Do Not Let Your Spirit Wane. A Philosophy For 2022

As Leonardo Di Caprio and Jennifer Lawrence implore us to wake up to our existential predicament in their newly released movie “Don’t Look Up,” amid reports that more than half the world’s youth suffer wrenching climate despair, I’m supported by a commitment to keep going.

I’m no stranger to climate despair. After a 6 month spell in deep darkness in 2018, I wrote here about how I was able to take comfort from a friend’s care for her dying grandmother, and Australian philosopher Michael Leunig’s description of what happens for him when he’s lost. Michael’s ‘How To Get There,’ a beautiful depiction of the power of perseverance, graced my office wall for many years.

by Michael Leunig

“Keep on going as far as you can. That’s how you get there.”

Earlier this year I was given more reason to keep going.

Back in January, dear friends lost their son. He was a mere 23 years old and died from double pulmonary pneumonia. What to say?

As the year passed and my friends travelled through their grief, Mike shared with me a beautiful song by Australian indie rock band Gang of Youths.

“It’s a bit ‘Pink Floydy,’” he said, “I think you’ll like it.”

We played it together one evening after dinner and a few glasses, when the iPad emerges, and the volume goes up. The music and songwriter/lead singer David Le’aupepe’s voice was somewhat Pink Floydy but saying that robs the band and this special piece of music of its due acknowledgement as a truly beautiful, unique offering. A subsequent Google search revealed lyrics that moved me very deeply, especially the chorus:

Do not let this thing you got go to waste
Do not let your heart be dismayed
It's here by some random disclosure of grace
From some vascular, great thing
Let your life grow strong and sweet to the taste
'Cause the odds are completely insane
Do not let your spirit wane
Do not let your spirit wane

“It’s beautiful, Mike” I confessed.

“It’s helping me,” he added.

And it’s since helped me.

Interacting with humans can be a frustrating experience, bless us. Working on sustainability issues like climate change and before that deforestation and human rights, I’ve had my fair share of challenging moments. What seems perfectly clear to me is rarely as clear to others. Working to support people to take their own journey to the sorts of grand transformations we need to extricate ourselves from the diversity of messes we’ve created is difficult, and that’s something of an understatement.

COP26 has come and gone, and observers are casting doubt on whether commitments made so recently in Glasgow are already falling by the wayside. Don’t look up indeed.

At the end of the 19th century, confronted by desperate poverty in Russia, Tolstoy asked, “What then must we do?” It’s a question that comes to me repeatedly as I ponder how we might help find a different way. I speak often about this different way without straying too far into defining what I mean. It’s not my way, or her way, his way, or their way. Such talk has us falling back into the politics of tribalism – my way or the highway - that has constrained so many efforts to bring the change we urgently need. I prefer to think of it as a human way, a way of being in the world that accords with the planet’s inherent limits, that affords rights and respect to all beings, from the human and more than human worlds. I wonder what that way looks like?

My sense is that if we could be intentional about it, we could imagine into being a future where we cooperate rather than litigate to take the strong action that’s needed to mitigate the crises we face. If we’ve got to go to court to protect human rights or the environment, we’re not winning. We’re not creating foundational change; we’re just doing battle. In the absence of broadly agreed visions for where we collectively need to get to, curated through discussion and cooperation, battle we must, but we’ll never win the metaphorical war where a different way unfolds and flourishes for the benefit of all. We’re just edging ever closer to the abyss, to the meteor hitting and wiping us off the face of the planet.

Along my own journey, I’ve often grieved over the state of things. Like my friends earlier this year and all of us, I’ve grieved over too many beings, human and otherwise, whose lives have been cut short. Each time, like everyone else, I conclude that we really do need to live our lives in this moment, for we don’t know what awaits us tomorrow. That’s why, coupled with my “Keep going” philosophy, Mike’s shared song gives me such an emotional and spiritual boost.

Do not let this thing you got go to waste. Do not let your heart be dismayed. Let your life grow strong and sweet to the taste.

Do not let your spirit wane. Do not let your spirit wane.

So many challenges of great magnitude lay before us. I’m worried though unsurprised by reports of youth climate despair. The key question I keep coming back to is “What then must we do?” The only answer I can find is “Keep Going.”

Gang of Youths’ Le’aupepe’s lyrics inspire that much needed second ingredient to not let your spirit wane. We can keep going in darkness, but Le’aupepe’s lyrics and the name of the album where they were shared, “Go farther in lightness,” remind us that we each have something to contribute and that we must keep our spirit strong as we travel the inevitably challenging road ahead.

The last verse in the song is particularly important.

Get the fuck out of your head if it says
“Stay cold and be deathly afraid”
Do not let your spirit wane
Do not let your spirit wane

I’ve long advocated for being led by our inner wisdom, our soul and that our head can get us in trouble. Our intelligence can lead us to confusion and inspired inaction as we contemplate the best path forward. It can halt us in our tracks, and we no longer keep going.

As we get closer to the abyss, and truly start to look into it for the first time, just as so many first saw it in ‘Don’t Look Up’ when Di Caprio’s Dr. Mindy, got out of his car and pointed to the oncoming comet in the night sky, there’s a risk we’ll be paralysed by fear, or worse, resignation.

As Michael Leunig noted in his description of how he fathoms a way forward when he feels lost, panic and resignation are steps on the path to emergence and action. As we move into 2022, we can’t let ourselves be caught in panic and resignation. We must find a path beyond our paralysis to strong, credible action, not just on climate change, but on so many other issues too.

As we prepare for our step across the New Year threshold, let’s pause a moment and gather ourselves to look up, to imagine how we can keep going, to get to where we need to be.

And amidst everything, do not let your spirit wane.

And…here’s the song.