Apatheia

June 14, 2019 Richard Lawless

The refusal to feel takes a heavy toll. It not only impoverishes our emotional and sensory life - flowers are dimmer and less fragrant, our loves less ecstatic - but also impedes our capacity to process and respond to information. The energy expended in pushing down despair is diverted from more creative uses, depleting the resilience and imagination needed for fresh visions and strategies. Fear of despair erects an invisible screen, filtering out anxiety-provoking data. In a world where organisms require feedback in order to adapt and survive, this is suicidal. Now, when we most need to measure the effects of our acts, our attention and curiosity slacken as if we are already preparing for the big sleep. Doggedly attending to business-as-usual, we're denying both our despair and our ability to cope with it.

- Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self