There’s too many men, too many people, making too many problems. And not much love to go around. Can’t you see this is a land of confusion? Genesis
Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid. Fyodor Dostoevsky
There I was, cold, isolated and desperate for something I knew I couldn’t have. A solution. A remedy. Anything. Brian Krans
I felt like I had swallowed yeast, like whatever evil was festering inside me had doubled in size. Jodi Picoult
Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason. Alain de Botton
I had talked too much. I had said too little. Patrick Rothfuss
Fear grew in places unlit by knowledge. Roshani Chokshi
It’s hard not to feel a bit frayed at the edges these days, confused and worried in equal measure about our personal and global prospects.
Collectively speaking, we are binging now on acrimony and misunderstanding, perfectly willing to believe the worst of others while postulating a priori goodness for ourselves. In so doing, we absorb all the misinformation needed to turn neighbors into adversaries, parroting political positions with passions which belie the lack of attention we have generally paid to the untoward consequences of that for which we advocate.
As you well know, there are so many fires raging in the world beyond those raging in our conflict zones and bone-dry forests, so many guns ready to be fired in anger or despair; so many leaders willing to sell out portions of entire populations to preserve the power that will hold them aloof from legal jeopardy; so many people searching for even a short respite from their manifold pressures and deprivations, never-mind finding some actual solution or something akin to a permanent remedy.
I don’t think I am alone in this, and God knows I have contributed to the confusion of others on multiple occasions (perhaps even at this moment). But more and more, regardless of where people sit on the political spectrum, I literally don’t seem to “know” what people are talking about. I hear the words, I recognize the syntax, but the lack of “sense” regarding what is being said and not said, the hard-core principles detached from worldly experience and evidence, the need to believe beyond what can be reasonably justified, let alone practiced, all of that and more leaves me generally baffled.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be. I, too, have elements of life which are “there” not due to any structural or cognitive inevitability but rather to my “need” to have them there, my “belief” in certain things which stretches potentially corroborating evidence into some grotesque caricature of itself. I get it. I’m not immune from participating in some of the craziness I have made a humble living helping to identify and address, most recently in multilateral policy contexts.
I certainly acknowledge that ,this “land of confusion” we have crafted for ourselves is a place where fear and anger increasingly occupy spaces “unlit by knowledge,” spaces often ceded over to the various demons of our sub-consciousness which, rather than exposing them to the light and freeing up their hiding places for better uses, we have instead converted their spaces into something both insular and habit forming, not unlike a shelter from bombs or tornadoes now deemed too comfortable and familiar to abandon even in the absence of direct threats.
People sometimes assume that, because of our decent policy access, we are somehow immune from confusion from societies which justify each and every manifestation of “what is good for me is good,” which force 10 year old rape victims to bear children in the name of “life”, which keep other girls of that age and others out of school in the name of some “religion” or other, which drive economic inequalities to the very limits of human endurance, which rationalize armed violence with wanton fabrications of politics or culture, or which continue to see fossil fuels as the “solution” to a world already consumed by plastic waste, agriculture-killing droughts, and heat waves at the top of our blue planet that make it easier for polar bears to get sun stroke than find food for their cubs.
But no, we aren’t immune. Policy access in and of itself is not the antidote to “feeling lost, crazy and desperate” at times, a condition which defines more circumstances than we imagine. Increasingly we have ingested so much metaphorical yeast that we are bloated with anxiety and uncertainty over the state of the world while questioning our own willingness (let alone that of officialdom) to rise to this dangerous occasion, to address the nasty wounds quickly turning into nastier infections, including of our basic humanity, our commitment to the dignity of all, not simply the dignity of ourselves and our tribe.
The UN, as most of you who frequent these posts recognize, has long been recognized by us as a place where most of the crucial issues facing our fragile planet find analysis and expression. At the UN/ECOSOC High Level Political Forum beginning on Tuesday, one planetary promise after another will find space for dialogue and assessment, the latter likely to serve as a reminder of just how much further we need to go to honor the complex and urgent commitments we made to global constituents in 2015.
This HLPF follows on the heels of several other big-ticket events including the UN Ocean Conference (Portugal), the World Urban Forum (Poland) and the Biennial Meeting of States (BMS8) to eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons held in New York. It has become typical of UN scheduling that its most important events are heaped upon other important events in ways which sow confusion among those in the wider global community seeking to keep track of what is being negotiated and ascertain whether outcomes from such events are in any way sufficient to address the urgent challenges which define our collective present. What do we have a right to expect from these grand, expensive and carbon-saturated global events? What changes in places of need can we anticipate and how can we determine if the pace of change is adequate to reverse crises both clearly identified and well underway? And at another level, how do we know if the lofty gestures and noble commitments embedded in these outcomes represent genuine, good faith efforts to do what is needed and all that is needed to set the current precarious circumstances on a more hopeful course?
To be honest, there are too many times now when we come away from our monitoring and assessment of this frenetic UN policy environment more confused than reassured. We know a number of the people at the helm of these grand events, and we know them to be largely people of high character who worry with reason that the world we are apparently consigned to pass on is one unfit for their children or grandchildren. But as with all of us, character is not defined by the cautious, measured words we speak — and speak and speak again — so much as by the stories our lives communicate, stories about how we have been humbled and at times even transformed by the things we’ve experienced, the responsibilities entrusted to us, and the magnitude of global crises about which we are, sadly, still largely hedging our bets. If we are honest with ourselves, it is often those things left unsaid, including our own testimonies of compassion, loss and success, and even personal transformation, which could energize and inspire global citizens longing for a viable path forward. This sharing could well take forms of inspiration and reassurance, inspiration for making our hearts and limbs grow fuller and stronger together, and the active reassurance that we simply will not under any circumstances, with all the tools, energy and wisdom we can muster, allow weapons, famine, poverty, species loss or hate speech to have the final word.
The Klimt painting which adorns the heading of this piece serves as a reminder, to me at least, that if hope can be visualized it can be realized; that this “land of confusion” we have concocted for ourselves can truly give way to more honest and intelligible engagements with the challenges that remain within our competent and caring remit. But progress must be demonstrated if it is to be believed, demonstrated in a way that can dispel the confusion and cynicism endemic in these times. It is our contention that, as helpful as they sometimes are, the careful speeches and tepid resolutions now emanating from our diverse and under-connected policy chambers remain largely insufficient to convince a weary and bewildered world that there is, indeed, “enough love to go around” to make those commitments real.
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