Artists & the climate crisis

On making art while the world is burning.

Artists and the climate crisis:

"it's frivolous to create while the world is on fire🔥. I cannot possibly pursue my art in times like these. Art doesn't do anything. I feel guilty, irresponsible and silly.🙊"

- A reframe from various perspectives:

FOR THE CYNICAL ARTIST:

We'll all die anyway. Do what you love and take care of your people.

The evolution of species is seen in the evolution of the individual. This society will collapse at one point, whether it's sooner or later.

FOR THE HELPFUL ARTIST:

Nature doesn't need your saving. Most of us don't understand the concept of nature and romanticise some aspects of it over others. A dry unfertile ground is nature too and fire is a natural occurrence… but it doesn't support human life.

Since it's the humanity that needs saving - cease the suffering of humanity. Sure you can do that as a scientist, but you can also do that as an artist. May I read your romance fiction now while I'm feeling anxious?*

*But I don't publish books!! What if my art doesn't help anyone??

-Does it help you? Cease the suffering of your own mind first.

FOR THE SPIRITUAL ARTIST:

Who are you to question the role you have been given by the Universe?

FOR THE PRAGMATIC ARTIST:

By pursuing your art instead of a different career you might be commuting less, you aren't creating shit we don't need or like, and wasting your life’s minutes in meaningless corporate meetings.

You may not be sure you are doing any good with your art, but you most likely aren't doing any harm either.

 FOR THE PRACTICAL ARTIST:

• Maybe you write an utopian science fiction novel and create a vision for a sustainable future

• Maybe your coaching support helps someone face their emotions instead of compulsive shopping

• Maybe you create beautiful, ethical, made to last products

• Maybe your concert drives two people to meet that absolutely need to meet

• Maybe your lo-fi beats help a scientist work on an important solution

• …

FOR THE ECOLOGICAL ARTIST:

In nature, every species has a role in the ecosystem. No role is more important than the other. Nature is playful, it experiments to create variety, because variety ensures stability: whenever conditions change and some species die off, the others remain. Individuality is a myth because we are all connected, but variety is crucial for survival of the whole.

The way you don't fit in is the way you belong. (Read that again!)

FOR THE ARTIST THAT IS JOYFUL BUT FEELS GUILTY ABOUT IT:

So the world doesn't need more of your joy, but needs more of your suffering? Have you thought this through??

 Also, no-one's gonna follow your ideas if they don't spark joy, that's like a Marie Kondo Law of the Universe.

FOR THE HOLISTIC ARTIST:

Your impact isn't compartmentalised in what you shop, what you do for work and how you travel. What you do does matter, but who you are might matter more. If having a day job and doodling in the evening is a part of your personal evolution, then do that. Think about the importance of the person you are becoming and the impact that might have on everyone and everything around you.

What kind of people do we need more of in the world?

FOR THE ACTIVIST ARTIST:

You might just be creating a body of work that inspires a generation.

You wouldn't be the first artist to lend their voice to a political movement, *winks at a Bob Dylan poster*.

FOR THE ARTIST THAT STILL THINKS THEY HAVE TO CHANGE THE WORLD BY THEMSELVES:

What if your artistic pursuit is actually just a three year long experiment that will alter your brain in such a way you will come up with a solution for this planet that a human mind was never able to grasp before? *dramatic inhale*

FOR THE HOPEFUL ARTIST:

How can we take action if we are paralysed by fear and helplessness?

Spread your hope, we need it.

FOR THE PHILOSOPHICAL ARTIST:

Your mind is basically the society and your body is nature. We've spent centuries with the current paradigm that our society is somehow detached from and above nature. We say we lost connection to nature - we mean we lost connection to our self: our body.

We always *think* we know better. A real change will come when we'll accept the wisdom of something bigger, older and more sophisticated than our human society. Think locally before globally: start trusting what feels true in your body over what society / your brain tells you.

Trust your body's cues to rest and its pleasures that tell you to enjoy, explore, create.