We Are the Most Unlikely Of Friends

On world systems which shape us and bind us

Hello friends,

This has been a big week on the global scale. In my world, it has been more routinely stressful. No momentous shift, only the routine of work, accompanied by routine big questions of - what am I doing with my life? And is this how our world really is? And how much am I influenced by big systems I cannot see?

From working in places like Egypt during the Arab Spring, or Myanmar in the years prior to the country’s first elections in 25 years, I cannot help but see the political and personal as powerfully entwined. We attempt to make them separate, as though one is the domain of public space and intellect; the other the domain of domesticity and emotion. But even if we remove ourselves from taking part in votes or debates or listening to the news, politics is tied up in our lives. In the opportunities we have available to us and the choices we end up making.

Sometimes politics also mirrors our inner lives in strange and surreal ways: I remember the week I broke up with an abusive partner; a few weeks later I watched his country overthrow a dictator.

Even if we are not experiencing the same patterns in our personal lives as in world politics, it is never just happening out there. Our reality is shaped by historical patterns and their consequent systems. We are connected in ways which are not always apparent but no less present. We just need to tell the story, until we see it unveiled. Until that thing which seemed foreign, odd and strange, is revealed to actually also be our story.

And even if we do not have the individual capacity to feel everything that is happening at any given time, we can use that knowledge to guide us towards empathy over aggression. To understand justice - not as a sword or a wall - but as something more malleable that needs wielded with care and attunement.

Because we are all carrying things we cannot see. We are all making choices we did not make. And we are also all mostly wishing for similar things when it comes down to it.

Even if the world’s media makes it look like our desires are unreparably different: we are the most unlikely of friends.

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I spent an unplanned week in Scotland last week, scrubbing floors, packing my things and getting well acquainted with the dust which has been sitting behind sofas, grime growing between the grout on the shower. A younger-me would have dismissed this domestic labour, as unimportant. And older-me, sees the ordinary magic in making something clean.

The whole body and mind immersed in the process. The creativity of making something anew. And that is the magic that matters. Especially in these online, post-capitalism times. We need things we can hold onto. That we can see change, through our effort and attention, before our very eyes.

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That trip is my excuse for not showing up here for two weeks. It turns out that even though I write often about travel, I am not very good at writing on the road.

While I didn’t publish in this space, I was making my way into other corners of the online world.

• I was interviewed by

  Lauren Powell
  about my career in the aid sector. She asked some very good questions, so if you are interested in knowing more about how I got into the sector and what I think about it now, you can read the full piece here.

• I did an online walk with

  Bonnie Radcliffe
  exploring nature, colonialism and my experience working with women farmers in Myanmar. You can read that piece here.

And I was reading. So, I am leaving you with a few quotes and ideas which I found refreshing and helpful in the context of the last week, especially amongst the noise of life and the online discourse:

“Meet the world as it is today. Find the world as it is tomorrow. Somewhere along that pathway, you’ll find something waiting for you.”

From We have nothing to fear but despair

Katherine May

“True hope is rooted in what might someday be possible. It is imaginative. It allows us to envisage something that isn’t yet real. It allows us to keep going, even if we’re not sure there’s something better out there.”

From Hope exists no matter who wins,

Clare Egan

I don’t have additional solutions outside of entirely restructuring our society, but I do highly recommend spending time in nature (even if it’s just a local park or a small flower garden), leaning hard into community, and embracing potlucks and cluttered homes.

From Is it Me or Capitalism? by

Danielle Coffyn

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See you next week friends, don’t forget to leave a little bit of love if you enjoyed this piece and, if you don’t Subscribe, you can click below, to join this newsletter, which unpacks myths about topics like travel and saving the world, inspired by my journey of 20 years working in the aid sector.

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