Hope Is Rebellion

If you have been with me for a while, perhaps even before this letter was known as The Crow’s Nest (and some of you have been with me that long or longer—over five years since I started sharing a letter here—and I am exceptionally grateful you keep reading. That means a lot to me), then you will know that I stopped consuming the news some time ago (as of today, 697 days—I checked).

This abstinence includes no ‘just seeing what is going on in the world’, no ‘I’m just going to have a look at the culture news’, no ‘I’ve got three minutes, I’ll just skim the headlines’. None of that—occasionally, very, very occasionally, something will happen or someone will tell me something which will mean I specifically seek out that story, utilising a bare handful of platforms, platforms mostly devoid of any opinion at all, but those which report events dispassionately, without editorial bias. Such an event is rare, however, very rare, perhaps six or seven times in all those days.

I do not need to keep up with ‘consuming’ the news to tell me what is happening in the world, the world has a habit of intruding whether I want it to, or not (and in this context, the word ‘consuming’ irritates me—there is no sustenance there, after all). Do I worry about being uninformed? Originally, yes, I did, and sometimes I am still surprised to learn someone famous died a year or more ago and I had no idea.

I have always been ‘informed’, ever since I was a small child. Turns out, however, that the gap left behind by the lack of misery- and horror-shaped current events can be filled with marvellous things: books, music, new written words—of story, thought, and non-fiction—creative mending of clothing, carving of wood, an ever-growing collection of journals to flick back through, plants to nurture and harvest, medicines to collect and prepare, wildlife and nature to watch, or games to play. Not to mention watching and growing with our daughter, Ailsa.

If you have been reading for a while, then you will also know that I am entirely open about having a complicated brain, one which seeks to reward me with chronic and cyclical depression and a lovely hearty dose of anxiety, for example, even as it also enables me to make connections between things which I would perhaps otherwise miss—I suppose my brain is to be thanked for this last point, at least?

Last year, I crafted a piece about that depression, which you can read here, should you wish, in which, as a footnote, I made mention of researching adult ADHD. That research continued throughout the year and into this—essentially, I decided to question my original diagnosis of depression and anxiety (given after a ten minute appointment with my doctor), to ask whether, perhaps, this was a co-morbid issue, something which dwelled alongside something else and, perhaps, was even exacerbated by the other. Even a symptom of sorts.

When I want to research something, I go full in. I always have, ever since I was little. Even back then, I would read and reread all I could on the subject and wish I had access to more. These topics included our natural world (initially, when small, I was most interested in mammals and birds, then this grew to encompass, well, everything—trees, plants, fungi, lichen, insects, geology, water-based life, even the microscopic world, viruses, bacteria, etcetera), bushcraft—or ancestral skills (including, but in no way limited to, firecraft, knifecraft, axe skills, saw skills, tracking, wild food, finding and purifying water, making shelters and homes, creating tools from nature and using them, preparing and twisting plants, hair, or skin into cordage, and many, many more), the history and prehistory of various places, and several roleplaying or tabletop games¹ , I would read all of the books of an author, then seek out their influences and those they in turn influenced, likewise with music, tracing heritage and inspiration. I would learn to strengthen and guard my body, to garden, to cook. Nothing was ever a simple hobby, it was deeper, somehow more important. Nearly all of these special interests are still special interests of mine.

Since last year, I have read a LOT of books, articles, and medical papers, listened to hours of podcasts from medical professionals, and generally immersed myself in the subject of neurotypes, disorders (I do not really like the term ‘disorder’), mental health and, specifically, where exactly I fit in with these. It is a whole new language², one which is constantly evolving, one which is slow to alter in part, and quick in others (did you know, for example, that as recently as 2013, you could not be diagnosed with both attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), it just was not allowed/possible, thanks to the official medical guidance. Now, however, scant years later, there is increasing research to suggest around 40% of those with ASD also have ADHD).

I am fairly certain that, were I still living in the UK, I would have my name on the (ridiculously long) waiting list for professional diagnosis. However, that comes with a risk—you may not be aware of this, but if you are diagnosed with certain things, then you are no longer allowed to emigrate to some nations, as an example. You are seen as too much of a drain on resources, which is an outdated and frankly ridiculous concept.

Do I want an official diagnosis? That question is one I have often considered in the past year. The answer, seemingly as with all personal things brain-related, is yes and no. Yes, because it would give me the validation that I was right in my own research (I am 99% sure I am right), it would be something to show to others, say—look! I have some official paper with this on it, in a similar manner as my diagnosis of chronic depression and anxiety. However, when I got that diagnosis, I didn’t really go around waving any paper. I barely told anyone. I did not need to, it was something for me and a very select group of people. Perhaps I should have done, but at the time I still saw any personal health issue as a form of weakness, a sign that I simply wasn’t normal.

Now, however, approaching twenty years later, I would be utterly horrified if I was considered normal. Normal is boring. Normal is stagnation. Normal is—what is normal, anyway? We are all abnormal, all so very, very different, yet also somehow the same, to classify something as one or the other in a binary fashion is not only reductive, but seems darkly amusing, too. Can we not just be us, in all our strange and wonderful ways, and get on with that?

If you have read this far, you’d be forgiven in thinking that this piece is about me and my brain. It is not, however.

This piece is about you, and the world around us.

I am not going to go further into the various acronyms and initials I am sure I can now messily tack on to my identity, there is no need. It is likely I will talk more about specifics at some point—I have been sharing on the internet for many, many years, after all, whether anonymously or openly. Instead, let’s consider the two strands of thought I have discussed above—consumption of the news and what is happening in the world, and that research into why I am as I am.

As I researched my brain, as I pointedly ignored—yet still received and understood the darkness of—the outside world, I began to consider these two things in parallel.

In many ways, the understanding of how my brain works, and why, could be an easy ticket to more and deeper depression. It could (and, if I am honest, did) lead to a certain degree of carefully-controlled anger (why were certain things not picked up when I was younger? Why am I only just realising who I am, less than thirty moons before my 50th birthday?), moving on to grief at these things, before I shifted further and began to find strategies and mechanisms to live with who I am in a more effective, kind-to-myself-and-others fashion.

This, my research tells me, is the path that many follow. It is similar to that we take when someone close to us dies and, perhaps, with good reason—who we are has, in a way, changed, there are now reasons, there are now others we can talk to to aid us, there are ways to move forward, observe trails and paths created by those who have gone before us, to rebuild hope and more easily access joy once more³.

So it is with the world.

Our world seems plunged into darkness. Drums of war, greed of the few, hatred of the other and, looming above and behind, through and around all of these, the very active and malevolent poltergeist of climactic breakdown and the (potentially-increasingly-likely) cascade effects of this.

To accept a darkness, to see it for what it is and yet to know, deep down know, that on the whole humanity is a wonder, a thing of extraordinary ability and endless reservoirs of love and kindness (despite what that news would have you believe), that we can change our world for the better, this is a truly, truly powerful thing. And, at the very heart of this lies that little word, hope.

Hope, as I have so often shared, is not to be confused with optimism. One is blind and senseless, one is not. One gets up and fights, the other stays where it is, sure it’ll all be fine in the end and, as such, is as useless as its twin, pessimism. Hope, unlike optimism, is an act of rebellion.

In my personal view, we need to accept and understand ourselves before we can operate at something nearing 100% in society. Too often, there are many who do not dare to look deeply at their own flaws and foibles and, instead, are all too eager to point out those in others. That is both weakness and cowardice, that is wrong.

Achieving a level of peace with the self (which is always changing, always requiring work—we are never, ever, the finished article) enables us to go out further into the world around us and perhaps, in doing so, to help others. Not the unwanted, misguided help forced on certain sections of society or nations, help which is often actually unhelpful, but deeply considered and careful help—that won from hard experience, for example.

How we deliver this help varies tremendously—for me, I write words, one after the other and, as I do so, I imagine them and the ideas they represent going out into the world, passing peacefully and carefully, making others—perhaps you— think. To be able to make someone think is a true magic. To make them pause and wonder—or, even better, to make them enjoy a ‘fictional’ story only, much later, to realise that that story perhaps changed their way of thinking—is something extraordinary, truly remarkable, an ancient and honourable tradition, if a path lined and trapped with dangers.

And yet, throughout this process, we also need to accept that darkness.

Know the darkness is there—in the self, and out in the world. There are those whose greed and cruelty know no bounds. There are those who have far too much and, as always seems the way, desire more. There are those who see opportunity in the suffering of others and act accordingly. Crucially, these people are almost entirely beyond my reach—even if they somehow read my words, it would make little difference to their worldview. They are weak, remember, and weakness does not allow introspection.

Instead, it is easier to start at the bottom of the pyramid—the mass of humanity which underpins those at the top, which supports them in what they do, whether consciously, or unconsciously, these are the people with the true power. There’s a reason those greedy individuals are so frightened of the world, after all, they know just how unstable that pyramid is, if the base shifts just a little…

In her recent letter, My Last Year in the Alps, Anne Thomas of Anne of Green Places added this quietly devastating footnote to what was a joyful, exciting piece:

This is on top of asking society to continue to function at a certain baseline of stability. Something of a prerequisite to my little plans in their current form.

This is crucial to all I have written above. For Anne to include this as a footnote is, quite frankly, perfect for the message I am trying to share here, arriving just as I was editing this letter. Her own letter explains where she is—in terms of career, in terms of space, in terms of interest and joy at what she sees around her—yet it does so underpinned by that footnote and the knowledge that society is a fragile thing, one which too many take for granted. And yet she makes those plans. It is what we humans do.

It is, of course, sensible and preferable to keep going, keep making our own plans, keep finding the wonder and sharing it, all the while considering if or when things will get even worse. The alternative, hiding away and cowering in fear, does little to aid anyone—whether the self, other humans, or the wider natural world itself.

We, as a species, have always loved the notion of ends and beginnings, rather than being more concerned with the much longer middles of things. This translates across culture (ahem, how many times do we receive rebooted origin movies of superheroes, rather than a story of something they then do?), and it always has.

If you zoom out to view the whole, the notion of an end of a world is, of course, ridiculous: energy cannot be created or destroyed and, as the internet is fond of reminding us, we’re all made of star dust. And we can add to this the fact that, despite what we are told, despite what you may think, as Dr. Ian Malcolm/Jeff Goldblum said, ‘life finds a way’.

Even as we continue to deplete and abuse the natural world around us, what we are really doing is sitting in the woven willow basket of an old-fashioned hot air balloon, looking down at the land and sea, slowly, absentmindedly or, in some cases, deliberately, picking at and unweaving withy after withy. Sooner or later, we shall have nothing holding us there in the air, we shall fall, and we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

The world which we were observing below, the world which we are abusing, that will do what it does. Over those zoomed out, much longer time scales, nature will recover. It has before, after all—we are living through the sixth (or, potentially, seventh) great extinction, this time an extinction brought about by us. Balance is achieved for a time, before something else comes along and alters all. We like to think in such ridiculously short spans of time rather than at the scales which our world actually operates. That is something underpinning our existence and we as a species fail spectacularly when we consider those longer time scales.

Our destruction of the basket—of our world—is going to hurt us, it is our destruction, and there is a reason the news does not constantly report climate change in that fashion⁴. Easier to keep sharing abstract ideas of climactic breakdown, of natural systems failing, the extinction of this species or that, the burning of forests or the melting of ice. If they were to point out that we are the ones at risk, things might be different.

There is a place we go to beyond despair. There is a place we can reach once we have looked deeply into the self and the world around us. Giving into despair does not help the right people, only those on the top of the pyramid and, well, no. I won’t be doing that. I almost did, as that period of darkness clutched and threatened to pull me into the mire, but I kept my head up, kept working on a rope even as I was slipping down, twisting those fibres of my being into something stronger and more useful, then using it to lasso and pull me out, still covered in the stagnant and rotten detritus, true, but out nevertheless.

You see, I have looked deep into who I am perhaps as closely as I can. I have looked at the world around me and I have accepted that it is absolutely certain things will only get darker before the light returns⁵—potentially, very, very dark indeed—and I have realised that this doesn’t really change the fact I can find joy in watching a crested tit (Lophophanes cristatus) gather a seed from the window ledge outside the kitchen as I boil the kettle for a cup of tea, or marvel at the fact we are regularly visited by a beech/stone marten (Martes foina) at night, something that without my testing my new trail camera we would simply not know, or plant twelve different species of chilli seed for this year, or talk to our daughter about the nature all around us, making up story after story of ‘Ailsa in the Forest’, tales incorporating all those skills and knowledge I have researched, tested, and absorbed myself over the decades. She cannot get enough of these stories, and I love that.

Our world may seem full of darkness, it might seem like there is no way we can move forward in a positive, kind, decent fashion, but that is simply not true. Taking joy and sharing it is a start. Observing and storing ideas and nature a powerful tool.

Accept the darkness is there, then begin the process of banishing it by lighting up all around you—starting with yourself.

Hope, active hope, is rebellion. And I am as rebellious as they come.

The photos and video to accompany this piece are my own, chosen to gently point out just a minute slice of the beauty and wonder in the world.

What About You?

What never fails to bring you joy? How do you pass that joy along? Have you taken a long, hard look at your own brain? Do you have your own initials of this disorder or that tacked on or underpinning your identity? How does that affect and influence your life? And, finally, do you dare to hope—are you also a rebel?

Finally

This week, I sent out the final part of Dancing With Death, the novella I have been sharing since before Christmas. It will remain free to read for a time but, now that it has been finished, I shall soon be placing putting the preceding tale, the novel Death In Harmony, behind the paywall. If you want to read that story—which features Flin, the same character who appears in Dancing With Death—and do not wish to pay, then read it quickly!

Last year, I experienced a switch in the traffic (I prefer ‘readers’) to my letter—no longer did the essays, such as this one, gain the most readers but, at some point, the fiction took over. This makes me happy—my fiction is very much at the heart of who I am, and why I am here, after all. In the next few weeks I shall be sharing a letter about this, about my fiction, and a few ideas about how, perhaps, you might be able to help me with that.

In case you missed it, my sister

Lydia Crow

shared a fantastically thought-provoking piece with The Crow’s Nest last week. If you missed that, it is here:

As ever, many thanks for reading. I appreciate each and every one of you.

I am slowly catching up with replies and comments here on my letter and also over on Substack Notes. I still have some way to go, but I have made a start.

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Thanks again,

Alex

1. When I first thought of this, I wondered if that knowledge was still there in my brain, from thirty-something years ago. It is. For example, I can still remember precisely how far my tiny troops can move or shoot, what their close combat skills are like, and whether they have a saving throw. That is a strange thing to realise.

2. A language learnt alongside my increasing grasp of French.

3. The internet allows me to look at the toolboxes of the world and select the things which work for me. That is not to be taken for granted.

4. Maybe it does now? I am not sure but, when I used to consume the news, the headlines all screamed about once in a generation events, or once every hundred year floods, or carefully couched their report in fuzzy language, a throwaway line tacked on, apologetically, ‘some scientists suggest this might be due to climate change’. Silly scientists! We cannot trust experts, remember?

5. I have also accepted that this is not going to happen in my own lifetime.