Why a newsletter about it’s not too late?

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Hello! Hi! Thanks for being here!

How can we live and stay engaged in the midst of existential threats and daily heartbreaks while still playing full out and enjoying our lives?

That's the question I wrestle with these days. On good days, I say to myself, 'Yes, yes, yes. These are the days. Good day, Sunshine. Express myself. Take care of my people.

All good!

And then, record scratch.

Because we are hurting.

Because we are exhausted.

Because we are terrified.

Of the climate crisis, of AI, of another pandemic, the existing pandemic, of species extinction… I’ll stop there. You don’t need the litany. I don't need the litany.

Because we are bewildered.

Do we make our art, have children, save for retirement or do we give it all up and devote ourselves to stopping the bad guys? (There are a lot of them to stop.)

Because what we have done in the past to pull ourselves up and keep going may feel empty and fake or just not work anymore.

Because the pandemic kicked something out from under us and we’re struggling to figure out what and even if we want to rebuild.

Because giving up can feel safer than starting again.

And because as much as I want to swoon back on a fainting couch, and declare “This is all too much, we should all eat barbeque potato chips and watch Friday Night Lights reruns until the world blows up,” I can’t.

Giving up is so tempting, so safe.

It’s comforting in its own nihilistic way.

But I can't. Yes, I sobbed when Nate pieced back together Ted Lasso's Believe sign. Just so you know who is writing this - a sap, a believer, a why can't we all join hands and figure it out person.

But it's oh so understandable and tempting, the fainting couch scenario. If you’ve ever want to join me on said couch because life is just too much, hey, there’s also room.

But please bring your own weighted blanket.

When the fainting couch gets boring or we get worried about bed sores, how do we get up and where do we go after we get up? Without clenching our teeth and setting Big Hairy Audacious Goals? (Who ever thought a hairy goal was a good thing? Have you seen my chin after a week’s backpacking trip?)

No, we are utterly kaput with the hustling. We’ve seen the man behind the capitalist curtain enough times now to know that way lies nothing but more curtains with more nothing behind them.

Still, life beckons to us. Dreams and desires and people and the desire to make beautiful things, write meaningful things, stand up for what matters.

How do we keep doing that in the face of so much suffering and madness and all the systemic crap we have to deal with, many of us far more than others?

That's what I’m curious about.

So, I come back to my burning question: How can we live and stay engaged in the midst of existential threats and daily heartbreaks while enjoying our lives?

Because we can’t keep going unless we love the going.

I want to write about how it’s not too late to reconnect with a friend you haven’t talked to in 20 years or start a novel when you’ve failed at that same endeavor 3 times and it’s your oldest and dearest dream (yes, that’s me) and yet you wonder regularly if you should take those hours spent writing and use it for direct climate action?

I want to write about how it’s not too late to have a voice in whatever it is you care about, it’s too late to quit, it’s too late to love who you want to love, and it’s too late to love - full stop.

I want to write about writing, of course, as I have for decades, and climate action, and meditation practice. It’s all fair game if it helps you.

I want to write about your questions - not because I have answers because I don’t but because I want to feel less alone in this often crushing maelstrom of our current world.

This is not a newsletter about aging nor is this for middle-aged people - I started saying it’s too late in high school, for pity's

sake.

Let’s get started. Let’s be hopeful together.

What feels too late for you?

Thank you for being here.

Jen