Within this living soup are the imaginal cells that will catalyse its transformation into winged maturity. May the best among us, the most visionary, the most inclusive, be the imaginal cells – for now we are in the soup.
These analogies! Makes me hopeful, and makes me want to read her book about disasters.
The philosopher-mystic Simone Weil once wrote to a faraway friend: “Let us love this distance, which is thoroughly woven with friendship, since those who do not love each other are not separated.” We have withdrawn from each other to protect each other. And people have found ways to help the vulnerable, despite the need to remain physically distant.
Fantastic article. What struck me was when she talked about the “privatization of the human heart,” that we’ve retreated from social bonds and a shared sense of fate. Well, nothing like a pandemic to rearrange that thinking! What a perspective the disasters she’s been in and covered journalistically have given her. Bravo for finding this for us!!
Glad to finally get to this one. Solnit is so good. The caterpillar analogy especially stuck with me. We're the goo! And so much good can come out of this goo if we stay present
“I have found over and over that the proximity of death in shared calamity makes many people more urgently alive, less attached to the small things in life and more committed to the big ones, often including civil society or the common good.”
When a caterpillar enters its chrysalis, it dissolves itself, quite literally, into liquid. In this state, what was a caterpillar and will be a butterfly is neither one nor the other, it’s a sort of living soup. Within this living soup are the imaginal cells that will catalyse its transformation into winged maturity. May the best among us, the most visionary, the most inclusive, be the imaginal cells – for now we are in the soup. The outcome of disasters is not foreordained. It’s a conflict, one that takes place while things that were frozen, solid and locked up have become open and fluid – full of both the best and worst possibilities. We are both becalmed and in a state of profound change.
But this is also a time of depth for those spending more time at home and more time alone, looking outward at this unanticipated world. We often divide emotions into good and bad, happy and sad, but I think they can equally be divided into shallow and deep, and the pursuit of what is supposed to be happiness is often a flight from depth, from one’s own interior life and the suffering around us – and not being happy is often framed as a failure. But there is meaning as well as pain in sadness, mourning and grief, the emotions born of empathy and solidarity. If you are sad and frightened, it is a sign that you care, that you are connected in spirit.
These analogies! Makes me hopeful, and makes me want to read her book about disasters.
uf, same! I miss my library being open, this one is definitely waiting for me to read.
Fantastic article. What struck me was when she talked about the “privatization of the human heart,” that we’ve retreated from social bonds and a shared sense of fate. Well, nothing like a pandemic to rearrange that thinking! What a perspective the disasters she’s been in and covered journalistically have given her. Bravo for finding this for us!!
After reading the devastating George Packer article yesterday, it felt very good to read something a bit more positive! :)
Glad to finally get to this one. Solnit is so good. The caterpillar analogy especially stuck with me. We're the goo! And so much good can come out of this goo if we stay present
Yes, yes, yes.
“I have found over and over that the proximity of death in shared calamity makes many people more urgently alive, less attached to the small things in life and more committed to the big ones, often including civil society or the common good.”
🤾♂️