The song above is called “Swayed by Trees.” I recorded it in 2011.
There are days when you run out of time.
I spent much of my weekend pulling weeds from the cracks in the paving stones in my backyard.
We also took the kids to see Elio, the new Pixar film, which was fine, if incredibly formulaic.
And now it’s late Sunday evening. I’m drinking a few beers with my neighbours on our front deck. The weather is unbelievably hot for this time of day.
All of which is to say: this will be a short one, and probably a little weird. Good luck.
Thoughts on war, AI, climate change, and societal collapse.
Let’s get to it.
I had a thought in the shower this morning, after a long walk with a dog we’re looking after and some backyard work, that I haven’t had a chance to unpack:
What if what’s happening right now isn’t the cause of our anxiety, but a symptom?
Obviously I’m deeply worried at this strange and insane moment of chaos.
But I also think that the multifaceted storm of extinction-level events that is swirling around us has to be happening for a reason.
Any one of these crises in isolation – climate emergency, potential world war-starting bombing runs, the rise of artificial intelligence and its likelihood of ending human society as we understand it – might be seen as a random event, or something that has deep roots in a singular area.
All of it arriving at once seems like something else.
We are decaying as a species.
We have gone too far down the road of amusing ourselves to death, conspicuous consumption, turbocharged capitalism…
What the trees see.
I haven’t read The Overstory by Richard Powers, but the idea of considering human life and society from the perspective of the trees is fascinating to me.
What would we as a species look like from the perspective of beings whose lifespans are potentially measured in millennia?
The song at the top of this post, “Swayed by Trees,” is about those moments when encountering nature affects your decisions and guides your behaviour.
I think trees, if they were sentient, would see clearly the cyclical nature of human societies.
Whatever is happening right now – as unprecedented as it seems – I suspect we’ve had moments like this before.
Yes, the technology is more advanced. The climate threat is far greater. And the world has some unprecedentedly evil, venal leaders.
But the human race goes through periods of relative calm and others of utter terror.
Ted Gioia says this happens in 50-year cycles. And that we’re in the middle of what he calls a “hot” cycle, when people are more aggressive and warlike.
He’s probably right. He usually is. But I confess to a fear that we may not make it out of this cycle unscathed
Symptoms of what?
If this moment is a symptom, what is it a symptom of?
I think it’s of us abandoning our better nature.
We’re a species that works best in community. And those communities tend to work best when they’re deeply connected, which usually means local.
Our aggressive globalization (by which I mean not only the usual definition of that term economically, but also the way technology has flattened everything and brought all of it to the screen in your pocket) is a sickness.
It makes it nearly impossible to remember what really matters.
What’s happening here, now, with the people we know and love, with the land on which we live, with the trees that may be watching us with slow disdain.
I’m not sure what comes next. I’m afraid.
But I’m also trying to absorb some of that tree-like wisdom and to sway with the breeze that blows where I’m standing.
Swayed by Trees
This is the home I can believe in.
I'm left alone, all by myself.
And when I'm gone, all of the trees will
Keep saying my name as much as they can.
So let's sleep in by the sun rising up.
It's just too deep inside of me now.
Inside of me now.
I am tempted by the sway
Of the summer trees in May
To leave my home.
To leave my home.
But where would I go?
When everywhere's the same?
How would I know
If it's better out there?
This is the place where I became it.
How will I make a home out of you?
I am tempted by the sway
Of the summer trees in May
To leave my home.
To leave my home.
I am tempted by the way
All the leaves don't blow away
To leave my home.
To leave my home.
To leave my home.
I’m afraid too.