Climate Revolution – Mental Evolution
As the proclamation of all things bright and beautiful fades increasingly into our social delirium, blights of all contortions threaten not only our spiritual condition, but the very nature of our right to occupy this resplendent rock. We are being edged out, nature, the only true dictator, is losing patience. We abuse our planet like a toddler rampaging through its mother’s home, oblivious and unwilling to relent upon its mindless pleasure. This is not new. Since our dawn we have been a family fuelled by greed and competition (most painfully and blatantly displayed by insensate bulk buying triggered by pandemic caused mass hysteria) only now these notions hold global consequence; hunting one too many dodos has become the degradation of the foundations of planetary health, unfortunately invisible to the biggest culprits - me and you.
However, destination destruction has not yet been reached. There is time, faith restorable and the natural state of human existence amended. I could depress you with endless stats of extinction, but that’s not what I am here for. The key to this crisis is us – we are the novel presence of the 6th extinction, the turnout in a previously linear track; and no one is going to do this for us, scream at the politicians and big money to catalyse change but they won’t (demonstrated painfully at the last G8 summit, where Coca Cola claimed they would continue to use plastic bottles as ‘consumers demanding it’). We have to use our own two feet to walk these tracks, and we have to retract back. To the essence of existing – learning to live as a cog in the machine, not competing for the remote control. This world is trying to retain its function as a cohesive ecosystem while we are trying to plug it as a farm, reaching unprecedented levels of excess/ so called ‘comforts’ that is simply not going to last. There comes a point where our advancement as a species cannot proceed to equate technological and capitalist progression, where the meeting of higher demands fabricated by growth-hungry companies attempting to entice a global populace that unbeknownst to them are fuelling the potential collapse of their mental wellbeing and planetary sustenance.
It is hard to ignore; regression is progression. Now, regression as a word has bad affiliations- but I don’t mean forced mud- hut occupancy (as much as that is probably a secret pipe dream of my introverted self). I mean principally. Actions such as capsule wardrobes where you have 10 items you really like and will last, compared to hundreds of items that will last two wears and be mistakenly discarded down the back of your underwear draw. Borrowing, trading and making- all lost in our high demand and low patience world, but all things that if made time for, are no more unachievable than trying to find a pair of jeans that fits (I for one have spent shameless hours attempting). It’s about a reallocation of priority and the removal of the disposable mindset, and I don’t just mean the inanimate.
This shift of mindset could not just help win the fight back for our planet, but could lay the path for global awakening- something which funnily enough has been forced upon us over the last few weeks. Much of our mental health crisis stems from the distancing of our daily lives from our original way of being, with constant over-stimulations, to an extent never experienced and understandably, we’re breaking down. Plaguing the minds of the sensitive and infiltrating those who withstand its murmur, signs of the resistance to this lifestyle are seeping through into global trend, with the proliferation of ‘van life’ and ‘tiny homes’ not simply being a want to escape our daily routine, but actually a direct call for help. We want simple lives. It is in our DNA to roam and exist in nature, and these trends are a modern ode to our ancestral selves, clawing to return to our natural states.
The concepts previously mentioned (borrowing, creating and providing for yourself) not only helps to remove planetary degradation, but creates a self-purpose, something in which the lack of could be seen as one of the foundations of the human crisis. As I’m sure all creatives can assure, there is something ethereal about creating. Seeing something conceived in your mind materialise into reality is a mental tonic. It also teaches the value of objects, the effort that goes into each one (the technicality and patience of clothing, or the imagination of a recycled table), again helping to prevent and change demand, encouraging appreciation of ownership of each individual thing you hold. Imagination is our sword, yield it.
Written by Danni Pollock
Danni a 20 year old student, studying for a Msci in Biology at the University of Bristol but currently living in Bournemouth (thanks COVID), where she is a photographer. She has always found her peace in writing and art, but her purpose in the planet’s biota.