Why Connection Matters
Let’s talk, I mean really… talk.
It’s perhaps odd for me to be saying this — as a self-identifying, non-work introvert and thriving soloist — but I feel a there is an epidemic of human (dis)connection. The manifestations and symptoms of this reach everything and everywhere. I believe meaningful human connection, or lack thereof, will define our time and our ability to survive.
Thankfully, I have come to understand that I am not alone in this. The acknowledgement of our own sense of alienation is vital because connection is the source material for hope. In a world of converging crises, hope will be foundational. In my mind there are three layers of connection, to one’s self, to other humans and to our natural world.
Let’s talk about them.
A brief contextualizer
There is an ever-growing list crises today that are cause for anxiety, alienation and despair. For me, the epi-center of this trifecta is our climate emergency. I feel guilt for the destruction of our planet and the harm our (my) actions are having today on the most vulnerable and will have on the lives of future generations. I am profoundly alienated by the feeling that my actions do not reflect the urgency of the moment, and that on a societal level there is not appropriate space, energy, or priority devoted to this existential threat. Even naming the climate crisis as an emergency is deemed radical by the mainstream, which is not really a surprise when you think about it. The climate emergency narrative is in conflict with the entrenched power structures of Western neoliberal capitalism and as such remains on the periphery of the discourse despite its scientific proof and increasingly visible and verifiable reality. We can feel the heat of record breaking temperatures. The town of Lytton, BC, Canada broke the national heat record on three, consecutive, days and then on the fourth day, the entire village was wiped off the map in a raging forest fire made acute by the ‘heat dome’. We can taste the dryness in the air, and see reservoirs drying up (Lake Mead, the US’ largest reservoir at an all time low); but the surrounding mainstream discourse fails to move political leaders to courageous and necessary action.
While the climate emergency narrative may reside on the periphery of power structures, it’s actual impact is fundamentally altering lives and displacing millions from their homes now, and yet the correspondingly transformative, or even coherent political action remains largely unseen, particularly in the wealthiest nations.
Whether we perceive it or not, whether we want to believe it or engage with it, we are in a time of planetary transformation. How it will evolve rests, still at this late hour, in our collective hands. So, to the point, what are we going to do about it? Our own personal decisions and actions and those we all can influence each and every day will determine the survival of thousands of species. To date, our aggregate actions (from industrialization until now) have set in motion biodiversity and ecosystem disruption and collapse, acidification and warming of our oceans, melting of the world’s glaciers, sea level rise and mass species extinction (and more).
By living the way we currently do, by extracting and consuming how we do, we are dismantling our own future ability to feed ourselves, essentially our ability to sustain life. Perhaps not much of this is news to you, generally the science is known and understood, but the momentum for decisive political action is blocked by wealthy special interests, as Michael Mann, writing in The New Climate War, calls the ‘inactivists.’ An example, fossil fuel company BP coming up with the personal carbon footprint calculator to deflect attention from their destructive business model, and re/focus the narrative on individual actions. With many mainstream media houses beholden to business interests (those profiting most from the current economic system), it is not shocking that we do not see them covering the climate crisis like a crisis at all (queue my alienation).
And yet, I have a fierce feeling of hope that is kept burning through engagement and connection.
In order to move from destructive and extractive practices and a system (neoliberal capitalism) that exploits inequality towards one of mutual flourishing and regeneration requires our collective civic engagement. By ‘collective’ I mean a grand coalition that reaches across all segments and sectors of society in an unprecedented manner. In order to galvanize this ‘radical’ agenda (of our own survival… 💁🏻♂️) we will need to see beyond the conventional social labels that have defined and divided us in the past. From race to gender identity, to socio-economic status and sexual orientation, political affiliation, religion and nationality, we will need to re-imagine and re-articulate our common ground. A part of this is releasing ourselves from the shackles of entrenched neoliberalism. This current paradigm (in the West) is optimized to estrange us from ourselves and one another, and alienate us from broader social and political engagement. It has sought to separate us from our own humanity and ability to see and love each other by putting us into boxes where our humanity is reduced to a mere mechanical input. Civic engagement is labeled ‘out-of-bounds,’ reinforced through restrictive social norms and discrimination (i.e. ‘professional athletes like LeBron James should stay out of politics and just play basketball’).
Restoring our full selves means freeing ourselves from these suffocating norms and expectations, and by doing so we begin to realize our own power and contribute to something larger than ourselves. When we connect to others and build community, we start to see how we can bring about collective, transformative change. You could call this connectivity our superpower — with all it’s physiological, emotional and indescribable bits of magic.
Reconnecting with self
The past few years of my life have been exceptional, from divorce to occupational evolution to radical changes in my lifestyle choices and priorities. During the early months of the pandemic my self-reckoning became acute and unavoidable. The turmoil of the world around me and the stay-at-home orders in spring 2020 catalyzed a thorough self-examination of my privileged existence.
I was increasingly struggling to reconcile my role and responsibility in a world fraught with escalating crises, both enraged by the injustices I was seeing and alienated by the growing dissonance between my actions and what I identified as my values. The same privilege (as a white, straight, CIS male of the one percent) that had insulated me in the past now provided me with the space and sanctuary, amidst this unprecedented disruption and pain (at least in the west) to reflect on my own buried feelings of shame, guilt and heartbreak. I had, though initially unintentionally, made my mental wellbeing a priority. It was an aspect of my health that I had left largely unattended throughout my life. As it turned out, perhaps not surprisingly, some self-care was needed.
Compassionate self-reckoning is work for all of us, particularly those in my cohort. As contributors to an extractive, exploitative system, this work is a necessary precursor for us to collectively heal. It requires accountability for our current actions but also for our past injustices. These historical transgressions serve as the foundation for the colonial, neoliberal capitalist system which has served to force-rank human beings (and our natural world) in a hierarchy of discrimination and domination.
In this rightfully inflamed time of social justice discourse, I began to journey into the field of unknown, completely disarmed, for the first time in my life. I desperately wanted to support others but also needed to understand how. I needed to learn, to consider how to enter into a social dialogue fraught with expectations — real ones, and separately those on social media. This meant looking inward and learning. Acknowledging the discrimination that I was a part of holding up, my ignorance of the lives, stories and trauma of others. How my actions or inaction in the past had reinforced damaging interpersonal dynamics. These are heavy things, though immediately get lighter when acknowledged and unpacked.
This personal accountability gives space to needed discussion and builds trust and helps bring forth a new day when we all can see ourselves and one another again. There is no buying your way out or around the process, it is only the work. It will always be there, waiting to be addressed. While painful, it is necessary and fulfilling, bringing a new light to life. A new sense of hope will be critical to cultivate in the years of challenge and crises ahead. We must awaken with humility to what we do not know, as Tim Urban shares, ‘…humility is a permeable filter that absorbs life experience and converts it into knowledge and wisdom.’ It is that wisdom we need as we individually and collectively chart a course for which our old tools are not accustomed.
I am awake, with the recognition that this intentional work of re-connecting with my own humanity and responsibility to others will necessarily, and wonderfully enable community and hope.
Connecting with others: we are the system.
Agitated interactions and conflicts permeate the social discourse (on- and off-line) and is provoked and weaponized by platforms seeking to cash in on corresponding engagement. Their aim? To sell us, our attention, to businesses for profit. Amongst this tumult of shouting rhetorics, I see my disconnected, distracted self in the mirror. I have become increasingly aware of this and the ongoing discussions of platform regulation and ethical AI are topics that will also need our attention and engagement, fore they are powerful elements in how the narrative of change will be seen and understood by billions in the years to come.
Recently, I saw a microcosm of this when I wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper in my hometown of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In it, I described how, in light of the recent IEA NetZero report, (in which the global oil-centric energy agency stating oil and gas could not a part of the future energy mix for the global economy) stated that it was time for Albertans to re-ignite our sense of ingenuity and generosity of spirit to transform the economy and society from fossil-fuel dependence. The comments were telling. Of the (22) comments almost none engaged with the topic meaningfully, opposing opinions talked past one another, emotional and seemingly only invested in saying their piece and instigating a loop ‘un-winnable’ claims. My very short letter was attacked from all angles. The inability to have a meaningful conversations is so painfully common today.
I try to greet these moments with kindness, as I believe they are partly manifestation of the distress that comes with a lack of meaningful connection. Our social, digital world is not built to enable quality interactions. It is optimized for quick hits of dopamine and some version of validation. Our broader (Western) societal systems are designed to prioritize and reinforce individualism and competition - with feeble, if any, regulation for the common good. In many cases, reckless accumulation of wealth and power results.
The neoliberal narrative of individualism seeks to separate human beings from each other and the natural world to unnatural and immoral extremes. For example, our continued failure to effectively dismantle (or even marginally regulate) the fossil fuel industry despite its clear, apocalyptical impact on our planet’s ecosystems is an abject moral failure. At the same time, democratically elected governments arrest indigenous peoples for defending the land from destruction that was stolen from them in the first place (clear-cutting old-growth forests in BC). It is within this unequal, hyper competitive system of private interests and ownership that community and deep human connection are intentionally obfuscated — as they serve as the ultimate re-balancer towards mutual flourishing. Meaningful reconnection would compel the global community to respond morally in the face of entire peoples being erased from our planet due to the ecological crises, including global sea level rise (i.e. the Marshall Islands, Micronesia). This is not to say the solutions are easy or even known at this time, but the imperative for the requisite action would exist.
The current regime of power, as Foucault would call it, is purposefully built to exploit us, not empower us. Collectively, we have been ‘normalized’ as consumers, meant to act transactionally — our voice defined by our purchasing power. But perhaps here is the most salient point, power is in constant fluctuation. Neoliberalism has been in place only a few decades, and while it feels like a death grip, it is not. Colonialism and its underlining structures behind much of the enslavement of the the global south is not ‘how things are,’ but simply the foundation of the current, crumbling house. While many of us (myself included) have internalized this normalization, at times to the extent that we cannot even see the absence of our own humanity in daily life, including towards ourselves, we need to only reconnect and awaken to our agency to create a new paradigm of mutualism.
Some argue that humans aren’t built to cooperate- that we are self-interested, competitive beings predisposed to savagery. So the argument goes, chaos will ensure if ‘the masses’ are not controlled by those more civilized. Sound familiar? Colonialism and it’s savagery is the bedrock for this thinking, employed to separate and enslave peoples around the world. Transformative change will rest power from the slavers, their greatest fear. Colonialism is the savagery. The final bit of this essay shares more on this ‘radical’ idea of humanity based in cooperation vs competition.
While I still feel out of place in a world where the default is noise and my centre is solitude and silence, I feel a undeniable pull to meaningfully connect with others. I don’t mean small talk (still not a fan of that, horrible at it), I mean big, beautiful conversations — radical, unrepentant, courageous, human — level connecting. As I have intentionally begun these conversations they have already challenged me to be better and helped me understand the value of meaningful, undistracted connection.
Meaningful human interaction is a disruptive, radical and revolutionary act — poignantly, in it’s humanness.
Reconnecting with our natural world.
Sarah Wilson notes that ‘simply walking in nature is a act of radical correction.’ As a lover of forest rambles, time in the woods always helps to reset my intention and bring me peace. I listen differently, more acutely. I notice more of the exquisite details around me. I love it, and how it makes me feel. I don’t just listen more deeply to my surroundings, but also to myself. As Robin Wall Kimmerer, in Braiding Sweetgrass writes, ‘Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.’ I can feel when I have gone too long without a walk in the woods, I feel less myself.
I moved from Canada to Finland in 2012, to do a Masters and perhaps the best answer to why I still live here now is connection. In Finland, I have found that my life is simpler (learning the language not included), more intentional — even in Helsinki. More time outside, fewer things, less layers of stuff to get in the way of seeing what matters. Peace has been easier for me to find, closer. I learned what real wilderness is in the forests and fells of Finland — through their relative proximity and serenity. With so much forest and so few Finns, these forests can be truly be sanctuaries for solitary souls.
Wilderness is intrinsically connected to seeing and centering myself. It reminds me of the reasons why the neoliberal narratives of extraction, consumption and competition are at odds with our natural world and the value lost when it is appropriated for financial profit. What we value needs an overhaul, though I feel it will be forcibly changed regardless, as we get deeper into the climate emergency. Everything changes when you don’t have access to food or safe drinking water.
It is telling that at a time when ancient, diverse ecosystems are shown to be not only the best defense against climate shocks (mangroves protecting shorelines, ancient forests sequestering carbon and balancing a network of species’ needs, soil, water quality), but also are proven to support the mental wellbeing of humans (myself included), we are destroying them faster than ever, during the climate crisis. These actions show that we are clearly alienated from ourselves and our place in the natural world. Those of us fortunate enough to have experienced the wonders and gifts of nature, need to step forward and be a voice for our planet, and that while this stance has become politicized, it is in fact merely human.
As the research and writing of Suzanne Simard (Finding the Mother Tree) so poetically shows us, nature is built on collaboration, trees ‘talking’ to each other, sharing resources, promoting the health of different species. Trees are naturally highly attuned to the wellbeing of the surrounding ecosystem, acutely aware of threats felt by others. The wisdom of ancient forests could not be a better example for humanity to follow. If only we (particularly those of us racialized as white) could spare some humility to learn from the ancient wisdom that already exists, in nature and in the indigenous peoples of the world.
Our (re)connection is the source of our hope and our path forward.
I have a great deal of anxiety about the climate crisis, and it is heightened when I see so little relative discourse on how we are going to address it. The more I discuss this feeling the less alienated I feel. I hear the many challenges, barriers and frustrations of those around me, and increasingly feel as though my actions are intertwined with others. As Vivek Murthy, in Together, writes, ‘being connected to others gives us a stake in more than our own interests.’
I recently joined an online session to talk about my feelings on the climate. Climate Awakening is a group hosting open conversations with folks who are feeling, what has come to be known as ‘eco-anxiety,’ and giving space to the needed discussions. Both during and after the dialogue, which centred around a handful of key questions, I was more hopeful, more connected. This is precisely what we need and what is already happening, because it is giving space to this conversation and to collective mental wellbeing. Mental health and anxiety about the state of our planet needs to be more visible, it needs to continue to be named and we need to support one another to break the silence about the feelings related to the climate crisis.
Rest assured the coming decades will be without precedent, I believe we are living in the fleeting last days of the world we have come to know, perhaps it is already gone. On the news recently a pipeline ruptured in the Gulf of Mexico and the ocean…caught on fire. We are in a new time. This does not mean we throw our hands up and wait for the catastrophe to envelop us, it is time for a new beginning. As Simard notes, “Making this transformation requires that humans reconnect with nature — the forests, the prairie, the oceans — instead of treating everything and everyone as objects for exploitation.” Some will ask if humans are capable of this time of transformation, and at a time of distress? I would argue it’s what we know best.
Rutger Bregman in his hefty, hopeful book, Humankind describes a series of examples of human interactions that clearly show how cooperation, particularly in times of difficulty, are our natural, instinctive disposition, despite ‘media’ and ‘mainstream’ claims to the contrary. “It’s when crisis hits — when the bombs fall or the floodwaters rise — that we humans become our best selves.” Rebecca Solnit has researched the communities that materialize during disasters and how humans act instinctively in altruistic fashion without the encumbrances of social norms, rules and discriminations that characterize daily life. Her research shows,
“The positive emotions that arise in those unpromising circumstances demonstrate that social ties and meaningful work are deeply desired, readily improvised, and intensely rewarding. The very structure of our economy and society prevents these goals from being achieved.”
The point here is that many of the faltering constructs of our time (colonialism, neoliberal capitalism) are in fact not the remedy to our current ills, but the chains to throw off in order to reconnect with one another and nature. Our path to mutual flourishing is inseparable from these connections. Our future world will look very different even in 10, 20, 30 years. Just how different and in what ways? We don’t know, but it’s up to us. It is in our hands, through our relationships, to imagine and create.
It can begin with a conversation. It can begin with a walk in nature. Let it begin today.
💛
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Here is a short reading list of related titles I have recently read and loved:
Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists, Humankind
Emma Dabiri, What White People Can Do Next
Adam Grant, Think Again
Vivek Murthy, Together
Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree
Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
Sarah Wilson, This One Wild And Precious Life
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“Only that day dawns to which we are awake.” — Thoreau
“Disaster shocks us out of slumber, but only skillful efforts keeps us awake.” — Rebecca Solnit.
