Resources to Understand, Process, and Navigate the Predicament
Hey there! Thanks for stopping by. I’m a concerned human who loves people and nature and life and our planet. I worry about the divisiveness and fear that permeates our world. While searching for something hopeful and actionable, I somehow stumbled upon systems thinkers who are seeking to make the world better. They don’t look at problems from a stand-alone perspective. Rather, they look at the factors that have caused the many crisis we face to emerge.
Every day I witness wars and rumors of wars, the destruction of people’s livelihoods and entire ecosystems, as well as the overall decline of heath and wellbeing. What is going on? Is there any possibility to include everyone into the mix of life?
We normally think that we are facing many serious problems, however, what we are actually facing is a predicament. Predicaments cannot be solved. The complexity of modern life, makes “individual” problems such as financial inequality, sharing of resources, pollution, the climate crisis, and migration, unsolvable. We’re in a global catch-22 where if we adjust one thing we mess up another.
We live in a domino world where we seem to be a precarious step away from causing the whole thing to tumble.
The people who study the relationship between these aspects of the world have come to call this complexity “The Predicament”. Other names include The Great Simplification, the Long Dark, the Polycrisis, and the Metacrisis.
Are we doomed? Is there hope?
What I have come to understand so far is that while most of the things we face are not solvable, there is meaningful action that I can take—that we can all take. It will look different for each of us as we are all in unique situations. What calls to you may not call to me, and that’s okay. We need to do what is ours to do.
I offer the following resources in no particular order. They are simply some things that have stood out for me and/or things that are challenging my worldview and causing me to pause and reflect.
While I am located in the USA, I do not ascribe to any political party (nor religion). I do not know what the best course of action in any area. Any solution or strategy I’ve come up with falls short when I “zoom out” and take multiple systems into consideration.
For example, you may or may not believe that we are facing a climate crisis. I personally do not believe that alternative energy strategies, such as electric vehicles or solar, are sustainable. I’d classify ’emissions reduction’ as good, but is it sustainable? No. All renewables require petroleum in the manufacturing process. (There’s so much to this topic alone!!) I don’t think it’s possible to “just stop oil” because our global financial system depends on it.
If we met, I would like to listen to your perspective with an open mind. I would hope you’d do the same for me.
Lately, whenever I encounter views that challenge me, I ask myself:
What if they’re right?
What if they’re wrong?
These questions help to expand my thinking and shift to curiosity. On what am I, you, and they basing their knowledge and beliefs?
I invite you to explore the information shared here with these questions in mind. No human can hold the whole of the world. We only get to experience one little corner of it, but that little corner is influenced by the whole of it.
“Acceptance does not mean surrender. It does not mean resignation. Acceptance means I am finally available to the entire spectrum of creative response.” —Trebbe Johnson
Radical Joy For Hard Times
Podcasts
- START HERE: Entangled World – What is the Metacrisis? | najia shaukat lupson
- Nate Hagens – The Great Simplification
- Michael Dowd – Ten Inevitables: Post Doom, No Gloom (Synthesis/Culmination)
Books
- LaUra Schmidt et al – How To Live in a Chaotic Climate
- Donella Meadows et al, 1972 – The Limits To Growth (free download)
Articles
- adrienne maree brown – emergence
- Zach Walsch – The global polycrisis reflects a civilizational crisis that calls for systemic alternatives
- Margaret Wheatley & Deborah Frieze, Kosmos Magazine – Lifecycle of Emergence: Using Emergence to Take Social Innovation to Scale
- adrienne maree brown – Murmurations: Accountable Endings
Support Groups
- Good Grief Network – 10-Step Group
- Pocket Project – Practice Groups
Music (A bit of sanity…)
- Nynke Laverman – Tree Tree
- Nynke Laverman – Your Ancestor (Official Music Video)
- AURORA – The Seed
- Frank Waln – Treaties (Spotify)
- Ren – Sick Boi (Official Music Video)
- Ren – Dominoes (Official Lyric Video)
Inspiration
- Valarie Kaur – Breathe! Push! The Labor of Revolutionary Love | Bioneers
- Reflections of Life – Living WITHOUT – How Much is Enough?
Poetry
- Mary Oliver – When Death Comes
- Mark Nep – Accepting This
- 24 Hours of Reality: “Earthrise” by Amanda Gorman
Coping & Wellbeing
- Earthrise – How To Turn Climate Anxiety Into Action
- Ecopsychology Café – Internal Family Systems & Climate Distress with Natalie Thomas
- Audio – The Basics of Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
Psychology & Human Behavior
- Documentary – Flight From Death: The Quest for Immortality (haven’t found it for free)
- Visual Tool – The Climate Emotion Wheel
- Video – The Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis: John Vervaeke Iain McGilchrist Daniel Schmachtenberger
Trauma & Healing
- Wisdom of Trauma Talk – Climate Crisis, Fragmentation and Collective Trauma
- Thomas Hübl – The Art of Attunement
- Sounds of Sand – 59 Attuned: Thomas Hübl
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