Fearlessness or Fear
Hello again fearless readers! It's Mark, bringing our latest blog to your door steps! The content for today's blog arises from something Deb and I watched recently, it raised a lot of thoughts but was also something worth sharing. I can't help thinking what follows is quite dark, but it is also very real, so I hope I don't add to peoples eco-anxiety as we can only do what we are able and this will be different for everybody's situation. So do what you can for your family and community and be happy!
Unfortunately our fears around earth care are a double edged sword. Nature is a powerful force that we have very little personal control over. Ecological fear can arise from the powerlessness we feel in regards to the escalating climate crisis and our limited ability to influence the political bodies dictating environmental policy and responses.
When the dominant force becomes climate change it can threaten our fundamental resources required for life and that can rightly make us fearful. This leads to a very real psychological fear around eco-anxiety where we can get overwhelmed by the sheer scale and the weight of responsibility around earth care.
On the flip side of this eco anxiety are the many who fear the unknown of what may happen if we shift away from fossil fuels and a consumer driven society. Humans naturally fear major transitions and potentially giving up part of their comfortable lifestyle.
The fears felt on both sides of this debate can then be compounded by the guilt we may feel as we are both perpetrator and victims of the climate crisis.
Then we have institutional fear. The dominant forces of politics, technology and large corporations. Can we push back against such a force? These bodies have massive control over our lives and their top-down powers exert huge influence. So can we flip the script with a concerted bottom up push? We can certainly try!
This then leads to fear of hidden agendas as many worry that earth care initiatives will cause economic hardship. Think the closing of coal mines and the flow on effect in those communities! Yet others fear our regulators are not doing enough, fast enough. These are all real fears so how do we practice fearlessness amongst such dominant forces?
I guess the answer to this depends a little on our perspective. Are we looking at it with a philosophical and sociological lens, a scientific lens or from a personal view point. The waters are very muddy! I think we can all agree that humanity are the only ones that can save our natural world and this does require some fearlessness in our individual and community actions!
Leave your thoughts in our comments section and come along to our next Growing Together Circle in November and share your thoughts with our community group. Great to share again with you all. Regards Mark!
Here's some photos of what is happening at our place at the beginning of Spring. So much coming to life and great to see so many native bees exploring our garden.
