Broken responses won't fix this

Reposting here something I wrote on LinkedIn, and expanding on it a little. There's something in the air this week that feels like a rallying cry. Or just fall. 🍂

Gemini understood the assignment. Also, creating digital art from prompts is finally a good use case for AI when you are artistically challenged like me 🤣

Posted this on LinkedIn yesterday, and it’s been getting a gratifying response:

It’s apparently the week for calling out the broken responses to the broken system that is neoliberal capitalism.

🕸️ Anna Muoio on the need for funding to get messy and networked to address the messy complex system failures we are living in: https://lnkd.in/gdWDyXYj

⛵️ Katie Boland on the imperative for wealth holders and others to build better vessels to navigate the waters of capitalism, and set off to better shores: https://lnkd.in/gX2z5Ngc

⚒️ Cameron Burgess on the urgency of rolling up our sleeves and building the plumbing to make innovations, data and capital flow: https://lnkd.in/gA2ykreS

What do all of these have in common?! A recognition of interdependence and that it’s past time to stop talking and start doing, preferably together and in a coordinated way. ⏰

I want to add to these reflections that I am also seeing a lot of people who are working on systems change internalize a lot of shame around being chosen by the neo feudal overlords. Succeeding at making a living when so many others are struggling to navigate the upheavals of our time is a double edged sword.

Nobody describes this conundrum better and more candidly than my friend

Mara Zepeda

who posted this poignant essay on LinkedIn:

Tellingly it’s overwhelmingly women who sit in her comments in deep resonance, which is a 🍸🍸🍸 topic for another day.

My reaction to Mara’s essay was rage—rage that once again great people are internalizing and taking on as individuals what is a systemic problem. Walking the tightrope between making a living and making change sure can feel lonely, but it’s not an individual feat. Being good or bad at it, having luck or misfortune, making the cut or making noise are not character traits but merely symptoms of the dysfunction of our time.

Here was my response:

As someone who’s winged her way out of adverse early life circumstances to a degree of comfort and success, riding on a tidal wave of that shame you so elegantly describe, I’m here to say that at 50 that shame turns to rage. Rage that systems change artists, tinkerers and doulas are not rewarded when conformity is. Rage that people building what’s urgently needed are experiencing precarity as a feature, not a bug. Happily that rage is shared by my 17yo who’s navigating her own path into adulthood, so it makes for some welcome points of connection.

It dovetails with my own recent reflections on wanting to be free of wanting, which I wrote about a little while ago:

That post prompted a rather lovely gift from a new friend who sent me Eula Biss’ amazing exploration of her complicated relationship with the material things in her life, that grows as her family wealth grows, Having and Being Had. Am currently reading it as my non-fiction selection, alongside

Barbara Kingsolver

‘s Demon Copperhead on the fiction side. What a one-two punch that is for delving into the underbelly of the American condition and late stage capitalism generally!

I don’t have any succinct advice on how to get yourself out of the individualized funk of our time and into the mindset that it’s not your fault, or shame, but the systems crumbling around you. Other than to say: nature therapy helps me put everything in perspective, and I have had ample time to contemplate the fuckery of doing well while doing good on more than 300 miles of hiking this year. Join me!