# Resisting outrage, embracing joy A core tenet that I hold is that all things are ecosystemic and connected. It's a philosophical belief I can't really divorce from any aspect of the human condition. It's a big part of the inspiration for [[Greenhaus]] and generally colors all aspects of my life. In that lens, it's not really a surprise that I’ve arrived at a break in regularly scheduled programming on the heels of an eventful week. Since I belong to the least affected demographic (straight, white male in his late 30”s) by recent elections, you’d be forgiven for scrolling past this commentary. But there are a lot of people I love who don't have that privilege, and it’s for them that I worry most. The truth is I have not been handling current events well. At the heart of it is a deep sense of foreboding that I haven't been able to shake. Every day I can feel it smoldering in my core, taking disappointment and uncertainty and kindling it into anger and frustration. But of course, outrage is the point. The obfuscating fog that keeps us from seeing and thinking clearly. It's not a sustainable way to live, and I'm working my way through it. I still don’t have many fully-formed thoughts, but like most of you (I imagine), I have many seedlings. In the spirit of discourse–where the point isn’t having answers but rather to facilitate the conversation–this is a post that presents those seedlings, so they might also take root for you. ## Navigating doom In an exchange with a good friend, we collectively remembered the anxiety-fueled national political scene 8 years ago and landed on a feeling: How do we choose not to do that? It occurs to me in these uncertain moments that this is among the most radical philosophies we can espouse. The thought first occurred to me when I was doomscrolling (LinkedIn, for the especially masochistic corporate doomers) and came across [this post from Nishant Shah](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/itsnishant_narrativechange-notodespair-lossisnotadefeat-activity-7259886232778727425-mD9q?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop). >[!quote]+ “[R]eminder against the onset of despair; remembering over and over again that despair is the privilege of those who can afford it.” Despair gives us tacit permission to wash our hands of the moment. But to wash our hands of the moment is consequential for the future. Despair breeds Nihilism and justifies the retreat inward. It’s the voice that tells us 50% of our neighbors are irredeemable (whatever you might believe). The thought draws me back to one of my favorite contemporary thinkers, [Timothy Morton](https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-morton-8079ab242/), and in particular a piece from this summer: [[Surviving the Cult of Climate Doom - Clips|Surviving the cult of climate doom]]. In it, Morton draws parallels between the world of Romantic poet and painter William Blake and the present. As humans we can’t help but think in human lifespans, but the reality is that the democratic epoch is quite young.  >[!quote]+ The late 1700s were an age in which people fought for democracy. We, at least in “Western” countries, have tended to think that battle was won. But it is very important that we wake up and realize that the struggle is far, far from over. The continuity between Blake’s age and ours is not a historical curiosity: it is a matter of the utmost urgency. Democracy is fragile, and tyranny is a constant risk. Our first task is to accept this at face value and understand the implications. Despair would have you believe that we are irrevocably regressing toward a state, where the long view reminds you that we are participants in the continued, and singular, struggle. >[!quote]+ Forget thinking in terms of “ecology” versus feminism, democracy or anti-racism (and so on). Blake fought against dividing these issues up, because he thought that was part of a “divide and conquer” strategy of tyranny. If we accept that we are engaged in the continued struggle, we can’t absolve ourselves of the present or the future. Blake, by way of Morton, urges us to skip the path of cynicism, and in so many words, choose joy: >[!quote]+ We older people shouldn’t add to this grizzled-before-its-time vibe. We should be singing what Blake called Songs of Innocence, reminding the kids that the world is open, the future is not fixed, goodness is real and easy to find. [...] Blake’s Songs of Innocence cry out that we don’t have to live in a world where master versus slave, human versus nonhuman, male versus female define everything. There is always a lovely, innocent excess of reality over what we think we see, our eyes dimmed by conflict and rage and fear. This is what Blake meant when he wrote, “To see a world in a grain of sand” ([Auguries of Innocence](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence)). It’s important to pause at this moment and clarify what it means to choose joy. In my eyes, it's not a hedonistic pursuit. If you lock yourself away in a never-ending loop of self optimization or self care, only to emerge every 2-4 years to vote, I’m afraid you’ll find yourself consistently disappointed and adrift. [These are the forces that fracture and isolate.](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/17/opinion/sports-zen-mental-subtraction.html/) >[!quote]+ “[I]n this genre of self-optimization, if it can be called that, we are adding more and more duct tape to something that isn’t broken — our mind — until it is so covered we lose sight of the beautifully designed machine underneath it all and it thus becomes, in fact, broken [...] To untangle ourselves from those bonds of self-worth, we need to cultivate more subtle qualities — emotional intelligence, restraint and the ability to recognize and acknowledge our own feelings. The key is removing barriers to clarity, not adding them in hopes of reaching our goals. Two ideas we might not want to hear: Self optimization is most valuable in *who it enables you to be for your community*, in the same way that self care is most valuable in *how it enables you to be for your community*. Either of these in a vacuum is deeply self-indulgent. I think of choosing joy in the same lens. To choose joy is to choose to find a way through despair by giving of yourself freely and often. To not fold in on oneself, but rather expand. Committing to a joyful life is a commitment to making beautiful things and building community. Consider how Herman Hesse describes the life of an artist in Steppenwolf: >[!quote]+ You will, instead, embark on the longer and wearier and harder road of life. You will have to multiply many times your two-fold being and complicate your complexities still further. Instead of narrowing your world and simplifying your soul, you will have to absorb more and more of the world and at last take all of it up in your painfully expanded soul, if you are ever to find peace. ## Heaven and Hell are Here and Now In this [wonderfully bracing essay from Maria Popova](https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/11/06/transition/), we’re reminded that phase transitions are a touchstone of the human experience. This is neither the first nor the last, and through each the human spirit endures. >[!quote]+ The world would not exist without these discomposing transitions, during which everything seems to be falling apart and entropy seems to have the last word. And yet here it is, solid beneath our living feet — feet that carry value systems, systems of sanity, just as vulnerable to the upheavals of phase transition yet just as resilient, saved too by the irrepressible creative force that makes order, makes beauty, makes a new and stronger structure of possibility out of the chaos of such times. Knowing and accepting these ideas is a far cry from an operating manual. Nobody knows what the future holds, and I hardly believe that platitudes will see us through. For me at least, the ideas are galvanizing. This is our era of the continued struggle–an era of the conflict primarily trafficked in information. We aren’t fighting against our neighbors, but against the ideas that threaten to undermine who we are and our ability to thrive. We have to find a different way to engage with that fight. >[!quote]+ “Hell and Heaven are all about the here and now, how we treat each other and how we treat our planet [...] even when writers of doomy essays think they’re being scientific, they’re being religious. So we have to change how we are being religious, or spiritual, or what have you. There’s no getting around it: we’re talking about the most basic connections between our individual bodies and selves and the “neighbor” bodies and selves we relate to, both human and nonhuman. Those connections don’t go away. A rhetorical question about hope: If Heaven and Hell are Here and Now (regardless of what you think comes after), why not choose to make heaven? Choosing joy is the foundation of any grassroots movement. Hope is the seed of joy. We have to believe that no matter what happens, we have agency. And with that agency we can imagine a better world.  >[!quote]+ “All we’ll need is one tiny piece of our planet: that tiny grain of sand will do. If we can imagine our Earth differently, we can treat it differently. If we can imagine Earth in such a “granular” way, where even the smallest things have a power to resist the worst in us, we can use those grains to build a better world.”