It seems that it is human nature to want to help your neighbor. It even seems to be an innate behavior to extend a hand to someone who has fallen to help them get up. But what about when it is impossible for us to help the other?
In my circle of friends, when there was a birth, we prepared small frozen meals to allow the new parents to get through the first days without worrying about what they were going to eat for dinner. We knew full well that this question would come to haunt them soon enough. We also did it when one of us became seriously ill, to lighten the workload for his wonderful lover and their two grown daughters. It was a simple and effective way to feel useful during this delicate ordeal. A spinach soup, a lasagna and presto, we feel like we have a little control over the situation.
Because that is the crux of the matter: feeling useful and having control over what happens to us, particularly during difficult times.
During the pandemic, I could no longer practice my profession and, in the summer of 2020, farmers lacked labor because foreign workers could not travel. So I offered my services to work in the fields. I planted willows, removed rocks, and weeded organic broccoli fields. I did this to help those who feed us, obviously, but the underlying reason was that I needed to feel like I was serving a purpose during this critical period.
But this furious feeling of helplessness is not easy to silence when we talk about subjects that go far beyond our areas of competence and action.
“Impotence is perhaps our most painful abdication in this world,” wrote Marie-Claire Blais in her novel The deaf in the city.
When we think of the civilian victims of the war in Ukraine, or those of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, of the instability and violence in Haiti, of the Yemenis who are crying famine, of the fate of the Uighurs, of the migrants who are dying in the middle of Wed… I stop here this list of unbearable sadness. However, there is still so much left to say. Faced with so much pain, we can always grab our credit card, send a few dollars to the organizations that help all these populations, but we know full well that our little 50 dollars is a drop in the ocean of their needs. The solutions to put an end to this suffering go far beyond our simple empathy.
It’s the same with the climate emergency. Here again, a huge gap is created between the power of the average citizen to act and the devastating consequences of climate change. It’s not insignificant that many people report suffering from ecoanxiety. How can we live peacefully in a world that seems incapable of stopping the destruction of resources essential to our survival? How can we not feel totally helpless when the big oil companies pocket profits of nearly $100 billion per quarter and governments act at the speed of a giant turtle (an endangered species, by the way) ?
We can recycle, buy second hand, eat local, organic, vegan and travel by bike, but it is extremely difficult to see the beneficial impact of our actions. We keep repeating to ourselves that if everyone gets involved, we will make things happen. However, all it takes is one Super Bowl to undermine all our efforts, when a thousand private jets land in Las Vegas leaving a bitter taste of kerosene in our throats.
Of course, we can unplug, look elsewhere, cut ourselves off from the rest of the world. I also wrote a column on this need for silence, far from the torments of our time. That said, after a few deserved breaks, I can’t stay away from national and international news. The state of things matters to me deeply, despite my indignation and the unbearable impossibility of acting.
Illness, natural disasters, abuses of power, social inequities or violence of all kinds are all phenomena that place ordinary mortals in the position of helpless spectator. In his novel 1Q84, Haruki Murakami writes: “The feeling of powerlessness ultimately destroys a human being. » So, how not to die inside, how not to be swallowed up by anxiety, sadness, rage or, worse, indifference? Can we be happy while being lucid and empathetic? The task is not simple, but it is possible.
I humbly believe that we must continue to act to the best of our knowledge and skills, while accepting our limits. Participating in your neighborhood’s green alley committee does not prevent the ice from melting, but it does slightly reduce the extent of heat islands. Volunteering at a soup kitchen, knitting hats for premature babies or donating plasma doesn’t change the world overnight, but it spreads the weight of suffering across many shoulders.
Also, I will persist in putting pressure on our leaders so that they govern better, and in a lasting manner. I will continue to make informed consumer choices that are as harmful as possible, and in my small urban vegetable garden, I will still grow milkweed in the hope of saving the world, one monarch at a time. Because yes, hope is the best defense against the darkness into which this damn helplessness plunges us.