Sit down and shut up

They gathered around the fire. It crackled as they sat, waiting. Stars flooded the night sky. The elder spoke.

“This is a story from long ago. It tells us about what’s coming.”

~~~

Andrew woke up. Queens of the Stone Age was playing on his two-versions-behind iPhone, severing him from a sleep he’d entered reluctantly, finally, after his laptop had died.

“Ugh.”

He skimmed through his messages, notifications, mentions, the latest scores, the news. He got out of bed and moved through the house, some family members stirring, others still fast asleep. Singlet, shorts, sneakers. Out the door, trying not to creak it too much. Shoes on, out the gate, set the Fitbit timer on.

Slowly Andrew began to wake up as he moved down the street, up the gentle hill that lead out of his cul de sac. What was that dream? It was still fresh in his mind. He could heard the voice but the lasting impression was the fire and the stars, the small group gathered around it. He struggled to recall the details, retracing his dream steps in vain. He pondered its meaning for a moment, then moved on, resolving to take the kids camping some time soon.

He worked his way around the suburb and up and down his to do list, acknowledging other runners, trying to maintain his pace. He wondered if he enjoyed running, and if wondering about it was a sign he didn’t. He was glad to live in such a beautiful place. How he was able to live for so long in a dirty, noisy, concrete jungle, he couldn’t understand. Priorities change, but then why had Roberta’s parents moved to a spot that was only minutes from heavy industry? Sure, it was picturesque, but still… He approached his home, sped up, and stopped the timer a few metres before reaching the gate.

Slowing down, he started to gather his breath. It had never really cooled down overnight, and the rising sun was already hot. He remembered something he’d heard recently, during some heatwave or another. Hot days are bad enough, but it’s the hot nights that are a real killer, depriving people of the respite they badly need – and usually get – when the sun goes down.

Shoes off. His wife was waiting with a kiss as he entered the front door.

“Sorry, gotta run. Oh, it’s hot out here! Great, I’m gonna be covered in sweat by the time I get to the station.”

“You want a lift?”

“It’s fine, I need the exercise. Have a good day.” And with that she was gone.

Bess was nearby, carrying a poster she’d drawn and coloured in, that said “Be RESILIENT and BUONCE back”, with a girl bouncing a ball on it.

He leaned in for a cuddle.

“Eww Dad you’re all sweaty! You’ll wreck my poster!”

“Sorry! Maybe you wanna come for a run with me next time?”

“I’d love to!”

“C’mon, we need to get you ready for school. Have you eaten breakfast?”

Mornings were relentless. Life was relentless. Still, they seemed to manage ok.

~~~

“I want to listen to Electric Car!”

“No! I want Fragments of Time.”

“Bess asked first, you can have yours after, Joe.”

“Yay!”

“Stop gloating.”

“Bloody potholes,” Andrew muttered to himself.

“Where?” Joe looked out the window.

“Why are there potholes, Dad?”

“I dunno. Roads wear out over time, so we have to keep fixing them. You can’t just stop when the road is built. You have to maintain it, keep it in good condition, repair it – ”

“Are you talking about roadworks?” Bess interrupted. “I hate roadworks. They make us late.”

“Well if Dad had gotten out the door on time...” Andrew gave Joe a quick and pointed glance. “Well it’s Bess’ fault too,” Joe continued. “It took her 10 minutes to brush her teeth!”

“You always pick on me!”

“C’mon you two, let’s try and pretend we like each other for a little while. What have you got on at school today?”

“We’re doing that working bee in the school garden – “

“My gloves!”

“Damn it! It’s ok, I’ll go back.”

“But then we’ll be even later! We’ll be able to borrow some. Mr Tan said they have spares.”

“But I want mine! The ones at school are all old and dirty!” Bess started to cry. Andrew turned the

blinker on and turned off the highway.

“Dad, you always give in to her!”

~~~

Andrew was a sustainability officer with Council. After dropping the kids off at school he pulled into the carpark, checking his emails on his phone while he walked over to the office. “Bastards’ve left without me,” he thought, glancing around at the empty desks. He spotted Lisa heading out, mug in hand.

“Morning. They’ve just left. You coming?”

“Hang on, I’ll just grab my cup.”

They walked off together, and found the others at the café, some seated, some still waiting for their order.

Andrew collected his soy flat white and joined the others at the table. It was covered with ceramic cups and keepcups of all shapes and sizes. They were talking about a conference.

“How was it?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot that was on. Were there any good speakers?”

“It was actually really good. I caught up with Peter Gray, he gave a good talk. He spoke about this citizen science trial they’re running. The highlight was probably – hang on, I wrote down her name… Vera… Likovska? I think. I can’t read my own writing. I’ll have to Google her. Her talk was called “ – she started to chuckle – “Crush Sustainability.“

“That’s what our unit should be called.”

“As in – we crushed it? We killed it, like, we did it well? Or crush as in destroy sustainability?”

“Crush as in destroy! She stood up there and kinda said we’re all wasting our time.”

“Wow, what do you mean. Like, us? Council?”

“Yeah, but no, more than that. She started off by saying Game Over. We’ve lost. She blew a whistle!”

“Oh my god, how pretentious!”

“What a classic!”

“She was saying that we’re in the sustainability business, and business is booming. There’s more sustainability officers now than ever, more grant money, more policies and legislation. But that the game to achieve sustainability is over.”

“What?”

“Wow. That’s a bit harsh.”

“She might be right.”

“Did she have a solution?”

“Where was she from again?”

“I’m not sure, she might have been from the uni. Ah, no, she didn’t really give any advice. But she was just really eloquent and compelling. It was a little bit depressing, but actually I mostly felt energised after. Like, you hear so many talks, we’re doing this, we’re doing that, we’re going to achieve this, reduce that... And she was like: Nuh. We’re not!”

“So what was her point? That we’re losing the sustainability game?”

“Well I –“ everyone looked at Andrew – “I don’t necessarily think we’re winning, but I think we’re actually moving, kind of moving in the right direction. Even though there’s a lot to be depressed about, there’s also a lot to be optimistic about. You shoulda heard my kids talking about their veggie garden at school.”

“We’ve got a community garden just down the road from us. It’s really lovely. Not sure it would feed many people though.”

“It’s funny you say moving in the right direction. She was talking about how there was once an election campaign where the slogan was “There’s lots to do, but we’re heading in the right direction”. She said it was smart because there weren’t any promises about when we’d arrive at wherever it was we were heading towards. She said for us it’s worse than that: we have no idea where we’re even trying to get to.”

Again, silence. It was hard to tell whether the silence was disapproval, the sound of thoughts being provoked or just morning grogginess.

“What does she think is the right direction? Or destination?”

“Her words were ‘We have no idea what sustainability looks like.’ ”

“Right…”

“But isn’t it just the sum of all the things we do? Y’know, like recycling, better materials, better design, green energy…”

“She wasn’t disagreeing with all the sustainability things we do, she just said that they’re not making an impact. Not really. That it’s a drop in the ocean.”

Andrew’s colleague went on.

“All the sustainability action is just repeatedly and massively swamped by all the other things we do – she said sustainability is a bug in the windshield of progress. Commerce and politics and day to day crap, running the house and staring at screens – they suck up about 99% of our collective energy and time, and do 99% of our damage. Meanwhile no one can say what sustainability actually is – what it would mean for all of us, collectively and individually, to live sustainably.”

“That reminds me of our changing define definition of health – it’s not just the absence of illness any more, right? I think the positive psychology movement might have had something to do with it, at least in terms of mental health. Basically saying that most of what we know is from people with broken brains –  you know, tamping rods exploded into their skull, hemispheres severed, that kind of thing – and that’s been incredibly productive, but that it has limits and it might actually be useful to consider what good psychological health is, you know, other than just not being sick.”

“Interesting.”

“So what does sustainability look like?”

“She didn’t say. She just said it’s time to shut the sustainability enterprise down.”

“That definitely sounds depressing”

“Who invited her?”

“I don’t mind being provoked, but I’m not sure that message is a productive one”

“Well, like I said, I should have been depressed by what she said but it was actually kind of good. Like giving yourself permission to not just go along with everything for a change. Like waking up from a dream.”

Andrew thought back to his dream.

“I’d better get back. I’ve got a report to write on e-waste.”

“I’ve got a meeting with the Department about the new bushfire communications campaign.”

“I hope it goes well.”

“Alrighty, better get back to it.”

~~~

On the way back home from school, Bess and Joe were talking about their working bee.

“ – and Marta fell over and scratched her knee, but she got to pick the first passionfruit – ”

“Yum, did you get any?”

“Yeah. It was yummy.”

“Did you save any for me?”

“No!”

“Isn’t it great that you get to have a garden, and work on it, at school?”

“Yeah!”

“I guess,” Joe said. “It was satisfying. But I got all hot and sticky and dirty. I‘d rather have been in the air conditioned library reading books.”

“Fair enough.”

~~~

That night, after the chaos of homework, school lunches, bathing, dinner, washing up and bedtime, after they’d finished with their phones and watched an episode of Bird Box, after they’d postponed their weekly family catchup meeting, Andrew recounted some of the coffee conversation to Roberta.

“We don’t even know what sustainability looks like!” he said.

“You should look that woman from the conference up” Roberta said, yawning, before rolling over and falling asleep.

Andrew lay there alone with his thoughts. He felt the flicker of an impulse to pick up his phone. To watch something, do something. He could even turn it into a positive experience by googling the conference speaker. But he forced his hand away from the phone, back to bed. He set the alarm on his phone and switched it to flight mode. He looked out the window and smiled to see a few stars, straining against the smog and light pollution.

~~~

The air was cold, despite the radiant heat from the fire. The elder spoke softly.

“I’m going to tell you a story. From the old times. You need to listen.”

Andrew couldn’t hear her properly, or was it that he couldn’t understand? Somehow, a long time passed, and the flames were gone and there was darkness, and he was alone. A miraculous, vast silence rang out in front of him, inside of him. And then his alarm went off.