Diversity is Me

After reading “The Affective Arc of Undergraduate Environmental Studies Curricula” by Sarah Jaquette Ray a lot of the concerns I had with the major were addressed. At some point during the semester, I started to question whether or not I made the right choice pursuing an undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies (ES). Reading the article reminded me that it is common for ES students to “become despairing and even apathetic” (p. 3). However, I am grateful to have broadened my horizons to a deeper understanding of identity politics, structural injustice, and power and privilege. At Mad River Community Hospital, it is hard for me to find the weak spots, as mentioned in “Training Transformative Leaders Through Critical Service-Learning,” to be critical about the organization because as I see it everyone needs healthcare no matter the positionality. Perhaps it takes time to realize those sort of things, and possibly even takes being part of the staff in meetings. At such a small hospital everyone knows everyone. I would like to say there is not a lot of diversity and think maybe I’m the diversity, a thick, long, black-haired Filipina.

The tool ENST has given me is something I can carry with me throughout the course of my life. Sometimes I question myself whether or not it is better to have “ignorant bliss” or carry around with me “depressing knowledge” (p.8). This is why I think it is important to develop a tough skin. To be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16). I think the discomfort is something to embrace and part of being wise is knowing that happiness comes and goes. I would not want to change a thing about the major discipline. Not even allowing students to create their own syllabus. I come to school and pay for classes seeking direction. I agree there is a huge leap of trust in student to faculty and a whole lot of integrity on the part of the faculty, but I think it is a good system. These ES classes allow room for creativity but also follows some kind of structure, which I think is great.

Distress Synonymous to Critical Hope

      Any college student goes through stages of emotional grief, stress and anguish either from the pressure to perform well and, or the material they are learning. While I can only speak for myself on this matter, I would assume many of my classmates experience these feelings as well. Although environmental studies is an emotionally grueling major, we at Humboldt State have the full support of our teachers and classmates. Together, we have made it through some of the emotionally toughest classes, environmental crises, and environmental movies. Why do I say together we make it through these tough times? Because together we become a caring collective, rather than individualized freaks who care about environmental justice. This collectiveness gives us power to continue caring about and acting upon the injustices of the world and a chance to be inspired by each other.

      When the Environmental Studies department showed the movie How to Love the World and All the Things Climate Change can’t Change, you could feel the distress that the entire room and see the tears of many of our students. It may not have been a comfortable experience, but “discomfort is not inconsistent with meaningful hope” (Ray). This movie is one of many events I can look back upon and remember the collective discomfort of our classmates from the images of environmental destruction. This discomfort is synonymous to critical hope however, because discomfort means that we care, and since we care, we can actively participate in helping save what we do not want destroyed.

      Our amazing environmental studies teachers give us so much freedom to express our feelings in class discussions when we talk about readings, and through the many writing assignments we are entitled to. In this way, our teachers are helping us deal with our anguish, distress, and discomfort. Why do environmental studies students experience such high emotional stress? The “‘urgency + inability’ equation,” of environmental problems “can overwhelm students with a sense of hopelessness and despair” which can lead students into a sense of emotional crisis (Davis).  As a student, would not expect any of our teachers to become our personal therapists in our time of crisis, that’s not their job. Instead, I am thankful for what they do for us and inspired by our teacher’s active and constant role modeling of empathy and agency, which is what we students need, in order to get through tough times.

      We look to our teachers for answers, and sometimes we may demand more than they can give us. As environmental studies students, we come to realize that “hope is not a good strategy in itself. Anguish, discomfort, shame, guilt, even apathy are all productive affects for decolonizing environmental studies” because it can lead to crafting the agency we need in order to tackle the world (Ray).

      Our teacher’s role model agency through their various projects and community interactions outside of the classroom. Some of our teachers write their own books for their classes which gives them the power to write from an environmental justice perspective rather than a common colonialist one. Steven Hackett wrote his class book on Environmental Economics which shows ways that environmental justice behavior can be economically efficient, which is a commonly overlooked theme in the economics world. Lonny Grafman wrote his book on rainwater catchment systems in other countries which role model appropriate technology and sustainability from a community partnering perspective, rather than a white jesus one. Laura Johnson wrote an article which was published in the local newspaper on local community farms she had volunteered on. Nate Swensen took us on field trips to these local farms then offered us extra credit hours for volunteering at the farms. These writings and partnerships not only demonstrate what we students can do with our writing skills outside of the classroom, but how teachers participate in environmental activism, and how we can too.

      Through our Senior Capstone Projects, we are pushed to participate in environmental justice projects in whatever way we may choose. We have the choice to write research papers or participate in service learning through community partnerships. In our service learning, we may choose to get and give whatever we want out of it, but we are encouraged to use our agency to fuel critical service learning. Critical service-learning “combines traditional service-learning with elements of critical, justice-oriented frameworks, such as feminist and race theories” it also “considers the complexity of history and misdistribution of power in social contexts” which are common themes in the environmental studies curricula. Through our teacher’s examples of environmental justice projects, and our service learning projects, we students are prepared and able to take our Environmental Justice lenses and our Environmental Studies Curricula into action in the “real world”.

      Our teachers lead us by example, guide our curricula through critical analysis, and offer us opportunities to be active in the world. Our disparities become what we call critical hope through the connections we have created between ideas, ideologies, and each other. Many of these thoughts and experiences may be uncomfortable; however they offer us inspiration, and push us to be the agents of the change wish to see in the world.

Citations:

Davis, Danielle Joy. Training Transformative Leaders Through Critical Service Learning. Association for Career and Technical Education. 2007.

Ray. Sarah Jaquette, Affective Ecocriticism Manuscript- Final Draft with Chicago Style

In Sarah Ray’s article titled “Affective Arc in es Classroom,” she states “Working through their emotional responses, considering and responding to the emotions of others, and conversing, thinking, and reflecting, builds community and cultivates the ecological imagination; these are all actions.” As Sarah Ray also points out, typically, when people think of “action,” they think of going out and joining a picket line and creating one big change. However, real change is done in “small” increments opposed to “one cataclysmic moment.” Much of this article is discussing how millennials are part of a generation that generally looks to instant gratification. Naturally, because of this, many millennials tend to be impatient when it comes to issues like social change. Also, millennials are faced with a time period where there is more awareness of problems and collective need for change than there ever has been. This is where Environmental Studies comes in as something that is typically overlooked; a time and area for reflexivity and empathy for each other. As Sarah Ray states, “These skills are needed in order to avoid slipping into paralysis, for destabilizing existing power relations, and for creating the affective conditions for sustaining min and body in the face of crisis.” Naturally, through the Environmental Studies program, students will enter a downward spiral of despair and the feeling of being overwhelmed, but through dedicating class time, we are able to process “the affective trajectory that students will inevitably experience.” Sarah, if you’re reading this, PLEASE assign this reading during ENST 120. In my opinion, having a full understand of this before going through the process itself will encourage students to project themselves in class and ultimately create more empathy within the program.

Critical Service Learning and the Affective Arc: Using Privilege for Good?

"They thought they were going to college to learn how to save the world, but instead they are asked to deconstruct cherished beliefs— in their own moral righteousness, in the belief that Nature can be saved, and in their concept of Nature itself." --Dr. Sarah Ray, Professor and Program Leader of Environmental Studies at HSU

Well then, if the above statement does not sum up the past 2 years of college at Humboldt State, then I don't know what does. 

The senior capstone service learning project I have decided to tackle is an attempt at gathering and collecting my deconstructed privileges and abilities, and using them for good. Will I succeed? Meh, that's beside the point. ;-)

I have been an avid hiker since my family introduced me in my youths to Yosemite's trek up to Half Dome, and the SF Bay Area coastal hills. 

 I then decided to turn those years of hiking into a profession and construct hiking trails for a living. 
 However, the twist is: I hadn't recognized my privilege of being able to access those trails until I took a "Power and Privilege" Environmental Studies course at HSU. Lots of "uncomfortable self-reflection" went into recognizing my "established normative positions" on the realization that some have physical limitations that seclude them from ever getting to experience the places I had been (Ray).

This is tough. This is also why I chose to turn my service learning project into a "critical service learning" experience to try and dig a little deeper into "becoming an agent of social equality via critical analysis" after considering the "misdistribution of power in social contexts" surrounding accessibility in the outdoors (Davis). 

I am therefore, widening a trail for wheelchair use that goes from the main hub at the Humboldt Coastal Nature Center, out to the beach, and spread the word to the community as to why "promoting inclusively and dismantling long standing privileges fostered by maintenance of the statues quo" aka restricting access to hiking trails for only "able-bodied" people should be checked.  

NOW....will I boil down social stratification into a heterogeneous yummy soup full of flavor? Probably not, but, this is my attempt at encouraging fractal changes and doing what I can with what I have gained from Environmental Studies. 

The Emotional Rollercoaster of Environmental Revelations

Life, undoubtedly for all of us humans, is inherently emotional. The degree at which we foster, express, or actively apply those emotions to the constant unfolding of events around us is what varies. Some people are raised in what I would call emotionally repressed households, where there is certainly love for one another, but vulnerability isn’t expressed, and deep emotional connections are not the basis of conversations or bonds among family members. Others are raised in homes where the freedom to express emotions, creativity, and vulnerability is highly encouraged and forms the foundation of family values. Now, there are also a plethora of other family relationships, household types, and core family values, and many families cultivate an environment that is emotionally suppressing at times and then encouraging at others. Family and emotional dynamics are no static thing. My point is this; our relationships to our parents, siblings if we have any, extended family, and the community at large are what define the scope of our affective palpability as individuals. The emotional environments we are raised in a visit the most frequently define our sensitivity and expression as affective communicators.

 

The beautiful and loving women in my family. From the left, my mom, sister Caitlin, cousin Callie, my wife Chelsea, and cousin Rory.

               For me, I was raised in an emotionally encouraging household. We spoke of our feelings, our pain, and our excitements about life. It created a deep bond between myself, my parents, and my siblings. Even with this solid background of support, confronting the crisis at hand regarding the worlds current ecological state, the many looming social, race, and gender inequalities, and realizing my privileged position within this whole mess was emotionally challenging to say the least. Our professor Sarah Ray wrote about the progression of emotions her students experience in the ES curriculum and how acknowledging and addressing these emotions are important to her teaching style yet should be handled with care. She asks a question that I feel accurately summarizes this dilemma, “How can attending to the affective experiences of students in ES curricula do triple-duty: cultivating resilience in our students, protecting faculty from burnout, and contributing to planetary salvation?” (Ray, 2). I believe her and those studying this issue do an excellent job at attempting to answer these question, and although I most certainly cannot answer them myself, the discussion is one I believe we can all contribute to.

A good friend helps with the emotional rollercoaster. Nich Graham hitch-hiking near Lake Tahoe, CA.

               Since we are all inherently emotional beings, then we must all have some form of emotional knowledge and understanding. These questions do not merely address the challenges of ES students and faculty, but like the last question of the sentence highlighted, involve the entire planet. Every human on this planet already has or soon will undergo an emotional journey related to the current situation of our world, both ecologically, and culturally. These emotional revelations come at a cost, they have the potential to hinder our capacity to feel and to use those feelings for good. Luckily, since we all have varying degrees of emotional comprehension and communication, finding solutions to address the affective arc of ES students can involve everyone, in and outside of the classroom. Our families, our friends, even our enemies can help us grow as emotional beings and contribute to us healthily processing the feelings we encounter when faced with a, to say it bluntly, fucked up world. For me, getting to know the land around Humboldt State University, and especially the people, was essential to my ability to process the emotions related this the ES curriculum. I become aware of the indigenous presence almost instantly upon my arrival to this area two years ago, and through a few Native American Studies classes and my good friend Matthew Marshall, a Hupa native, I was welcomed into their world. Seeing their strength, resilience, and survival against the odds is enough emotional energy to empower anyone that can feel.

Matthew Marshall as a boy with his family fishing hole in the background. Hoopa, CA.

               Another effective way to utilize these powerful emotions to “contribute to planetary salvation” as Ray put it, is to engage ourselves in the communities around us, applying our critical lens for the empowerment and betterment of those around us. Danielle Davis Joy in her article on Critical Service Learning states that, “While prepping educational leadership students for required testing is crucial, preparing for subsequent practice so adult learners develop the ability to critique and respond to the complexity of community and stakeholder needs must not be overlooked” (Joy, 12). This statement encourages imbedded training within curriculum like ES that trains for and is reactive to the response of real world issues. What a better way to create emotional support for students struggling through the affective arc then to prepare them to face challenges, emotions, and the complexity of issues outside of the classroom, head-on. Its like playing chicken with your doubts, insecurities, and fears. If you look away or decide to turn out last second, you never learn to understand or defeat the obstacles.

 

              

I found my Voice through my Environmental Studies

I am in college ready to be someone entirely dedicated to what I believe in and have a prominent voice in this adult world. I started off as a Wildlife major thinking working animals be my life later in the future. I switched over to Environmental Studies,  and wow I was blown away by the terminology. The deep-rooted passion that my professor Sarah Ray brought to the classroom every day about so many real-world problems. I starting this major in my second year of college was a blessing in disguise, looking back now. I thought at first what did I get myself into picking a major when every class lecture is all about depressing events around our earth and how many cannot be solved. I have battled with my sense of self-doubt if our world could actually be saved or not after being introduced to many foreign ideas plus thoughts. More than not the material in the course has been a tough pill to swallow.

Reading Sarah’s work the  “The Affective Arc of Undergraduate Environmental Studies Curricula” and reading this quote by her:

“working through their emotional responses, considering and responding to the emotions of others, and conversing, thinking, and reflecting, builds community and cultivates the ecological imagination: these are all actions”(12).

This quote made me realize how deeply willing she as a professor and a person to make her students the best they can be while staying mentally, emotionally, plus physically stable. The concepts I have learned throughout the years by Sarah Ray, I know I wouldn't have come to these ideas or thoughts ever in my life. Another quote that definitely explains the experience I have had in Sarah’s class is that we “the ‘Students’ deep engagement with the material is a sign of success, and our task is to politicize and direct those emotions in ways that give them a sense that they are improving the world” (Ray 2). Improving the world and having now the skills to cope with tough depressing ideas brought many of my classmates and I to the end goal ‘Capstone project’. I am doing a learning base service project with Trinidad Coastal Land Trust located in the beautiful city of Trinidad, CA. I am using my knowledge and experience from my classes and experiences to be the best intern I can be for this organization. I am stoked already having almost 20 hours done and many more to go. I get to learn how a non-profit land trust works and learn many skills of what needs to happen to keep the organization running strong. I am glad to have this opportunity to learn more about the environment, community, the history of where I am going to school. Environmental Studies major has given me a window of opportunities that will greatly help my future job and personal goals in my life.

The Importance of Education in Regards to the Health of the Earth and Future Generations

           

          Through my journey over the years in gaining experience working with children educational setting, I ponder upon questions such as, are we failing children in general with the same old, by the book teachings? Do politics get in the way of teaching our children substantial information that could better our planet? How can I use my interdisciplinary degree to my a difference through childhood education, when the educational system vastly caters to a structure in which creative thinking is underrated?

              In the reading assigned in my environmental studies class this week entitled, "Training Transformative Leaders Through Critical Service-Learning" the authors questions the school systems and how one could reform the educational system as a whole. She states, " I wondered what strategies teachers of future administrators in education could employ to develop the skills needed for leaders to cultivate the capacity to transform ineffective schools" (Davis 12). I found this quote powerful because I am currently service learning at Sunnybrae Middle School at the after school program and I have done a lot of thinking about what types of activities I can do with these children that can encompass my passions as well as effectively affect the lives of the children in a positive manner. My passions include environmental education and music. I have racked my brain for weeks about how I can implement both of those things within the kids in such a small amount of time at an after school program. The biggest challenge has been the question being, what I can do that will actually keep these children interested? The age group (6th-8th grade) is such a tough age group to keep focused and interested educationally.

            I have talked with some of my music major peers and developed a few ideas based on some of the activist bands I aspire to. At the after school program, there are designated times set aside for different activities during the allocated time. I have already gotten to know the kids and have learned which kids might be interested in doing musical activities. For the first few activities, I plan on focusing on the environment, poetry and dialogue/monologues. I will ask the kids to team up with a partner or a group and to write down that they think the definition of "environment" is. Then I will ask a series of questions including, questions such as: What is your favorite part of nature and the environment? What harms are being inflicted on the environment? Who do you think is conflicting these harms? How can we change this? I will likely come up with some more kid-appropriate questions regarding the environment and nature.  

       Once that is completed, I will hold an open discussion about the questions. I will then ask them to either come up with poems regarding these thoughts or come up with dialogue in which the kids can have with one another on the topic. I anticipate this part of the activity will take a couple days of the program’s activity times. Next, I would like to introduce music to the activity and combine the poetry with music. I plan on bringing in various instruments such as my guitar, drum sticks, egg shakers and more. I have learned that there are some good singers in the program and one kid that can beat box. I would like to create songs with the poems and add the dialogue as well such as monologues between the kids. I will use my knowledge from my music minor to assign musical parts to all the kids.

          Although I appreciate what my peers are doing at the Sunnybrae Middle School after school program with activities such as ceramics, baking and basketball because those types of activities encourage teamwork and such, I really want to use my opportunity through this service learning project to change it up a bit. I want to encourage the kids to think in ways they maybe have not thought about the world and environment while including music. I hope that this activity will encourage positive thoughts and ambition for the kids to partake in positive activities for the world and their futures. Danielle Davis also states that, "Administrators should hold the disposition or belief that education serves as a key component to social mobility and opportunity, as well as understand the value of equity and diversity in a democratic society" (Davis 13). I agree with this statement because I wholeheartedly believe that education is possibly the most important key to shaping a healthy, and prosperous society.

              I am not anticipating that I will one day reform the entire educational system to be more progressive and that the next generation will magically all become environmental activists. I recognize that many people within the environmental spectrum of interdisciplinary studies come into this degree with the mindset that they will, "fix the world" but I just want to make a tiny dent. I am a firm believer that many tiny actions can collectively lead to a more just world. In the writing entitled, "The Affective Arc of Undergraduate Environmental Studies Curricula" the author, and also my professor, Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray so beautifully states, "ES classes put students on an affective roller coaster as they learn about the complexity of the issues, intersections between social justice and the environment, and their complicity in damaging both. Course material challenges their cherished beliefs—in positivism, in objective truth, and in the nature of knowledge, "(4).  I recognize that I am not going to put an end to environmental degradation by myself. I am fully aware that many changed must occur in order for a shift in paradigms to occur.  At the moment, I just hope that I can be a positive influence in the lives of these kids through music and dialogue about the environment.

How ENST has shifted my view on the environment

I have metamorphized in so many ways since I first became an environmental studies student. I could have never dreamed of how ENST could drastically change my perspective in the way that it has. As Dr. Sarah Ray states in Affective Ecocriticism Manuscript, “the ENST degree is [in some ways] some kind of 12-step program, with its own arc of affects, moving in stages from idealism, lost innocence, shame, denial, grief, apathy, optimism, and then, I can only hope, agency to work against diminution.” (Ray 1).

     As I approach my last two semesters as an undergraduate student, I can’t help but notice that I’ve gone through many of these stages. Being an ENST student is perhaps the most emotionally taxing major there is. A lot of people assume that it is an “easier” version of environmental science, but I’d argue that in some ways it’s much more difficult. Dr. Ray explains this when she writes, “students who choose ES because they think it will be safe, feel-good, and easy are upset when they learn that addressing environmental problems will require uncomfortable self-reflection, not just learning how to argue better from established normative positions.” (Ray 5). This certainly held true for me.

     As Dr. Ray has pointed out, being aware of the social aspects of environmental knowledge deeply challenges one’s belief systems. I had never heard of the term, “environmental racism” until these past few years. I used to believe environmentalists were most always aligned with human rights activists, and it crushed me to find out about the many controversies associated with environmentalism. The concept of conservation refugees outraged me. I was heartbroken when I learned that environmentalists kicked indigenous peoples out of their lands for the sake of conservation areas, despite the fact that they were protecting their land on their own.

     I used to think that all we needed to do to “save the environment” was to participate in beach clean ups, recycle, eat vegetarian, and perform simple daily tasks that help reduce our impact on the planet. While I still believe that it’s important to do these things, I was crushed to find out that on its own, it is simply not enough. Globally speaking, we are going to need to go through a major transformative shift that involves reducing consumption rates while still protecting the rights of humans. Sometimes, that seems impossible, but its better to know the ugly truth than to hide in the bliss of ignorance. I went into this major having “drunk the dying-polar-bears Kool-Aid,” only to find out that it is much more complicated than that.

     Dr. Ray points out that, “The environmental justice approach shifts students’ frames of “the problem” away from a blaming-the-victim approach toward an understanding of structural injustice” (Ray 8). Understanding environmental justice has certainly changed my perspective. I used to believe that much of the environmental damage across the globe came from misuse of the land in developing nations. While in some cases this is true, it’s usually a result of multinational corporations from countries like the United States exploiting other countries lands in ways that hardly benefit the natives. ENST has given me a perspective on environmental justice that hadn’t occurred to me before.

     Now that I have entered the service learning part of my undergraduate degree, I plan to use what I’ve learned in ENST to deconstruct the value of my work and make it a critical service learning project. I have learned about the dark past of environmentalism, as well as the importance of social justice, and I hope that I can use this knowledge to offer something unique to my project with Redwood State Parks. Environmental Studies gave me a very bleak outlook on our future for quite some time, but I’m finally starting to move forward with hope that we can use a transformative approach to create a better world.

    

The Affective Arc of Undergraduate Environmental Studies Curricula

As an Environmental Studies student at Humboldt State University I have struggled a lot with the concepts that we have been introduced to and still be able to have hope. Much of the material in these course is very hard to digest because it deals with the struggles of communities which are ignored or severely exploited. Apart from social justice issues we also deal with environmental issues. Which is a major concern for many citizens due to the increasing impacts of climate change and the degradation of the environment. A paper written by my very own professor and advisor, Sarah Jaquette Ray, titled The Affective Arc of Undergraduate Environmental Studies Curricula is able to encompass many of the struggles that I have outlined. A major question these class have made me think about is: What is considered action? We have had discussions in ENST classes about this concept and it is also presented in this essay. Ray states “working through their emotional responses, considering and responding to the emotions of others, and conversing, thinking, and reflecting, builds community and cultivates the ecological imagination: these are all actions”(12). This statement is able to show that it does not have to be something grandiose in order to be considered “action”. Although I am still not sure I’m convinced. I have always been the type person who likes to have evidence that one thing causes another. I do agree that small things can create a big impact I am still wondering what the extent of that impact is if those small actions are not intentionally working towards a larger goal. For example another idea that has been brought up in this class is the myth of the individual. This has put the pressure on individuals to take shorter showers, bike to work, recycle etc. This is a concept that we have deconstructed in class and have proven ignores the larger structures that have a greater impact than the individual. Therefore it is better to target corporations and incentives them to have more regulations or take away products that we see harmful. What I am starting to wonder is if these two concepts (small actions have large impacts and the myth of the individual) are comparable and if so what would that mean about the what is defined as action. In this moment I do believe that they are comparable because they both focus on the individual and not the larger structures. By telling people it's okay to just do small tangible acts they are being let off hook for not acting on things that they believe. It does not allow for empowerment through seeing one's potential and the ability to engage directly with change.

Training Transformative Leaders Through Critical Service-Learning

I am currently very excited to finally start working on my service learning project and reading the essay Training Transformative Leaders Through Critical Service-Learning by Dannielle Joy Davis is a great way to prepare myself.  In this essay critical service-learning is defined as “ combining traditional service-learning with elements of critical, justice-oriented frameworks, such as feminist and race theories”. This is what I hope to aim towards while working at the Wildlands Conservancy although I am scared of push back. I do know that my site supervisor wants to incorporate aspects of social justice into the conservancy but there is always a limit that is allowed.  But then again I still have to get to know here better.

Pathways to Agency

This week’s reading entitled “The Affective Arc of Undergraduate Environmental Studies Curricula”, was written by none other than Sarah Ray, our professor, and it was about, well, us; environmental studies students. It was slightly unmooring to read such a definitive accounting of the emotional journey that Environmental Studies has been as we all sit tapping our feet in anticipation and terror of entering the “real world”. As I read this piece and witnessed the ensuing class response, I saw the clear juxtaposition of the “affective arc” and our many current locations within the arc (journey, constellation?). Sarah Ray writes about the “affective arc” as if it is roughly linear, while also acknowledging that it looks different for different students. As I sat looking around at the sea of my beloved peers, and heard their many frustrations, it was clear that even in our last semester, we are all in very different places in regards to affect. Some of us do seem able to embrace “critical hope” while I think others are afloat in a sea of fear and hopelessness, not only for the “environment” as a whole, but for our own individual futures as we are ejected from the safety and structure of academia. I think many of us experience this “arc” less as a linear progression of emotions and more as a constant ricochet between apathy, despair, anger, and joy. Hope, to me, often feels distant and baseless.

 Perhaps the question is less “what inspires hope, and how do we sustain hope?” and more “ what makes us feel able to get the work done?” maybe the answer to the latter question is not hope, perhaps hope can serve to impede rather than facilitate agency, as Derrick Jensen says in his essay “Beyond Hope”, linked here: https://orionmagazine.org/article/beyond-hope/ 

“When we realize the degree of agency we actually do have, we no longer have to “hope” at all. We simply do the work. We make sure salmon survive. We make sure prairie dogs survive. We make sure grizzlies survive. We do whatever it takes….. I am a complex enough being that I can hold in my heart the understanding that we are really, really fucked, and at the same time that life is really, really good. I am full of rage, sorrow, joy, love, hate, despair, happiness, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and a thousand other feelings. We are really fucked. Life is still really good.” 

It is admittedly difficult to harbour hope when it feels as though the best we can really ask for are small victories and momentary joy in the face of so much daily tedium and hardship. For me, it’s often helpful to embrace the wide spectrum of negative emotions rather than be rigid in seeking an elusive hope. I am so often assuaged with “prescriptive hope” (as our own Samantha Stone puts it) and joy, and my lack of ability to muster these emotions becomes, for me, a reason to isolate, which effectively separates me from any sense of agency. I think that perhaps it is less important to examine “hope” as a specific affective state than it is to look for alternative pathways to agency.