the way it connects so many disparate causes of our modern (and often salad-related) melancholia, and reveals the rotting logic of extraction underneath. And the resistance inherent in seed-starting. If I believe in any form of salvation it’s that one.