22 july 2023
Self-Promotion
In order to dig myself out of the hole I'm in I have to bother people. I hate this. I have to join the chorus of people with pitch decks and business plans and something to sell to scream "ME! LOOK AT ME! BE DISTRACTED!".
Is that the only path forward? We have to make people like and subscribe and not think about oh say...the fact that we won't be able to grow enough food for everyone on a warming world. It feels so selfish to add more noise on top of the important signals that are already fully drowned out. I wish I could just skip right to being paid just enough to survive to work directly on climate justice projects. I'd work till my body breaks restoring land and tending native plants if society would let me.
Instead I have to hustle to keep a roof over my head and access to the medication I need. I have to decrease the overall chance of species survival just to live another day. It feels awful.
Some people take "You can't change your lifestyle to solve climate change" to mean keep eating steaks but also vote and say the right things on twitter". To me it means I have to change my lifestyle AND my career/interests. That's why I went back to school. That's why my chronic illness started eating my alive.
I envy the people who get to support themselves by fixing things. Most of the rest of us have to actively distract others from fixing things to make a living and I think I'm an early adopter to the kind of pain that cognitive dissonance brings.