A while back I wrote the first few episodes of a podcast drama before other work took centre stage. Some of the observations feel more relevant than ever so I have serialised a modified version, supplementing with episodes related to current events. New episodes are shared first on LinkedIn before being added to the complete set here.

I hope the alternative approach stimulates constructive thought and discussions.

Prologue: Frankie has been sent back to Earth from his new home planet, Apocalypso. He is accompanied by Zen, who was born there. They have been given the task of unravelling the reasons driving Earth towards catastrophe in order to avoid their own planet suffering a similar fate.

Apocalypso #1-Revelations

FRANKIE:     The brief says: ‘The Collapse of the Chicken Boners. Identify the reasons behind the predicted apocalypse on Earth, with the objective of protecting Apocalypso from a similar crisis.”’

ZEN:               Protecting Apocalypso from an apocalypse. That’s funny.

FRANKIE:     I wish they’d asked me to write the brief - the use of the term apocalypse is misplaced and confusing. Although it’s often used to describe destruction on a grand scale, the term actually comes from the Greek and denotes revelation. In other words, the uncovering of what was hidden.

ZEN:               So they’re on the verge of a revelation?

FRANKIE:     Possibly.

ZEN:               And remind me, why is our planet called ‘Apocalypso’?

FRANKIE:     Apocalypsos are visions. Back in the 1960s we had a revelation about our future. And a vision to change it. That’s how we found the portal. And the rest, as they say, is history.

ZEN:               So our brief is to understand why people here aren’t experiencing revelations?

FRANKIE:     We don’t need to bother with that. It’s clear that over-heating is the driver of Earth’s imminent demise. The gases in the Earth’s atmosphere trap their sun’s heat and prevent it escaping into space. Carbon dioxide is the principal problem and burning fossil fuels is the biggest source of emissions. Ergo—

ZEN:               But surely we need to understand why they burn their own planet. And to do that we need to get inside their heads. Read what they read. Watch what they watch. Eat what they eat. Understand what makes them tick. And why they’re ignoring a ticking time bomb.

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Apocalypso #2-Stiff upper lips

ZEN:               While you were reading your dictionaries this morning I found some much better books.

FRANKIE:     That pile in the corner is hardly what I would describe as a few. And how did you pay for them?

ZEN:               That device they gave us. The one with the half-munched fruit image on the back. You just wave it at the cash desk and they let you take whatever you want for free.

FRANKIE:     You get the bill later.

ZEN:               Oh. But that means you can spend money you don’t have.

FRANKIE:     The joy of capitalism.

ZEN:               Capitalism? I thought that book was called The Joy of—

FRANKIE:     Capitalism is a bit like a religion here.

ZEN:               I haven’t seen anyone joyful about it so far. That woman in the book shop had a pout that could have blown bubbles from treacle.

FRANKIE:     It was sarcastic.

ZEN:               Capitalism was sarcastic?

FRANKIE:     No. It means I thought the opposite.

ZEN:               Why would you say the opposite of what you mean?

FRANKIE:     Slipping back into my Earthly ways, I guess.

ZEN:               People here seem to say the opposite of what they mean a lot. There was a woman in crying in the bookshop. She said she was fine, but she clearly wasn’t. I could see it her eyes. No life in them. Her face. All tense. Her body. Hunched up. Quite bizarre.

FRANKIE:     It’s called a stiff upper lip.

ZEN:               No. Her lips were wobbly. Not stiff at all.

FRANKIE:     It’s just an expression. Defined it as a steady and determined attitude or manner in the face of trouble.

ZEN:               Maybe that explains what’s going wrong on Earth.

FRANKIE:     I hardly think a stiff upper lip is the cause of the collapse of the planet.

ZEN:               But it’s obvious. If people deny their emotions they’ll end up traumatised. Traumatised people equals traumatised planet.

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Apocalypso #3-Chicken drumsticks

ZEN:               Remind me why the brief calls them the ‘Chicken Boners’.

FRANKIE:     Because chicken bones are the geological marker for the period when Earth has been inhabited by humans.

ZEN:               I’m sure you said the population of humans was the problem, not the population of chickens.

FRANKIE:     Humans breed chickens. There’s approximately 23 billion on Earth at any one time.

ZEN:               Whoa! That’s three times their own population. Maybe chickens could take over the planet and save it from human destruction.

FRANKIE:     I doubt it. These particular chickens only live for six weeks. And their legs are as weak as over-cooked tagliatelle.

ZEN:               Twenty-three billion chickens with a turnover of eight times per year. That’s three hundred and sixty eight billion chicken legs. We could build a bridge back home to Apocalypso with the drumsticks alone.

FRANKIE:     Talking of home, let’s finish this job and get back to sanity.

ZEN:               Talking of sanity, I do think psychology’s the answer. We need to understand why people opt to deny their emotions. I think it’s a defence mechanism. A way of keeping painful emotions outside awareness. If your thoughts are too scary you simply block them out.

FRANKIE:     Like an unreliable narrator in a novel?

ZEN:               Exactly. They’re unreliable narrators in their own lives. Deceiving themselves as to what they really feel. Imagine the conversation: “No thank-you, I don’t want a slice of cake.” “Go on, you know you do really.” “No, I’m on a diet.” “Come on, you’re just pretending to be on a diet.” “Oh yes, you’re right. I’ll have some cake then.”

FRANKIE:     It sounds horrendous. Like having someone criticising your every move.

ZEN:               Hmm. Imagine that.

FRANKIE:     I still don’t get why Earth is on self-destruct.

ZEN:               Because people are blocking out the facts. Refusing to face what’s happening. Like a chicken in headlights.

FRANKIE:     A deer.

ZEN:               What?

FRANKIE:     It’s a deer in headlights. Not a chicken. The deer freezes when blinded by the bright beams.

ZEN:               With twenty-three billion of them on the planet I thought chickens deserved more of a starring role in the English language.

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Apocalypso #4-Denial

ZEN:               Maybe people here have split personalities: their conscious and their sub-conscious. And for some reason they can’t tune into their sub-conscious. What if they’ve simply become afraid of the unknown. So they opt to remain trapped in rigid routines. Convince themselves they’re okay with it. Exclude the unpredictable emotions from awareness before they can cause trouble.

FRANKIE:     You make it sound like the unwanted emotions are naughty children.

ZEN:               It’s just a defence mechanism. My guess is they’re in a denial stage. Grieving for the future they planned but can’t now have. But they’re not yet able to let go of their dreams and move on. So they refuse to accept the inevitable.

FRANKIE:     Sounds a bit complex to me.

ZEN:               It’s not. It’s simple. The facts of climate change conflict with what they want. So they deny the facts. They want to continue wrapping their lives in cling film, eating their strawberries out of season, driving their fast cars.

FRANKIE:     I told you fossil fuels were the problem.

ZEN:               I think they expect to be happy all of the time. And when they’re not, they think there’s something wrong with them.

                       You wouldn’t believe how many self-help guides I found in the bookshop. Seems to be a big fad: people advising other people on dealing with negative emotions. How to recover from losing your job by decluttering your wardrobe; How to protect your children from upset over the death of the family hamster; How to tell your travelling partner that you lost the keys to the portal home—

FRANKIE:     Is there something you’re not telling me?

ZEN:               I made that last one up. But I reckon I could write the book they really need. I’d call it: How to be happy more often by accepting the transience of negative emotions.

FRANKIE:     That title’s about as catchy as a butterfly net for mosquitoes.

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Apocalypso #5-Resistance

ZEN:               I’ve been looking at the consequences of blocking out painful emotions and scary thoughts.

FRANKIE:     Why?

ZEN:               To understand why people aren’t taking action to avert the climate catastrophe.

FRANKIE:     For goodness sake Zen! All we have to do is look at the most significant differences between Earth and Apocalypso. We leave fossil fuels in the ground. They don’t.

ZEN:               Al Gore warned earthlings of this impending crisis in 2006. He made a film about to raise public awareness.

FRANKIE:     Wasn’t that was a movie about fossil fuels?

ZEN:               The sooner you stop stacking all your chicken eggs in one basket —

FRANKIE:     How do you know they’re chicken eggs?

ZEN:               There’s currently 23 billion chickens on Earth. Do you really need to ask that question?

FRANKIE:     In any case, I’m not stacking all my eggs in one basket. The population of humans on earth is also a major driver of their problems.

ZEN:               But if, hypothetically, the population growth is speeding up the collapse of the planet, why are they still breeding? Why bring offspring into the world if that increases the chances of there being no world left for them to live in? So we’re back to psychology again. Why are they denying the problem that is staring them in the face?

FRANKIE:     A problem is disembodied. That means it can’t stare.

ZEN:               What?

FRANKIE:     A problem is disembodied. That means it doesn’t have a body. Nor a head. Nor any eyes. So it can’t stare.

ZEN:               [Sighs] Until people recognise their resistance to the current issues they won’t be able to change it.

FRANKIE:     Have you considered that before there could be resistance there had to be something to resist? So their environmental crisis came first. Which means that was the cause of the current crisis. Not your fancy psychological theories.

ZEN:               I guess we could call that a chicken and egg problem.

FRANKIE:     You are so not funny.

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Apocalypso #6-Side effects

FRANKIE:     That honking traffic is giving me a brontosaurus of a headache.

ZEN:               Do you want one of my painkillers?

FRANKIE:     How do they live alongside all this background noise without going mad?

ZEN:               They are going mad. I picked up these amazing pills from the pharmacy round the corner. They worked a treat on my stomach cramps from last night’s uber hot curry.

FRANKIE:     Ugh! Look at the ingredients. Titanium oxide, that’s what blocks out UV light in sunscreen. The nanoparticles damage intestinal flora. May even be carcinogenic. And talc. That’s what they rub on baby’s bottoms.

ZEN:               Hmm. They worked really well.        

FRANKIE:     Did you read the section on possible side effects? Allergic reactions including swelling of the face, lips, tongue and throat, stomach pains, indigestion, passing blood, vomiting blood, unusual bruising, mouth ulcers, small increased risk of heart attack, constipation, liver problems including jaundice, kidney problems including blood in the urine, nervous system problems including aseptic meningitis —

ZEN:               What? Why do people take a medicine to cure one problem if it’s only going to give them another?

FRANKIE:     That is a very interesting question.

ZEN:               They don’t seem to be too hot at tolerating discomfort. You should have seen some of the other products on sale: lozenges for sore throat and blocked noses, muscle rub to relieve tension, itch relief cream for minor irritations—

FRANKIE:     I could do with some of that right now.

ZEN:               And the stool softener gel capsules. Goodness knows what they are.

FRANKIE:     I think you’ll find they’re emollient laxatives.

ZEN:               Then there was the Artic mint protection mouthwash—

FRANKIE:     Mint doesn’t grow in the Artic.

ZEN:               Exactly. And the extra safe condoms. Surely they’re either safe or they’re not safe. It’s like saying a mushroom is extra edible. Safe or not safe. They’re opposites. Right or not right.

FRANKIE:     The brontosaurus is back in my head.

ZEN:               People seem to treat their bodies like they do crying children, muffling them with sweets instead of listening to their need for attention.

FRANKIE:     It wasn’t me taking the painkillers at the first sign of my stomach arguing with a Vindaloo.

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Apocalypso #7-Sedation

ZEN:               I’ve been reading that depression is a leading cause of disability on Earth. It’s estimated that 5% of adults suffer from it.

FRANKIE:     Perhaps they’re grieving all the dead chickens.

ZEN:               Did you know that mental health is possibly the only area of medicine on Earth where outcomes have not improved in the last few decades? Nearly 25% of the entire population of this country we’re in at the moment are prescribed a psychiatric drug each year.

FRANKIE:     If you lived in a world that was barrelling towards extinction, I think you’d need psychiatric drugs too.

ZEN:               That’s not why it’s happening though. I think the extinction problem might be the result of the poor mental health, not the cause.

FRANKIE:     Sounds like another chicken and egg problem.

ZEN:               I found out something interesting. A philosopher called Karl Marx suggested that religion numbed people to their unhappiness, that it encouraged people to think that suffering was the marker of a pious life. So they stopped thinking of it as a bad thing.

                       What if capitalism is doing the same? Numbing people to their unhappiness.

FRANKIE:     What if it is?

ZEN:               If you are numb then you don’t react. And then you’ll never fight for change.

FRANKIE:     I’m not sure where this is going.

ZEN:               It’s like people here are being sedated, so they are not alert to the true origins of their unhappiness.

FRANKIE:     Not painkillers again.

ZEN:               No. Although it’s an anaesthetic of sorts, a brain fogger even.

FRANKIE:     Sounds like a painkiller to me.

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Apocalypso #8-May the force be with you

ZEN:               I think the reverence for market forces has something to do with it.

FRANKIE:     Ah, yes, those fundamental forces of nature: gravitational forces, electromagnetic forces and market forces.

ZEN:               Whilst people here are constantly trying to control the forces of nature; think dams holding back floodwater, space shuttles out-powering gravity—

FRANKIE:     I read that they even sprinkle powder in the clouds to control the rainfall.

ZEN:               So you do read books that aren’t dictionaries.

FRANKIE:     It was in a dictionary of chemical definitions.

ZEN:               I think the Neo-Liberalists changed the psychological structure of society. They insisted that market forces were given a freedom to run their course. A freedom with which the natural world is not trusted.

FRANKIE:     It would be so much simpler to go home and tell them fossil fuels are the problem.

ZEN:               Simpler, but wrong. But it’s even worse than that Frankie. Goals have been defined as economic growth and increased productivity. And human well-being has been redefined in terms consistent with those. Things like personal ambition and industrious endeavour. 

FRANKIE:     What about the deep pleasure in, or contentment with, one’s circumstances?

ZEN:               I guess that’s the dictionary definition of happiness? Doesn’t seem to be rated. Because if you’re content with your circumstances you don’t need to buy stuff.

FRANKIE:     So suffering has been turned into a market opportunity for more consumption.

ZEN:               You’re getting the hang of this now.

                       Human suffering becomes the fault of the individual. Exhaustion is supposedly resolved by sending single parents on positivity causes.

FRANKIE:     Nothing to do with them managing childcare alone whilst holding down two job, existing on minimal sleep and zero social life?

ZEN:               And the school-teacher who fails to meet targets is put on notice rather than given extra support for the high number of disruptive children in their class.

FRANKIE:     I hope your school-teacher was given extra support for teaching you.

ZEN:               With the blame laid on faulty brains, the solution becomes a win for consumerism. When someone is unhappy they take pills to perk them up. Pills for sleep, pills for depression—

FRANKIE:     Pills for poo.

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Apocalypso #9-Suffering is the new bad

ZEN:               Continuing where we left off, a mentally healthy person is defined as resilient, optimistic, individualistic and economically productive. i.e. the kind of person that the economy needs. Meanwhile the government allows companies to promote profitable drug interventions which might even be holding back people’s recovery.

FRANKIE:     Like painkillers packed with chemicals?

ZEN:               Okay. I admit. I made a mistake with the painkillers. But it’s not just pharmaceuticals. Whole industries thrive providing solutions to things that, back on Apocalypso, we simply accept as the pains of living. Take the cosmetics industry and its focus on the apparent misery of ageing.

FRANKIE:     If we don’t get a move on with this project I’m going to need something to help with that.

ZEN:               And there’s a whole business thriving on the perceived bodily imperfections of humans.

FRANKIE:     Don’t forget the fossil fuels they use trucking this stuff around the country.

ZEN:               Then there’s the industry of advertising, set up to generate the perceptions of imperfection. All these industries share the same philosophy: people’s central problem is that they experience suffering. Nothing to do with a lack of emotional education, of understanding how to take the downs with the ups.

FRANKIE:     The ups with the downs actually.

ZEN:               Same difference.

FRANKIE:     It’s not. Actually. The semantically bigger or better thing comes first: fish and chips, bacon and eggs, meat and vegetables.

ZEN:               What if you’re eating whitebait? Anyways, the problem boils down to the fact that people haven’t been taught how to understand and engage with their difficulties. Rather, they’ve been led to believe that life should be one never-ending up. Suffering is the new bad.

FRANKIE:     You can’t say that.

ZEN:               But it’s true.

FRANKIE:     No. The new bad. Bad is an adjective. Not a noun. So suffering can be bad. But it can’t be The Bad. That would make bad a noun. And it’s not.

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Apocalypso #10-Consumerism as the cure-all

ZEN:               If suffering is bad, then consumerism has been sold as the cure.

FRANKIE:     So consumers have been sold a bill of goods.

ZEN:               No. Not a bill of goods. Consumers have been sold cosmetics to prevent natural ageing, food to change their natural body shapes, clothes to make their bodies appear more beautiful, medicines to—

FRANKIE:     It’s an idiom.

ZEN:               What?

FRANKIE:     To be sold a bill of goods. It means they’ve been swindled. They’ve been sold a list of goods but not the goods themselves. So people have been convinced consumerism is the route to happiness. They’ve kept their part of the bargain, become consumers extraordinaire, but now find they don’t have the happiness they expected.

ZEN:               You’ve got it! And they can’t even recognise the deceit. They keep behaving as if consumerism is the route to happiness. Buying gadgets they’ll never use, clothes they’ll never wear —

FRANKIE:     And dictionaries they’ll never read, perhaps?

ZEN:               No-one reads dictionaries except you.

                       Anyways, the advertising industry relies upon fooling people into buying more stuff. It’s everywhere. Even in the movies. Jurassic Park was one of the first to accept product placements, almost two decades ago.

FRANKIE:     Wasn’t that the movie about the dangers of greed and capitalism going unchecked?

ZEN:               Yes. A wonderful irony that they part-funded the movie through corporate sponsorship.

FRANKIE:     At least dictionaries are free of advertising.

ZEN:               But brand names have snuck in through the back door by becoming so established in earthling language. Think Zoom, Fedex, Uber —.

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Apocalypso #11-Debt as the new normal

ZEN:               People here seem to have accepted debt as a new normal. Buying stuff they don’t need with money they don’t have. The stuff doesn’t make them happy and then the debt makes them unhappy. A double whammy.

FRANKIE:     A double whammy. Hmm, that reminds me of the Schmoos.

ZEN:               The Schmoos?

FRANKIE:     Al Capp was the cartoonist who invented the term double whammy. He also created the Schmoos.

ZEN:               Is this relevant?

FRANKIE:     It was a utopian satire. Schmoos were the perfect agricultural herd animal, cute, friendly, and with an over-riding desire to help people, even if that meant being eaten. If a person looked at one hungrily, the Schmoo would cheerfully jump into a frying pan. They tasted like chicken, but without the bones. They also produced both eggs and milk. Not forgetting the whiskers that made perfect toothpicks.

ZEN:               You said it was satire.

FRANKIE:     In the story, the Schmoos reproduced so prodigiously that they threatened to wreck the economy. So they were deemed "bad for business", then systematically hunted down and slaughtered.

ZEN:               So it is relevant. And just like human health and happiness would be bad for business.

FRANKIE:     Back to the brief, we’re only supposed to be assessing the reasons driving the imminent collapse of earth’s civilisation. Not whether or not people are happy.

ZEN:               What if it’s because they’re unhappy that they’re driving themselves to destruction?

FRANKIE:     Why do you have to complicate everything so?

ZEN:               You started it this time.

FRANKIE:     It was just a story.

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Apocalypso #12-The Tree of Regulation

ZEN:               I’ve been reading about trees.

FRANKIE:     Trees. Carbon. Fossil fuels. Job done. Time to go home.

ZEN:               It’s not a word association game. And it’s one specific tree. You probably haven’t heard of it.

FRANKIE:     Try me. I’ve just finished reading the new edition of the Encyclopaedia of Trees on Earth - which  is a lot shorter than it used to be.

ZEN:               The Tree of Regulation.

FRANKIE:     That sounds more like a probability diagram.

ZEN:               The Tree of Regulation is a map of the brain.

FRANKIE:     I thought it was a tree.

ZEN:               It’s a diagram of how the brain regulates behaviour.

FRANKIE:     A tree diagram?

ZEN:               The roots of the tree are the brainstem. That’s the bit that reacts automatically to threats. The core regulatory networks sit just above. Then comes the diencephalon, which handles regulation. Then the limbic.

FRANKIE:     That’s relationships.

ZEN:               And, at the crown of the tree, the cortex. The part responsible for thinking.

FRANKIE:     That’s not a tree diagram. Trees have branches.

ZEN:               Palm trees trees don’t. Anyways, it’s the core regulatory networks that keep people regulated in the face of stress. Now here’s the interesting bit. Brain process every experience sequentially.

FRANKIE:     Like reading a dictionary.

ZEN:               Not everyone reads dictionaries from cover to cover. It’s more like a recipe. Imagine trying to fry eggs before cracking them.

FRANKIE:     So, input from the outside world comes into the brain stem, then travels upwards through the areas responsible for regulation until it reaches the cortex.

ZEN:               Exactly. Thus, to reason with another person we need our message to get through their lower brain areas and reach their cortex. But, if someone is angry or frustrated, the incoming input will be short circuited. And then they can lose their temper.

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Apocalypso #13-Disregulation

ZEN:               Continuing where we left off, I think people here are so dis-regulated that they can’t even reason about the catastrophe facing their earth. Worse still, they’re emotionally "contagious”.

FRANKIE:     I thought they were pretty advanced when it came to developing vaccines against infectious diseases.

ZEN:               But they haven’t developed a vaccine against distress. So it will keep on spreading uncontrolled. Until it’s everywhere.

FRANKIE:     Like gases diffusing via Brownian motion. You know, the way gas molecules travel from high-concentration regions to low-concentration regions until the concentration is uniform throughout.

ZEN:               Exactly.

FRANKIE:     So why isn’t my frustration rubbing off on you?

ZEN:               Once you let distress roam free into your society, it’s like a tumbleweed.

FRANKIE:     I think you mean a snowball.

ZEN:               I didn’t mean a snowball. I meant a tumbleweed. Snowballs would melt in the heat of global warming.

FRANKIE:     Good point.

ZEN:               And that’s what I think is happening with this crisis. Distress breeds distress. It’s like a pandemic of negative emotions.

FRANKIE:     So they’ll reach herd immunity?

ZEN:               It’s not that sort of pandemic. Dis-regulated people are unable to communicate with other dis-regulated people.

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Apocalypso #14-Dissociation

ZEN:               You know how animals change their physiology and play dead when they feel fighting is useless?

FRANKIE:     I’m becoming tempted to do the same in the face of your arguments.

ZEN:               It’s called dissociation. You’ve heard of that?

FRANKIE:     Of course. It’s the reversible decomposition of a complex substance into simpler constituents, such as when water decomposes into—

ZEN:               Whoa! I think the dictionary of chemical definitions reached its peak contribution with Brownian motion last time. This particular dissociation is defined as the splitting off of a group of mental processes from the main body of consciousness.

FRANKIE:     I don’t see people here lying down in the street and playing dead.

ZEN:               But they’re not fighting any more, are they? They’re doing nothing about the catastrophe facing them.Trauma treatment here on Earth seems to focus primarily on cognitive behavioural approaches. Climate change campaigns use the same approach. Trying to coach and persuade and convince and —

FRANKIE:     And it’s clearly not working.

ZEN:               Exactly. It totally misses the power of connectedness. The best predictor of current mental health is current "relational health" or connectedness. People’s ability to tolerate stressors is diminishing because their connectedness is diminishing. They have to re-learn connectedness.

FRANKIE:     From what I’ve seen of social media they seem to be doing a pretty job at building connections.

ZEN:               It’s quality of connections, not quantity that counts. And it’s connections with the natural world too.

An online search on the word produces pages such as “Tips to beat your procrastination” and “Break your procrastination habit”. The dictionary definitions of procrastination are similarly loaded with implied criticism of the procrastinator:

• “…unnecessarily delaying a task”.

• “putting off…, especially something requiring immediate attention”.

• “delaying something that must be done, often because it is unpleasant or boring.”

This battle with ourselves may be misplaced: by forcing productivity we can actually end up being less so. Agatha Christie reported that ideas for her crime stories often came while washing up or having a bath. ” “Invention,” she said “… arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness.”

Psychology studies claim that procrastination is irrational, against our best interests. This assumes that our conscious mind is better-qualified than our subconscious one to know what those best interests might be.

Mowing the lawn? Or let it run wild for the insects and birds?

That job application? Perhaps your subconscious knows it’s not right for you.

The tax return? Could your intuition be rebelling against a complex world in which such red tape is necessary?

One study found that chronic procrastinators are more likely to have headaches, insomnia, digestive issues and be more susceptible to colds and flu. Researchers thus concluded that procrastination is bad for us, a problem to be fixed. But there is an alternative explanation - that those symptoms are merely indicative of unhappiness generated by the obligations imposed by our lifestyle.

Perhaps our intuitive wisdom is prompting us to focus on the present, to live in the moment, rebelling against the today’s economic model with its constant pressure to be productive.

Perhaps procrastination is the unrecognised voice of wisdom.

In our haste to offer solutions to others’ problems, we can be so preoccupied with wanting to respond that we don’t properly absorb what is being said. Even when we do pay careful attention, it is generally the words themselves on which we focus - yet it is often the gaps between them, rather than the words themselves, which can communicate the most. 

Strong speaking skills are valued in our society. There are numerous school debating awards, and public speaking competitions, for children as young as 8 years old (maybe younger). We encourage confidence in standing up and speaking to an audience. We encourage breadth of vocabulary. We encourage winning arguments.

But are we doing enough to inspire strong, deep, listening skills? 

Deep listening is the skill of registering the words, without judgement. Of removing the filter of our own biases, attitudes, feelings and life experiences. Of noticing what isn’t said, as much as what is. Of sensing what wants to flow, but can’t. 

There are plenty of scientific studies showing how our perception is shaped by our past experiences, with our brains filtering out information deemed unimportant. Our current educational models may be teaching children to listen in the same way, filtering out feelings and focusing on ‘facts’, concentrating on listening from the head rather than the body, absorbing words and interpreting them using our own filters. 

In an age when we need to foster greater connectedness with each other, as well as with the world around us, it seems to me we should be teaching listening from the whole body and all of our senses - tone of voice, facial expressions, body language, energy shifts and, perhaps most crucially, our intuition.

Attending the Anthropy gathering at the Eden Project earlier this month brought to mind the Everlasting Gobstopper of Willie Wonka fame. This fictional confectionery constantly changed colour and flavour as it was sucked. So it was with Anthropy - a three-day smorgasbord of stimulating ideas and conversations across a diverse range of topics.

Memorable nuggets for me included:

The continued assertion from some that ‘consumer demand drives what brands produce’. For me, those six words are more accurately reversed to ‘what brands produce drives consumer demand’. The word order has an immeasurable influence on the landing of responsibility for the changes we need to see.

The value of walking side by side, versus face-to-face, for gaining new insight. For me, the key benefit here is the greater comfort facilitated for silences - so vital, but so rarely permitted when our face is under direct scrutiny.

The problem that low income families don’t experiment with new, and potentially healthier, foods for their children because of the risk of waste. For me, rather than innovation in healthy foods to appeal to fussy eaters, what we need is an attitudinal change towards our food and its value - a ‘nose-to-tail’ approach which needs to start with adults as role models.

The link between provision of school meals and enhanced lifetime earnings. For the systemic changes we need to see I suggest that the barometer needs to change here, and in so many other scientific studies, from one of earnings to one of well-being.

The impact of company purpose on workplace health. I wonder what it would take to change the narrative to one where the primary purpose of any organisation is the well-being of its employees - and any other purpose, and stakeholders, are secondary to that?

A lack of trust for both individuals and communities from those with the money. I learned of some truly excellent initiatives to strengthen community engagement, where the barrier to a large-scale rollout was exactly this. I’d be intrigued to map the key stakeholders in a systemic constellation to shed light on the dynamics behind this purported lack of trust.

The need for education of citizens proffered time and again as a solution to current societal issues. One example that stood out for me was the purported need for education in critical thinking to prevent citizens falling into news silos. It concerns me that education is being asked to do so much heavy lifting. How often is it relied upon as an alternative to organisations taking responsibility for situations linked to their offerings?

The need for a narrative of what is a good life, centred around connection to people, place and nature. In order to shift to such a narrative it was suggested that we should rely on data and selling the benefits. I worry that such an approach centres on incremental changes to the current system instead of a wholesale shift to a new one. Also, see previous point for the heavy lifting which education is being asked to do.

The need to better connect people to their feelings. Earth Percent aim to do this through music, and John O’Brien (the Anthropist) did this in his own panel session with a carefully curated playlist designed to reinforce his wise words. However, music is not the only means: I’m working to inspire a greater focus on intuitive wisdom through the use systemic constellations. I would love to hear what others are doing. And to see more sessions devoted to this topic at Anthropy 2024.

Words have the power to direct our actions, and not just the words of other people. Those that we speak to ourselves are a key driver to action or, in many cases, inaction.

A recent letter in the Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, to which I subscribe, pointed out that many of us now use war words in our daily speak. I quote an excerpt here: "a quick glance at the headlines in my local newspaper shows what I mean 'War on Weeds', 'Intergenerational Battle', ... 'Reports under Fire'."

The author of that letter found that replacing war words with gentler ones was more challenging than she had expected. It was, however, a challenge that was rewarded with a welcome change in headspace.

It seems to be well accepted that our inner voice shapes our emotional state. If we repeat a mantra with sufficient frequency we can find ourselves believing it or at least simply better motivated to make it happen. Indeed, from this conviction has spawned an entire business sector of tools teaching the power of positive thinking.

If the words which we use can shape our mood and our behaviour, then perhaps a concerted effort by all of us to remove negativity and aggression from our vocabulary could have a far-reaching positive impact on our world.

It seems to have become commonplace for us to read and write about competition between human beings and nature: the war against weeds, beating the bugs or battling against the elements.

Talk such as this serves to accentuate a separateness between nature and ourselves - it becomes a case of us versus them, human beings against the rest of nature. Yet we have evolved from other creatures on this planet, and we depend upon other living beings for our survival. We are a part of nature, not separate from it.

Nature is powerful but nature is also balanced. Our attempts to control it disrupt the very harmony upon which its continued healthy function hinges.

The butterfly effect was initially used in theories of weather prediction, when the scientist Edward Lorenz noticed that what seemed to be insignificant rounding of data in his weather model could produce a markedly different outcome. A metaphor was coined to suggest that the small change in air flow created by a butterfly flapping its wings could affect the path and timing of a tornado some weeks later.

We cannot ever know, let alone predict, the repercussions from our attempts to break nature up into its constituent parts and to control them. However what is certain is that in the long run nature will always win and the harmony and balance on which its continued function depends will eventually be restored, every if many millennia from now.

The sooner that we, human beings, start behaving as if we were a part of nature, the greater our chances for survival within the complex web of life on earth. Changing the way we speak about the world around us might facilitate such a changed mindset.

For those of you to whom the idea of owning Harry Potter's invisibility cloak appeals, here is a real-life experience from someone who found that a high-vis yellow jacket can have the same effect if worn in the right context.

Mike Baird, an Australian politician, apparently spends one day each year on the streets of his constituency selling The Big Issue. On his most recent outing, and despite wearing the above-mentioned high-vis yellow jacket, Mike was struck by the number of people who hurried passed him in the street with heads down, desperate to avoid eye contact.

It seemed reminiscent to me of our attitude to many of the environmental issues facing society today. These issues are uncomfortable to acknowledge, for in doing so we might have to admit to our personal contribution to the situation and, worse still, actually take some responsibility for change. It's easier to simply brush past the problems and leave them for someone else to deal with whilst we get on with our busy lives.

Returning to the invisibility cloak. Mike Baird's conclusion was that it wasn't fun being invisible. In fact, it was really lonely. Humans are a sociable species. We thrive on contact with other humans, just as we thrive on contact with the natural world.

In our pursuit of immediate gratification, in our rush to achieve our goals, we  can end up isolating ourselves from other people and from our communities. In so doing we are actually creating a very lonely world for ourselves - the opposite of what might truly give us the happiness we crave.

The image of this post features a leopard tortoise in Northern Namibia. A gentle reminder to slow down to a tortoise's pace from time to time. Maybe to take a moment to smile at the next Big Issue seller you see in the street, perhaps even to stop and talk to him or her.

I believe that our lack of compassion for each other is at the heart of today's sustainability issues.  It's about our interaction with other members of the human race, not just our interaction with the natural world.

Maybe a few slow tortoise steps every day could help to bring about positive change?