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Hey Reader,

I think a lot about saving the world, but the truth is the world will be just fine without us. It'll thrive, actually. I remember hearing David Attenborough say that not so long ago and it caught me like a punch to the stomach.

It’s not really about saving the world. The planet will bounce forward from everything humanity has done to it. Different, but strong. Stronger without us.

What we really mean when we talk about saving the world, is saving humanity, and I’m not sure that collectively we have the will to do that.

The richest few with the means to save humanity clearly do not have the will to do it.

So it’s up to the rest of us.

But saving humanity sounds like a tall order, right? It’s a lot.

So, we start small.

Start with what we can do, right now, today.

David Attenborough says living without waste is the best thing we can do. Live the lives we want, but just don’t waste anything.

I say do that, and share our ideas.

We can talk about the things that matter to us. We can listen to those who disagree with us.

We can work together, even if we don’t agree on the details.

We have to work together.

This is the massive, gigantic failing of those of us on the left: we get so bogged down in our differences, we miss those places where we overlap. The left gets hung up on details that don’t matter as much as the bigger picture.

Let me give you an example. I was at Deborah Frances-White’s book launch last year for her brilliant book Six Conversations We’re Scared to Have and she told us about a man in New York who voted for Trump, and why he did so.

The man is unhoused and the “leader” of his community, tasked with making sure they had their basic needs met, and trying to move them into secure housing.

He went to a Democratic group local to him and told them he was homeless and what he was trying to do. Before he even finished, they interrupted him and to tell him not to call himself “homeless” but to call himself “unhoused.” They argued with him about this.

They were so offended by proxy that they argued with a man who was fine with the word homeless about the words he should use about himself.

So the guy left. He went to the rabidly Trump-supporting evangelical church next door and told them what he was trying to do, and they helped him immediately. They had an agenda, of course — but that man didn’t give a shit about their agenda or the words they use. His immediate concern was his community and their safety.

The Trump supporters helped him to help his community.

And so they all voted for Trump.

This is how they win.

They are smart. They are organised. And they are willing to work with people who don’t fully agree with them.

In this country, Reform are the same. They’re funded by the same right-wing Christian nationalists as MAGA in America. It’s the same playbook. They’re using the same tactics. And it’s working.

If we want to keep the rights we have, we have to listen to each other.

We have to work with people who can get stuff done, even if we don’t agree with everything they stand for, or our principles will kill us all, starting with the most vulnerable of us. We’re seeing it already.

Here’s how we can start changing things for the better: look for that quality of light that makes everything seem possible and drink it in.

Then write, talk, read, listen about the things that matter to us all right now, urgently.

We all have a voice. All our voices matter.

You have ideas that matter.

You have a desire to make the world better, safer, kinder, right?

It doesn’t have to start with massive world-shaking actions and conversations involving world leaders. In fact, it’s better when it starts locally, with people we can influence and learn from and understand.

And it can start with the words we put out into the world.

Social media is too flip, too volatile for this. That’s where we argue about semantics.

In-person convesations are very powerful.

And a book? More powerful still.

That lets us go deeper and understand a different point of view.

A book gives us the space and time to change someone’s mind.

Imagine the ripple effect if they talked to someone else, and someone else, and more people.

That’s how we save ourselves.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

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