June 29, 2025

pick a thread and pull

In her essay “Insurrectionary Aunthood,” published in the recent collection No Straight Road Takes You There, author and historian Rebecca Solnit¹ writes that in many areas of thought, like biology, economics, and sociology, we're seeing a shift toward “a more systemic, more interconnected worldview that emphasizes human empathy, sharing, and collaboration.”

Its antithesis is what I think of as “the ideology of isolation”: fundamental to modern right-wing worldviews is the idea that nothing is connected to anything else, that actions either have no consequences or actors have no responsibility for consequences, the libertarian logic used for tax cuts, gun deregulation, the refusal to address climate change, and, in 2020, the furious refusal to comply with the actions that would limit the spread of Covid-19.

'Isolationists' and 'interconnectionists' might be more useful terms for the political divides of our time than 'left' and 'right'. The isolationists deny the scientific and moral case for interconnection as fact and treat its mention as an affront, whether it’s how human-produced carbon dioxide accumulating in the upper atmosphere changes the climate or how viruses circulate or how much oppression is the result of systemic rather than individual failure. You could describe the position as: “Nothing is mutual, there is therefore no justification for aid.”

I find myself paralyzed by the deluge of cruel, isolationist policy, by the images of police brutality as people are kidnapped off the streets, by the ongoing erosion of democratic institutions and civil rights, by the ignorance of the looming threat of climate catastrophe. Yesterday’s gutting of universal injunctions in the Supreme Court Trump v. CASA ruling left me speechless and afraid. In her dissent, Justice Jackson wrote “The Court’s decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law.”

Existential threat, descent into fascism, darkness, doom, despair--I feel all of it, regularly, sometimes so much it’s hard to feel anything else. I keep returning to a framework set forth by the Post Carbon Institute: The Great Unraveling.² It refers to the “polycrisis” of our time, when everything is so interconnected, and everything is under so much terrible strain. I need this framework. I rely on it. An “unraveling,” though still intimidating, turns these challenges into a transformation instead of a descent. Transformation means we can affect the outcome. When we unravel what exists, we can weave it into something new.

When the crises of our lives are so numerous and so interconnected, they often feel so vast as to be insurmountable. But the sheer interconnectedness--all those connections that those on the so-called “left” can see--allows us to pull back from overwhelm. Change one thing, and change ripples through it all.³ That old greenwashed truism “think globally, act locally” obscures the reciprocity of both. I keep telling myself: Pick a thread and pull.

My solo business has given me freedom, and imbued my life with more ease and meaning. Since I left the workforce to freelance, my activist work has been less out on the streets, more relational and woven into the patterns of my life. I’ve always tried to live like the world I want to live in already exists, in an effort to bring that world forth: interrogating whiteness and advocating for its abolition as much as I can, supporting incarcerated writers through my volunteer work with Empowerment Avenue, donating to local Palestinian relief efforts through Gather Good, and some trail maintenance here and there at my local climbing crag. (I’ve added in calling my Republican senators daily, even as it feels like shouting into the void.) These acts, habitual as they are, no longer feel like enough. It feels like slow transformation at a time when we need urgency.

I’m in the midst of a life and business transformation. I’m restructuring things. Re-ordering. Determining how to better live a life I love, and am proud of, within my means. Part of that is finding my thread, and pulling harder.