Slow change

When saving the world takes time.

Spring has sprung this week.

We live in a society(!) where we want lots of things and we want those things now! 

I say the word ‘things’ here to encapsulate not just stuff; things we can own, physical or digital, but phases, skills, or successors in our lives. We want money now, we want to learn skills immediately, we want to reach the heights of our careers ASAP. We no longer hold people who have dedicated their entire lives to a skill or craft or reached a respected position in a business or community in high regard. We now favour hustlin’ 30 under 30s, 21-year-old landlords (Thanks TikTok), and 16-year-old CEOs.

To step away from this, many people have turned to ‘slow living’, an approach to a slower pace of life, a life of less capitalist achievement, a life where you find satisfaction, joy, and achievement in littler things. 

I have always loved the concept of slow or simple living, but it has never quite aligned, in my mind at least, with the urgency of the climate crisis–and all the other crises breaking out every day. When the world’s on fire, when biodiversity is falling at alarming rates, when our soils are constantly being depleted, when there’s another war breaking out, another genocide going on, human slavery, violence, hate, deception, how does one SLOW down?! Surely, we need to hurry the fuck up and do something about it?! The world is ending and society is collapsing and WE MUST DO SOMETHING!!!

…right?

Well, I’m not so sure that’s true anymore (if ever). At least, on a personal level, when we’re trying to survive in a capitalist system built on ruining the planet, exploiting others, and generally making it very tough for us to exist outside of it.

We’re often rushing around to ‘Save The Earth’ and ‘Be Sustainable’, yet none of us are quite so sure what this entails. Is it solar panels and vertical farming? Is it turning back to hunter/gather or prehistoric life? Is it government restrictions and carbon taxes? Is it everyone for themselves?!

In my brain, this urgency (and confusion!) translates into crippling levels of anxiety and constant internal struggles. I need to buy land immediately, live completely self-sufficiently, I need to grow all of my own food, cook entirely from scratch, buy exclusively ethical, organic, and plastic-free, sew all my own clothes, build a strong, dedicated, and caring local community right now, ditch all my tech, save my family, save my friends, spiral, spiral, spiral.

Until we step back and realise we can’t grow all of our own food and cook entirely from scratch (and disconnect from polluting agriculture!) until we learn to actually cook.  Because right now in America 60% of our daily calories derive from ultra-processed foods and for UK adults 57% derive from them.

We can’t build a strong, dedicated, and caring local community until we lay the groundwork with those around us, build trust, invest in others, and learn conflict resolution until we actually begin spending time together. Because right now the average person spends just four hours a month socialising with friends.

We can’t buy exclusively ethical, organic, and plastic-free until we break our obsessions with consumption, detach our personalities from the things we buy or wear, and learn the value of the items around us. Because right now there are 300,000 items in the average American home, and the average British 10-year-old owns 238 toys yet plays with just 12.

I’ve been in the process of considering the actions I want to take–and ultimately the person I want to be–comparing it to where I am now and stripping it back into much simpler steps.

If I want to, ultimately, be the kind of person who grows the majority of their own produce, cooks from scratch and eats seasonally, I need to first learn to cook. I know this sounds incredibly simple in practice, but as someone who grew up eating pretty much solely ultra-processed foods, (embarrassingly) burnt salt the first time I tried to make pasta on my own, and who panics and cries when I have to cook more than two things at a time, then perhaps planting few herb boxes and learning a handful of staple recipes for each season is a better place to start.

(I’ll have you know I can now cook a few solid meals all on my own, as long as I have a trusted adult near for emergencies. I’m even considering purchasing a veg box subscription(!) and I’ve put my name on the waiting list for a local allotment.)

If I want to, ultimately, build or partake in a strong, dedicated, and caring local community, I need to first learn how to be in community and perhaps learn how to better voice my own concerns and preferences–I have been guiltily fond of the block button in the past when real-life connections get a bit rocky. 

I have lived in Birmingham since 2019, and it has taken me til now–albeit with 2 years of a pandemic in between–to build a circle of women I feel I can rely on to not only enjoy a gardening class or concert with but who could pick me up from the train station or hold my hand during life hardships–friendships the likes of which I have never had in my life before. Only after realising this have I felt the confidence necessary to go to that neighbourhood event or join that local volunteer group to build the strong community I so desire.

If I want to, ultimately, only purchase ethically I need to first break up with consumption. I, and many activists alike, have gone crazy trying to buy exclusively organic, avoid palm oil, or never let plastic enter our homes. But by consuming less, and not basing my joy/personality/beauty/whateverthefuck in the stuff I buy, then I want to buy things less often, I want to surround myself with high-quality items, and I want to buy things made with love. 

I’m suddenly buying art and other good stuff like organic food because I have more money. Because I'm not spending it like I used to. Because I simply don’t have the desire to consume as much crap anymore. (I am not perfect but it is a step!)

Surprisingly (unsurprisingly) these all have a domino effect on each other. Using my phone less means I have more time for art, for hobbies, for crafting, for reading. 

More time for art, hobbies, crafting, reading, means I am more relaxed, have more mental space to discover new skills, learn to sew, bake bread, get outside more. 

More time for new skills, learning to sew, baking bread, getting outside more means I can buy less because I repair my clothes, I have new hobbies and find joy in creation not consumption, am fitter, am mentally healthy, and on, and on, and on. 

(Did I know that bringing my smartphone’s screen time from 9 hours a day to 1 hour a day would do all of this? No! and it probably would’ve helped!)

Instead of thinking about all the things I feel I must do to ‘Save The World’ and getting overwhelmed and starting none of them. Or on the flip side, doing all the things I feel I must do and getting burnt out and quitting all of them, taking this slower approach, I have felt so much able and so much more confident to create this ‘beautiful life at the end of the world’, to usher in this new way of living without feeling like one wrong step and it will collapse around me.

(I know what I'm talking about doesn't apply to the wars and genocides raging across the world, yet I'm afraid I don't have an answer for this other than to try and unpick greed, hatred and fear within myself.)

I am not where I want to be in my life, nor do I think I will be there for a good five, ten, fifteen years. But since I have begun down the long, winding road, begun the journey I need to take to get there, I have begun to feel like it will come.

And I have begun to feel at peace with the fact that this way of life may never fully come. That if society collapses, if the world ends in a good five, ten, fifteen years, I am living more aligned with my values than ever, in a way where I am caring for and loving those around me, then that would be okay, too.   

P.S. If you enjoy my writing, you can buy me a coffee to fuel my work.

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