We’re in an extended season of change, some of it good, much of it bad. And some of it even tragic.
The world itself is shifting. Climate change is no longer a distant threat, It’s here, and it’s taking a toll on our forests and coastlines, slipping through our atmosphere with invisible hands, and turning everything inside out. It’s the end of December, and I am still picking tomatoes and peppers from my garden.
Political change is sweeping the world too, as populist right-wing governments march into power, riding waves of voter anger into office. They promise the wrong solutions to the right problems, and those of us in vulnerable communities shudder in fear while preparing to do what we have always done – fight for our lives, our hearts, and our dignity.
The calendar is rushing us into a new year, one that will be filled with uncertainty. The shortest day of the year has passed, and the days grow steadily longer and warmer, bringing the promise of green shoots pushing their way up through the layers of dried and decaying leaves of the last fall.
Closer to home, Mark and I are restructuring our business, a direct result of changes made by search engines and social media platforms that have ceased to work for the common good and have instead become profit machines that suck every last drop of cash out of their users.
I’ve been searching for a job for fourteen months now, applying to almost a hundred of them. Applicants by the thousands swarm almost every new posting, and for every one that I feel I am well-qualified, there are ten other job seekers who are a better match. No one wants to train new hires anymore, and half the jobs out there aren’t even real. In today’s world, it seems like the only job you can get is the one that’s just like the one that you already have. We’ve created a caste system that locks us onto whatever jobs we are currently doing.
And in the background, the threat of generative AI looms over everything, flooding our sites with easily generated candy colored dreck and elbowing out real humans with customer service bots that lie and hallucinate.
A season of change, indeed.
And yet….
There’s a certain satisfaction in finally taking control of our own destiny and facing our greatest fears. A freedom in pivoting away from things that no longer work and sinking all of our energy into things that do. Fear itself changes, and in the process becomes a new beginning.
The spring will eventually arrive, and these cold, foggy, shapeless days will pass. New, unexpected opportunities will present themselves – in politics, climate change, and our personal lives.
I read today that companies are rushing to capitalize on carbon capture, and people are starting to talk seriously about geoengineering our way out of the crisis, by scattering diamond dust into the upper atmosphere, and by pumping water out from under glaciers to ground them and refreeze it as surface ice.
Sooner or later, the job winds will shift too. I have to believe that. I’ve spent the last ten months working on my mojo, remembering that I am a talented, hardworking person that any company would be lucky to have. One of these days, some hiring manager will see it too.
Change is hard. But sometimes, change is exactly what we need. It’s the only way things will get better.
In the meantime, while I wait for it to happen, I have love. The love of my family, my friends, and most of all of my husband.
Everyone should have someone like him – someone who can make them laugh and cry and smile, and remember all the best things about the world and themselves.
With him next to me, all things become possible again.