The labour of hope so often falls on women. Sarah Wilson argues we should reach for something else: acceptance of the fact that collapse is happening. She joined the Women’s Agenda to discuss her new book and what we do now.
Relief was the last thing I expected to feel after an hour-long conversation with author Sarah Wilson talking about systems collapse and her proposition that we’re living through the slow, compounding deterioration of the interlocking systems we depend on.
But that’s where the conversation landed — in the relief of letting go of the relentless, exhausting hope that we will somehow, personally fix what is breaking. And relief in taking permission to start living well and in ways that can support those around us.
The journalist, social philosopher and best-selling author has just released her new book, I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World, out now.
The book confirms that uneasy sense that we’re living through a time of many different crises happening at once — from climate change to global conflicts, the rise of authoritarian regimes and growing inequality. The times we’re experiencing follow the same pattern that all complex civilisations throughout history have eventually faced: collapse due to their interlocking systems and complexity, creating problems that cannot be solved, typically within 250 to 300 years. It happens slowly at first, before accelerating. Wilson argues we are past the point of fixing things.
The book is built on 200 conversations with philosophers, poets, game theorists, and spiritual leaders, and on five years of dedicated research. It was serialised, chapter by chapter, on Wilson’s Substack, where her readers followed along in real time. Wilson said that what kept coming back to her from her readers and her own experiences was the relief of finally being able to say what was going on.
“There was a cognitive dissonance going on for me, and I think for a lot of people,” she says. “We’re all meant to be hopeful, and we’re all meant to be positive about everything. And yet the headlines were telling us something very, very different. And I actually think it’s at the core of a lot of the anxiety that is buzzing around in society at the moment.”
The labour of hope so often falls on women, including those who’re organising climate marches, holding families together, doing the unpaid and underpaid care work, making connections, organising, and so often trying to fix things they had little to no responsibility for breaking.
Wilson adds that these times call for “fierce mother energy,” which she sharply juxtaposes with what she calls the “fierce toddler energy” of the men currently running much of the world.
“Fierce toddler energy has to be met with fierce mother energy,” she argues. Women may be best placed to lead through it.
As for what we do now, Wilson says it’s less about being fearful and despairing of what is happening and more about being honest about what we’re experiencing. Inviting children into the conversation, examining our relationship with technology and choosing cooperation over individualism.
It also means resisting the tactics of chaos, including Steve Bannon’s push for the Trump administration to “flood the zone” to make people numb and inert to the constant stream of news.
And it means leaning into the things humans have always done in moments like this: connecting with each other.
Wilson points to some of the most difficult experiences in human history, when people have remained resilient and even sought to cooperate more effectively with one another and engage in camaraderie over common causes.
“The salve for collapse is the same as the salve for loneliness. It is to come back into our humanity,” she says.
“We’ve got to remember that we as a species are actually quite feeble and frail,” Wilson says.
“We don’t run particularly fast. We don’t have fangs. We don’t have horns. The only thing that has enabled us to survive — and reach the top of the proverbial food chain is our ability to communicate and collaborate and band together, and basically upload our knowledge into mythologies, into stories, into shared knowledge systems.
“That is what makes us human. And that is actually the only technique that can get us out of trouble. It has done so throughout history.”
Humanity is far from finished, Wilson argues. What is finished is a particular system — neoliberal, extractive, individualist, patriarchal — and the way through is to stop clinging to it. Women, she suggests, may be best placed to see that clearly, and to lead what comes next.
Sarah Wilson joined me on The Women’s Agenda Podcast. Listen on Spotify, iTunes, your favourite platform, or below.
Sarah Wilson’s I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World is out now in Australia and New Zealand.