Is anyone else finding it increasingly difficult to make sense of the world we inhabit?

For the first 39 years of my life it was merely the faint suspicion I may have missed a crucial prenatal briefing. One in which nuggets of existential know-how were distributed to the attendant unborn, enabling them to navigate the complexities of being with slightly more success than I ever seemed to manage.

But then 2016 happened, and the sudden downhill trajectory left me with what might well be permanent whiplash.

Brexit makes no sense to me even now, Trump as president even less. Brazil in the hands of Bolsonaro? Southern Italians proud to support Salvini? Orbán and Putin tearing up democracy to become de facto dictators of their respective countries? The shameless fanning of dangerous and divisive nationalistic flames? Adults threatening a 16-year old girl for telling truths they are not grown-up enough to face? The widespread dehumanisation of impoverished people trying to reach a better life? Boris Johnson – serial philanderer, liar, fancy words devoid of substance or morality, money-wasting mayor of London, shit Foreign Secretary – my Prime Minister?

And now Covid-19.

A 4-year run of almost continuous what-the-actual-fucks, only a few of which are mentioned above, against the inglorious backdrop of escalating environmental tragedies.

But while many recent events may seem to fly in the face of what I would consider to be logic, I suspect they are interconnected. The havoc the human race has wreaked on the planet over the last few hundred years is finally coming home to roost. The mass migration of people displaced by drought, hunger and fighting over dwindling resources is only going to get worse. The effects of climate change, overpopulation and habitat destruction are finally starting to affect humans at an extent to which only the wealthy and unscrupulous can pretend ignorance.

Thus the status quo of infinite growth runs up against the brick wall of a finite planet. Cracks in capitalism can no longer be papered over with fallacious talk of “trickle-down economics”. The era of the individual right to accumulate endless material wealth taking precedence over the well-being of their fellow humans (to say nothing of the other species sharing our world) needs to end if we are all to survive.

Naturally those who have profited from the status quo, those who think they may eventually profit from it and those who have been gas lighted into believing there are no conceivable alternatives, are reluctant to change. They throw themselves behind jingoistic politicians dangling facile solutions and meaningless catchphrases – Make America Great Again! Take Back Control! Get Brexit Done! Prima gli italiani! Brasil acima de tudo, Deus acima de todos! America First! They welcome the protectionist offering-up of the “otherness” of chosen scapegoats, and they are lulled by the rhetoric that the exploitation of the biosphere that sustains us is a price worth paying for economic “progress” : that there is no other way.

It’s all doom and gloom, isn’t it?

Well, no. I don’t think so. I have been bemoaning our impact on natural world for almost as long as I have been alive (43 long years – that feel even longer to those who have had to entertain my ranting on the subject), and only recently have I noticed that the environmentally anxious are no longer a crackpot minority. People down the pub are taking about it, social media is talking about it, the mainstream media is talking about it, schools are talking about it, young people and equally concerned elders are marching the streets about it, and now many politicians have no choice but to address the issue too.

The vastness of Covid-19 has also shone a spotlight elsewhere: it transpires that community is vitally important after all, collaboration rewarding, and that resources can be put to much better use when pooled. Could it be that we really can be stronger together?

None of this may seem like real progress, but I believe it has a good chance.

Translating that potential for progress into something tangible, however, is another matter. It will require a degree of individual self-reflection, honesty, determination and sacrifice that can only succeed if we are able to keep hold of that awareness that we are all in this together: our individual choices almost always have an effect on our human community and the natural world, no matter how minuscule.

I am not here to lecture (I’m in no position to), but I also have no wish to be silent, so I would like this blog to have a new life as a resource to share thoughts, ideas and information, on where we can go from here.

Do or die would be an extremely apt slogan for this endeavour, but for the more optimistic among us, let’s make it onward and upwards, peeps!