Generosity.

This word is the theme of the month.

I dove head in, into my local climate movement last year. And came out astonished by the people. Allow me to elaborate. How many time have I cribbed on the internet about the sacrifices I make for sustainability or the no returns I see for the work I do ? What do I get from owning less shoes ? What do I get from not flying around the world like my peers do ? What do I get from eating plant based diet ? …. What … I …. ? Seeing the folk in the climate movement experience joy from it all, makes me feel small. I feel petty for complaining and for painting myself the victim. These activists are eager to give. To share. To do more. To leave no stone un-turned if it leads to a more sustainable society. Lot of them are in their 40s and 50s. They are wiser. They have seem more life. They know more people. They have made peace with the self-pity I experience now and moved ahead. They seem to give more than they take. Witnessing their lives gives me hope for my future self. I want to get to that place too.

More importantly, I found a yet another father figure. ( I seem to find one in every city I have lived so far.) He is a economic geologist/ climate activist who is a figure head in the movement. He took me under his wing to groom me. He does not allow me to hide behind the words ‘introvert’, ‘I will do the back end work only’ and ‘I can’t deal with real people’. We as a group get “climate beers”, go to poetry recitals, talk, grieve, plot, work, host plant-based potlucks, attend inter-religious justice events, … I am not alone anymore.

And then, something more miraculous happened. The children joined in. The youth climate movement now works closely with us. They give us a moral and emotional backbone to continue doing our work. Do you know how energizing it is when there is a child present in the room who is also an activist ? It makes us want to do more. The world seem to scream at them : “This is not your place. Go back to school. What do you know? ” It’s our job to protect them from the harshness outside the movement. To anyone on the internet who is “woke” about the climate, please join an organization of your choice. Take your children along. Or start an organization. Now is the time to rebel. This may be the most important American election of our lifetime from the climate perspective. We do not have the luxury of minding our own business and letting nature take it’s course. 

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“Science alone is silence. For people to act on science’s warnings and apply its solutions, it’s message needs shouting from the rooftops. Scientists are getting on the streets, refusing to be scribes of the apocalypse. After seven years studying, researching and protecting nature as a wildlife conservationist, I stopped fieldwork and deferred an MSc in order to rebel full-time. Because no matter how many surveys I ran, how many turtle nests I protected, or how many young people I educated about ‘sustainability’, the seas kept rising, forests kept burning, plastic kept clogging the beaches, and our data kept showing that wildlife was being decimated. After joining the #XRSnowflakes affinity group, I realized that as an activist my voice could be far more influential than it had been as a scientist.”

– James ‘Iggy’ Fox

The internet has become my second favorite place to find kind humans. Claire Wordley wrote these words : “My presence in their home was bought with their pain.” I was moved, yet again. Do such people really exist ? But for every one such article, I read one like this one. For every sustainable living blog that exists, there must be a million high-carbon consumerist lifestyle blogs out there. Brought me tumbling back to the real world. It’s messy and imperfect but with very little wabi-sabi. But I love it here and we ought to work with what we are given. 

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While knowledge speaks, wisdom listens. This one article sums up every thing I feel about the climate crisis. Thank god for artists and the citizen activists. Where would I be, without the words and subsequent actions ? I wish I could write like him. So I signed up for a free writing course. Writing has replaced the mind space that was once taken up by fashion. Writing is free. I can read in the library/internet, live my life for experience and write in the comfort of my own home. My favorite writers seem to have produced their work on trains, on their dining table after their kids have gone to sleep, whilst living on their farms, … It can be a sustainable low-carbon activity (unlike fashion). I write some random stuff every day in my journal and it has been giving me a lot of pleasure. More so that buying a new sweater or wearing a certain pair of shoes or from drooling at Margaret Howell/Hermes catalogs. Or maybe it can co-exist with appreciating the beauty of Catherine Rochtus’s jewellry. Or these outfits. Or critical writing behind the meaning of our clothing choices. I think writing and mending, have the same soul – the willingness to weave a story inspired by the way we live. 

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January was full of folks sharing their achievements from the last decade and resolutions to blaze ahead. There is no refuge from achievement culture how much ever I try to distance myself from it. I identified more with Alex’s struggle . Reading about Rachel’s praise for a bare minimum year resonated with me. I lost my best friend in December and I feel like I have entered an afterlife instead of a new fresh decade. So be it. 

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These letters are the objects I kept from my childhood with my friend M. We met when we were 13. She moved away when we were 15 and we have never lived in the same place since. However, she took it upon herself to inspire to me work hard. I am the daughter of a doctor. Privileged kids in my home community don’t earn their way through life. The parents throw money to open the doors for them into educational institutions, corporate management positions and eventually fund their start ups. She was determined that I wasn’t going to be one of them. She was determined to make me into a person who will earn her way through life. The teenage M would write to me urging me to study hard. She would urge me to not use my family car to go to school but to ride my bike instead. She would urge me to not think of backups that privilege gives you, but to work like it’s live or perish. She would urge me to ask for money from home and take up part time work to keep myself fed. These letters contain words that were meant to inspire me. They did. Her words are powerful. These letters no longer belong to me. They belong to her children. I want them to know her like I did. I want them to have all of my memories. I want her ideas to reach them. I did not want to let the letters go, but all the climate activism has been drilling the same lesson over and over again : think about the children. So off they went. The first half of my life has ended with her. I hope the second half makes a better me.

I have taken up a pursuit of minimalism, yet again. My inspiration is my friend M. People are survived by their ideas. Kyle Chayka’s investigation on the current state of minimalism helped me kickstart the passion. This contemplation of productivity tied to consuming stuff has been helpful. I have been looking into ways to do less and making them as impact-full as possible. Quality over quantity, I try to remind myself. This burn out list, was helpful in deciding what I don’t want to pursue. What we say no to, matters doesn’t it ? Minimalism is a way of life. Atomic Habits by James Clear, has been helping me out in this area. A brief summary: Don’t solely focus on the end result, but create a process that will ultimately get you to your goal. As long as you make the process a habit, you will get to your goal. For instance, if you want to become a minimalist, de-cluttering will make it look like you have reached your end goal. You throw some stuff out. The negative space is now visible. There is some temporary relief to the overwhelmed and the overstuffed. But most people who de-cluttered fall back into their old patterns. This is because you are more focused on the end goal than the process. Minimalism is a philosophy and a way of thinking to be learnt. If you haven’t learnt how to need less, all the de-cluttering in the world won’t help. It will make you miserable with self pity and will feel like depravation. If I can learn to need less, build the habit of not shopping and learn to be content with what I own, I will become a minimalist eventually. The author breaks down habits into 4 parts : Cue – Craving – Response – Reward. To break a bad habit, we ought to remove the cues. What are the cues that make me shop more ? If I can answer this as honestly as I can, I can work towards building a habit. ( More in another blog post. ) His blog post on ‘Why Facts dont Change Minds‘, is an important read for anyone who works in the climate movement. ( Yale Climate Communication, has a wealth of resources to apply this directly to our work on hand. ) How many times have I ratted off facts and expected folks to live more sustain-ably ? Only to wonder why well-meaning and usually-kind people aren’t concerned about the harm they are causing with their emissions. Dear activists, let’s use some behavioral science and game theory to build our arguments. The advertisers use it as a tool to make us feel discontent and shop more. By learning the tools that the other side is using, let’s level the field shall we ? 

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Money has been another theme of the month. I am trying to get an education on budgeting, saving for retirement, investing and taxes. Money is ubiquitous. We need it to stay alive. But we often don’t talk about it do we ? Do we get the necessary street-smart tactics to earn enough and manage it well ? I once read a billboard which stated that ‘Americans spend more time planning their outfits than planning for retirement’. I definitely spent more time writing style blogs than learning about money. I have been picking up some philosophy on intersectionality of simple living and money from Nate O’Brien. I am not comfortable putting my entire money chronicle on the internet. But I want to use this space to stay accountable for my shopping. Here is my month’s spending journal for the 300$ per month disposable income I put aside in my budget :

Atomic Habits : 15$

Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals : 21$

Ted Talk, Guide to Public Speaking : 9$

The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism : 17$

6 Seasons : A New way with Vegetables : 20$

Hand & Fire oil Diffuser : 40$

Vintage Tea jar : 30$

Loccitane hand cream : 24$

Medium : 5$, NY Times : 4$, Patreon support for climate activists : 10$ Audible : 13$

Lunch with friends : 96$

Budget: 300$ Spent: 304$ Carries forward : -4$ ( Ouch ! ) 

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Clothing Low Buy update : well, I spent most of my money on the little objects. I absolutely hate packages coming home and I had 3 of them come in for my sake. It put me off shopping as the month went through. I did some shopping during the Thanksgiving sales and I am still recovering from the influx of goods. I read and re-read my post on low buy multiple times to keep me on track. Month 1 is always the honeymoon period. You are fresh off the iron on your resolve. You are full from the last year. You start to do your taxes and wonder where all your money went ….. Month 1 flooded in but left quietly.

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I will always end my posts from now on with these two nudges :

  1. Write to your elected officials. It’s easy to do online on their web pages. Ask them to take climate action.
  2. Be a sustainability role model in your community.