“Everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed and strange,
Minds made muddied and mute.
We carry tragedy, terrifying and true.
And yet none of it is new” Amanda Gorman
In February, 2021, I wrote a post on Pretending. (https://rickbellingham.com/2021/02/26/pretending/)
In the last year, there have been so many terrifying tragedies and “none of it is new.” We are still pretending no changes are needed. So, here is Part II.
As is my custom, I have been reading lots of books trying to un-muddy my mind, to lighten the shadows in my heart, and to avoid being mute. And yet, everything hurts. Amanda does have a way of capturing the reality of our experiences. No pretending with her.
What will finally force us to deal with our realities? How long can we continue to pretend that maintaining our current path or going backward will result in a future in which our kids can thrive and grow. In this post, I will share some of the highlights of six recent books I just read that address those questions. I will conclude with a recommendation for finding some hope in this darkness.
The prolific science-fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson opens his newest novel, The Ministry for the Future, with a bleak description of an environmental catastrophe. It’s the summer of 2025 and Frank, a young American working for an NGO in India, wakes up to a record-setting heat wave with a level of humidity that approaches the limits of human survival. And to make things worse, the power has gone out because overwhelming demand crashed the grid.
In this gripping and fear-provoking novel, an international climate-crisis body, The Ministry of the Future, has taken on the responsibility to speak for all living creatures present and future who cannot speak for themselves. After chairing this ministry for a few years, Mary Murphy discovers a clandestine black ops unit that uses drones to crash passenger jets and container ships as a way to protest unrelenting carbon emissions that governmental agencies have pretended for too long were not severe enough to act upon. According to the operatives, these agencies have allowed corporate plunderers to exploit the environment in pursuit of obscene profits for too long. The protesters decide the only solution is to kill the killers – the people who are causing climate change with their monstrous carbon footprints. It’s a jarring solution, but one that some are nihilistically considering as the only option for ending the pretending that keeps us from taking action.
In Termination Shock Neil Stephenson describes a deeply broken reality that exists at the intersection of arrogance and technology. The story charts the progression of human-driven climate change plagued by storms, fires, floods, famine and heat in which entire regions of the world become uninhabitable. Yup, the same theme conjured by Stephenson in the Ministry of the Future. Rather than trying to reverse the causes, a rich entrepreneur creates a spectacular intervention to tone down the symptoms so that we can pretend a little longer that massive change is not required, and we can keep on the same path we’ve been on. He designs a huge gun that projects sulfur into the air to reflect the heat waves and cool the planet. In the real world today, geo-engineering manipulations are currently under discussion so this “solution” is not as fictional as it may seem. The problem, of course, is that this symptom-delaying-solution could have unintended consequences and create problems that are even greater than what we have now. So we just keep pretending. . . . . until we can’t.
In Candy House, Jennifer Egan develops a character who is so desperate for authentic responses, that he screams in crowded places just to get a real reaction. I can relate to this person. When I see people willfully ignoring dark facts and dooming realities with no discernable angst or calls to action, I want to scream too. This captivating book revolves around a company created by a brilliant entrepreneur that markets a dystopian product known as Own Your Unconscious which enables users to upload not only their own memories, but also tap into the memories of others and watch them all like Tik Tok videos. The upside of this collective consciousness is that it exposes all sorts of brutalities and abuse. As a result, child pornography is nearly eradicated. The downside, however, is that lack of privacy takes on a whole new meaning. You can’t even think bad thoughts without being called out. I don’t know about you, but the idea of having all my thoughts as an open-book to the world sounds like a nightmare. On the other hand, it would certainly eliminate any pretending. The world would know all our real thoughts. Terrifying.
In Davos Man, Peter Goodman exposes the rapacious opportunism of the corporate titans who travel to Switzerland each year to delude themselves with their altruistic virtues while making back-room deals that widen the divide between them and the rest of us. Most of these company men (think Benioff, Bezos, Ellison, Schwartzman etc.) have benefited from the public financing of the internet, roads, bridges and schools by taxpayers. And yet they have hired lobbyists, accountants and lawyers to uncover legal ways to evade taxes and starve the system of resources. They want to claim nobility points for giving back AND continue to take all they can for themselves. Their power and wealth are so vast that they are able to write the rules for the rest of us making sure that they continue to benefit the most. They want to pretend they are heroes while continuing to exploit every resource they can – human, information, technical, and political. Under the banner of “Save the World,” they shroud the reality of the world they have created. Ordinary wage earners are still enduring prolonged torment and threats to their livelihood, while the billionaires bask on their yachts. The Davos tribe is thriving and striving as if there is no tomorrow – pretending that their lifestyles are sustainable while supporting corporate welfare schemes for the wealthiest people on earth. Pretending to be engaged in benign development, they are, in truth, contributing to oppressive exploitation.
The book, The 1619 Project, edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, was published as it was under attack from many critics. The sniping originated from the New York Time’s 1619 project which appeared in its paper and was followed up by podcasts, public forums, and school lesson plans. Nikole Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer for her work on this project. Essentially, Hannah-Jones asserts that the origin of the United States begins with the landing of captive Africans in Virginia in 1619. This claim provoked angry reactions from critics who denounced the project and from many state legislatures that eliminated funding for schools that used the curriculum. Apparently, a lot of people prefer to pretend that the Black experience in America didn’t exist in the ugly truths detailed in this book.
The book contains 18 chapters with contributions from some of the most profound and renown authors in the United States including: Ibram X. Kendi, Jamelle Bouie, and Bryan Stevenson. The book explores not only every aspect of slavery, but also its continuing legacy that still plays out in courts, hospitals, schools, and neighborhoods. Each chapter is meticulously researched and documented by over 1,000 endnotes. This is an historical treasure that makes it impossible to pretend our country has always been the beacon of freedom for all.
In The Last Confessions of Sylvia P, Lee Kravetz adds an entertaining and poignant jewel to the ever-expanding literature about Sylvia Plath. Since comitting suicide in 1963, the author of the classic novel The Bell Jar has elicited an abundance of biographies. In this fictional account, Kravetz reveals more about what we thought we knew or imagined about Plath. One of the story lines in the book concerns the relationship Plath had with another famous poet at the time. Her “friend,” who is intensely jealous of Sylvia’s success, pretends to be her best friend, but secretly photographs Sylvia’s husband (Ted Hughes) with another woman and then mails the picture to Plath. Theoretically, the picture proved the last straw for the emotionally vulnerable Plath. She reacts by killing herself. Pretending can be lethal.
This last book is a bit of a stretch in this series of brief reviews to illustrate the potentially devastating power of pretending. And, yet, I think it’s an important addition. The basis of so much of what we do is friendship. It’s hard to find authentic friends – people who genuinely care for you and actively seek ways to help you advance toward your dreams. These friends are always there for you. You can count on them in times of trial and when life is going well. They will support you equally if you are spiraling down or spiraling up. Pretending has no place in these friendships. You don’t have to worry about being dismissed or experiencing disingenuousness.
Sylvia was a particularly talented writer who struggled with mental health issues. She was fragile. Fortunately in her life, she found a psychiatrist who genuinely cared for her and helped her. Unfortunately, she had a pretend “friend” and a husband who betrayed her.
When everything hurts, there is nothing more comforting than to have genuinely trustworthy friends whom you know are not pretending. I feel very lucky that I have several people in my life with whom I have that kind of relationship.
So what’s the point. Authenticity is the most important condition of leadership. Genuineness is the most important condition of helping. Honesty is the most important condition of relationships. Truth is the most important value in science. Pretending diminishes the power of all of them.
Clearly, pretending is an issue for me. In this post, I have shared stories of how pretending effects the environment, the economy, education, race relations, interpersonal relationships, and friendships. At first glance, one might think that the cause of all this pretending is justification, i.e. we create narratives that enable us to avoid confronting the truth about ourselves and the world. But this reality seems pretty bleak. Perhaps the real cause may be that we are just too afraid to fully open our hearts and to love generously. Maybe that’s why everything hurts. Somehow, in all this darkness, we need to find ways to open to love and to hang on to hope.
Having trustworthy friends is one way. Reading books is another. I’m going to continue to stay connected to my friends, and the first book I’m going to read in pursuit of a hopeful path is Rebecca Solnit’s book on Hope in the Dark. I hope you will join me.
Amanda Gorman ends her poem like this:
May we not just grieve, but give:
May we not just ache, but act;
May our signed right to bear arms
Never blind our sight from shared harm;
May we choose our children over chaos.
May another innocent never be lost.
Maybe everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed & strange.
But only when everything hurts
May everything change.
May it be so.
