Endings and Citizen Response-Ability
In a dream last night there was a growing mess and it was easy to stop: to avoid spreading messy paint everywhere, step out of the shoes covered in paint and step onto a clean surface. In other words, leave the mess where it is and step cleanly out and away. The problem was that the people in my dream refused to hear the easy solution or hear my request: “take off your shoes, step out of the mess and then this will be easy for me to handle, easy for me to clean up, and no long term damage.”
In my dream consciousness, the hypocrisy in these people felt astounding. When I made my request (step out of the shoes and the mess) the reaction was out-of-proportion fury. I yelled back (which felt really good) and pointed out the hypocrisy: “You’d never tolerate someone making a mess like this on your floor, so why is it ok for your to make this mess on my floor?” More fury.
“They were unable to hear that their own actions were inconsistent with the standards they apply to other people.”
Within the dream I realized that they were unable to hear that their own actions were inconsistent with the standards they apply to other people. Their “identity system” could not handle being held accountable to their own standards. As a result, they did not have the emotionally maturity to hear or accommodate my request (and be held to account for their actions). They could not hear that they were spreading the mess, that they were responsible for the mess, and that there was a very simple solution. It was more important to deny the mess than take responsibility for the mess, minimize it and start cleaning it up.
And so I wonder, since it was my dream and an opportunity to explore my inner world, what motivates me to deny the world around me rather than take responsibility for cleaning up the messes I make? What does it take to acknowledge my personal responsibility, even if I don’t want to?
Personal Responsibility
Our ability to be emotionally courageous when we hear something we don’t want to hear is a survival skill for ourselves and our cities. My dream is an invitation to me to ramp up my own emotional courage.
“Our ability to be emotionally courageous when we hear something we don’t want to hear is a survival skill for ourselves and our cities. ”
The people messing up my floor in my dream did not have the emotional courage to hear or respond to my request. For whatever reason, they needed to reject hearing that:
They were making a mess
They could easily stop making a mess
They were applying a double standard to themselves
Since they had to reject this feedback they had to reject my request. They were “response disabled.” (For more, read about how feedback requires emotional courage.) They were not able to act responsibly.
The dream was a reminder to me that the world around me is changing, and deep down inside, if I dare to acknowledge it, I would like all the changing to stop.
There is a mess (the coronavirus) that is spread by us and we are in charge of how messy our situation becomes. When we choose self-isolation, we choose to step out of the messy shoes and stop spreading harm; we choose hardship instead of collapse.
Deep down, I really want to put those messy shoes back on and pretend the world is as it was, oblivious to the spreading of the virus I may cause and leave the pressure of clean up to others, the healthcare system. Since I am not sick and I have no direct contact with the healthcare system this is easy for me to contemplate; the only thing new in this pandemic world—that I experience— is isolation and social and economic hardship. It’s hard to grasp that the world as I knew it has come to an end when I haven’t experienced WHY it has come to an end.
I have a choice: trust or deny the feedback that comes my way. It is vital that I find a way to be conscious of how I respond to feedback. I am response-enabled when I am able to hear the feedback without a story about what it means for me. Can I hear that I need to self-isolate, feel the gravity of it, and not tell myself a big story about economic hardship that may come in the future? Can I hear that I need to dramatically reduce carbon emissions so the world is a healthy place without telling myself I don’t have to because others are not doing it? Can I hear that many of beliefs and actions are racist, even if I don’t know it? Noticing my reaction to feedback is response-enabling because it is a first step in accepting the information, an opening to be curious about any implications.
I also have a responsibility: allow feedback to tell me what IS happening, not what I WANT to be happening. If I find that I don’t like feedback—that I don’t want it—the easy choice is to reject or deny the feedback. Perhaps my dream is pointing out the resistance within me that blocks me from hearing that my behaviour is contributing to a mess. Yet “responsibility” implies a two-way street, a relationship with both myself and others. There’s a layers of accountability in my actions and inactions. What harm do I cause myself? What harm do I cause others? What harm do I cause to our collective endeavour to create cities that serve us well? If I don’t explore these questions, then I’m denying feedback.
The two stark truths of our pandemic situation remain: we will not all survive and we are choosing social and economic hardship to save lives. The third stark truth also remains: adaptation is a survival skill. Embedded in these truths is another: the world that has ended.
For many of us, due to illness or economic hardship, the world that was is gone. For many of us, the world has not yet shifted. We are each in different places, grappling with various endings. While I haven’t had the kind of job with regular income for almost 14 years now, my usual ways of lining up work is in flux because many clients feel shaky, no longer certain their projects are stable, or have a stable budget to hire me and the support I provide to them. I don’t want to hear that the game we were playing, with rules I understood and could make work for me, has ended.
“I don’t want to hear that the game we were playing, with rules I understood and could make work for me, has ended. ”
In an ending, and in a new beginning, there is grief. A game I was comfortable with, that was reliable, has come to a close and I have to learn a new game, with a new set of rules, and I have no idea what the game is, let alone the rules. Grief shows up as anger, disbelief, confusion, shock, sadness. It is more than feelings, because it can show up in my body as inflammation, or a weakened immune system. My dream reminds me to allow myself to experience grief, however it shows up. It is also signalling to me that I am being asked to determine how I wish to behave in an upside-down world.
I am being asked to be a different kind of citizen.
I am being asked to be a citizen who allows endings and welcomes new beginnings.
Citizenship
When things don’t turn out the way I expect, my first reaction is to blame someone else: “they didn’t do what they were supposed to!” or “they didn’t do what they said they would do!” And then I have to remind myself that my expectations are mine. The disappointment I experience is of myself, an unfair expectation I put on another, rather than a failure of the other. (There are times, however, when the actions of another cause acute harm; this is not a dismissal of harmful actions.)
There are a lot of endings right now. I (and we) going to have to dig deep to acknowledge the endings, acknowledge the grief and the various ways people handle grief, as well as the new possibilities.
Here are some I think about as I navigate my way through the endings underway right now, for me and us:
Notice needed improvements in our communities—without complaining. It is not helpful to complain and put the onus on others to fix problems. This is energy that drags a community down. It doesn’t mean ignore what’s not working, because those are the things that need improvement.
Work to improve our communities. Our contributions, paid or unpaid, are what shape our cities and communities. We regenerate our cities with our action (and inaction).
Reign in our perfection expectations of government. Our governments can only do what they can. They can not do everything for us. If they weren’t perfect before a pandemic it is unreasonable to expect them to perfect during a pandemic.
Accept that government won’t be able to do everything it used to do. Our life conditions have changed. Our financial situation has changed. There are hard decisions to come, and it is not fair of us to expect government to continue as it was.
Choose where to spend money. Businesses are going to close. People are losing their livelihoods as owners and employee of businesses. Local economic resilience relies on their presence; how we spend directly impacts the wellbeing your community.
Accept that the mess is ours to clean up. Choose your topic: a spreading virus, a climate disaster, or life-threatening racism. It is not up to others to clean up the mess; it is up to us.
Own our hurts. We need to stop flinging our hurts around, inflicting them on other people. This is not helpful. Let’s acknowledge and experience our hurts without putting them on others. This is hard work that will need a lot of support. This plays a vital role in our ability to be response-able.
Extend compassion to each other. We are not our best selves right now. Prior to the pandemic, we never knew what each other was going through. Right now, we all have a sense of what each other is experiencing. Not the specifics, but we know there’s something happening for everyone, including ourselves.
Create places and spaces for hurts and compassion. As individuals and as communities in many shapes and sizes, we need to provide ourselves with ways to handle our present and past traumatic circumstances. To deny ourselves this is to deny a healthy future.
We have a shared responsibility for our experience of each other. We have a shared responsibility for creating economic, social and physical habitats that serve us all well. To take this seriously, we must be open to feedback to be able to respond responsibly to ourselves and each other.
“We have a shared responsibility for our experience of each other. ”
Reflect—
What feedback do you avoid?
How can do practise receiving what you don’t want to hear?
This is the seventh post in the Cities Are a Survival Skill series, a string of posts that started about cities and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Collapse or Hardship. About the example of healthy feedback loops we are experiencing with the coronavirus pandemic, and how healthy feedback loops enable us to wisely reallocate resources.
2 Stark Truths and 4 Collective Actions. We will not all survive and life is not going back to how it was. There are four needed courses of action: address immediate healthcare needs, address immediate economic needs, acknowledge grief and trauma, and reach for new possibilities.
New Work Regenerates Cities and Citizens. Consider that innovation is simply new work, and that the constant regeneration of new work is how we adapt to our changing world. New work allows us to adapt and evolve.
A Third Stark Truth. Adaptation is a survival skill. The world economy is in bad shape and will be for a while; our economic world is upside down. Our resilience depends on the new work we create, paid or unpaid, and this means reaching for new possibility.
The Other Curve. There is another rising curve that demands us to choose collapse or hardship: the rise in global temperature. As with the pandemic, there is a point where we can expect system collapse: a rise in global temperature of 1.5 degrees that will cause climate destabilization on Earth.
Feedback Requires Emotional Courage. It is reasonable to expect that feelings can be talked about and explored in a personal relationship. It is reasonable to expect that drivers can happily go on their way when no accidents happen. There is something out of proportion, and deeply unfortunate, in the behaviour of the gaslighter and the angry old white man.
Endings and Citizen Response-Ability. There are citizen responsibilities that comes with realizing that “I don’t want to hear that the game we were playing, with rules I understood and could make work for me, has ended.” It’s time to do the work of hearing what we don’t want to hear.