“If all people competed for the beautiful, and strained to do the most beautiful things, everything people need in common, and the greatest good for each in particular, would be achieved.” — Aristotle
Covid changed us. You feel it too, don’t you? It traumatized and awakened us — in what way, and to what end, it is not yet clear. It infected us with fear, though we were already quite sick with that particular malady. Mass media has seen to that; or rather, the voracious appetite of corporate greed acting through mass media. As soon as the money makers realized that fear holds our attention better than anything else, the entire media landscape started sounding alarms and pointing fingers. They’re raking in billions stoking our fear and suspicion of one another. Fear is now so ubiquitous in our public spheres we don’t even recognize it in ourselves anymore. We only see it in “them.”
Now climate change is adding to the fear, and the trauma. It’s changing us too, though as with Covid, it’s not yet clear how. The only certainty now is that it will change forever how we think about the weather, and the earth, and our relationship to all of it.
One way all of these changes have changed me is that I now spend a lot of my time thinking about you. And by “you,” I mean you specifically, whoever you are, reading this. And I also mean the broader “you,” as in all of you who are not me. As I think about you, I find myself fixating on this one question again and again that I just can’t shake. It’s burning in my heart:
What kind of world do you want to create?
Maybe it’s fear that drives my fixation. After all, if enough of you only want to destroy “them” at all costs, then destroy them you will, and all of us along with them. Because, you know, in the end there is no “them,” really; there’s only us. Maybe I just want to know you’re going to burn it all down, so I can stock up on toilet paper again … because that worked so well last time.
Really, though, my fixation on this question isn’t just about my fear. It’s also and more deeply driven by hope, because I think the vast majority of us really all want the same kinds of things — a safe, sustainable world to live in, a good, stable life lived among those we love in communities committed to the common good. And I think if we could just stop being afraid for a day and really listen to one another answer that question — What kind of world do you want to create? — we could all stop this nonsense and get about making that dream a reality.
Back in 2020, during the lockdowns, I wrote this poem. When I think about how I’d answer that question, this captures the essence pretty well:
QUARANTINE
I need a cool wind and stratus clouds at sunrise the way they break the light into a thousand shards
I need silence the kind that isn't just the absence of noise but the presence of Something alive and listening
I need just one pristine thought like "I love you" like "I'm all right here" to banish all the rest of them to hold me steady to show me the way
I need a good laugh like, really good and the comfort of friends who know my true name but don't let it stop them loving me anyway
I need to know that we are better than our fear that our love really is strong enough to carry us through
I need a long hot shower followed by chocolate with deep red wine and you to say I love you and I'm not going anywhere
I genuinely believe love is stronger than fear. And I believe that right now, right in the middle of all this Covid PTSD and corporate fear mongering and climate disaster, there are millions of us still choosing love every single day, still choosing to love our neighbors, regardless of whether they’re black or white, red or blue, urban or rural, wealthy or homeless, citizens or refugees.
One of the reasons I sold my dream home in the mountains and moved into a van is because I mean to drive across this great land in search of those people — the relentless, stubborn lovers — to find them, get to know them, and share their stories with you here. Why? Because I want to be part of the solution, and not remain complicit in my passivity. Because for anything to really change, we need to have a better conversation than the one we’ve been having, and I believe for that better conversation to have any power to repair the breaking world, it has to begin with love.
Note: Paid subscribers can read “Why VanLife? (Part 2)” right here.
Thank you, Michael. Resonated so much I screenshot your pic and posted the following to my IG page:
Spot-on insight from Michael Warden’s latest post. I appreciate how he puts to words what so many of us (certainly me) are feeling. A few other excerpts:
• Covid changed us… It infected us with fear, though we were already quite sick with that particular malady. Mass media has seen to that; or rather, the voracious appetite of corporate greed acting through mass media.
• As soon as the money makers realized that fear holds our attention better than anything else, the entire media landscape started sounding alarms and pointing fingers. They’re raking in billions stoking our fear and suspicion of one another.
• Fear is now so ubiquitous in our public spheres we don’t even recognize it in ourselves anymore. We only see it in “them.”
• What kind of world do *you* want to create?
• Maybe it’s fear that drives my fixation. After all, if enough of you only want to destroy “them” at all costs, then destroy them you will, and all of us along with them.
• Because, you know, in the end there is no “them,” really; there’s only us.
To check out the post, copy paste this link:
https://michaeldwarden.substack.com/p/why-vanlife-part-1