Know this: Your life is Precious Too

Living Your Life as an Act of Resistance

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

But first some dates for the diary:

Books from the Margin Book Club - The next book chat is on 12th November - Free to subscribers, but open to everyone. Our November choice is Jen Campbell’s poetry collection Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit

Click this button for more details

Write Now - The first Notes from the Margin subscriber only chat group is Friday 27th October 6-7pm

The Dawn Chorus - my early morning writing group (open to everyone) returns in the dark hours of 6th November. Come sit and write with me.

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My god, the news. The world. Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, the environment, the corruption, the rise of the far right, the meat industry, the waterways, the seas, the ice caps, the pesticides, the murders, the shootings, the lootings.

Breathe.

Human animals are still animals. We have evolved over thousands of years to be incredibly sensitive to our environment. We have evolved to survive at all costs. Our beautiful big human brains can’t tell the difference between anxiety caused by something far away, and anxiety caused by something in the room. They are one and the same with the same flight or fight response. If we are feeding ourselves a constant diet of news, which is, invariably bad, terrible, frightening news, we are constantly keeping ourselves in a place in which we feel we have to be hyper aware of everything that is happening because at any moment we may need to act.

It is good to be informed. But there is a limit to what you can actually do to help, understand, prepare, protect. I feel like even saying this is a kind of failure, a sort of cowardly way of looking at any situation. But it is a realistic way of looking at the situation of the world being on fire.

Photo by Matt Howard on Unsplash

Know this: Your life is precious too. A part of protecting it, and protecting your family is, in fact, to step away from the news and to make sure that your life has value. That value will look different to different people. It is important to ensure that your one wild and precious life is not spent sitting doom scrolling and feeling terrible. I feel this most strongly about the natural world. Go and experience it, go out into it. Make sure you make this precious life count - not by conquering or by ruling or by winning or being the best - but by existing in a meaningful way. To exist in the world and to be in touch with the world, to not be defeated by the acts of men; that is an act of resilience too. To live your life as something precious, to be in your life as if you were visiting a hall of beautiful, precious items that you were allowed to handle, that is an act of resistance.

What do I mean by living a meaningful life?

I mean that life is insanely short and you only start to realise it when you start to see the people you love dying. I mean that if you make forty you are doing very well indeed and that at some point your body will naturally start to struggle, so be kind to it, be good to this thing that is carrying you through your life, make sure you don’t punish it. I mean that some people don’t make it past birth. I mean that some people don’t make it into their life without scars or trauma and that that too is something to be lived with, and perhaps learned from, perhaps not. I mean that you have this gift, and the world is still a gift, and this is a journey that will end soon, so make sure you are living your life and not waiting for it to begin or feeling guilt for being alive when so many others are not. If you can be kind, be kind. If you can help, help. But do not punish yourself for the acts of other people.

I mean, go for the walk, touch the trees, be aware of your world. I mean kneel in the grass and feed the grasshopper.

What is it that I’m trying to say?

That I don’t know any single person that isn’t in pain from watching the world burn. But pain is a counterbalance to love and I don’t know any one person that isn’t feeling immense love and a fierce desire to protect and help their fellow people, fellow world citizens. To be alive and aware is an act of resistance. Help where you can, be kind where you can, but that includes yourself.

What They Did Yesterday Afternoon
BY WARSAN SHIRE

they set my aunts house on fire
i cried the way women on tv do
folding at the middle
like a five pound note.
i called the boy who use to love me
tried to ‘okay’ my voice
i said hello
he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened?

i’ve been praying,
and these are what my prayers look like;
dear god
i come from two countries
one is thirsty
the other is on fire
both need water.

later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.

Take Care

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