Amory Lovins, author of Winning the Oil Endgame, which prophesies various ways we will escape dependence on Big Oil, is an optimist.
"Sometimes after I give a talk, some folks get irked that I talk only about solutions and not about problems," [Lovins told The New Yorker] "And typically someone will get up and give a long riff about all the bad things happening and all the suffering in the universe, which is basically true."
How does Lovins respond?
He asks, How’s that workin’ for you? "As gently as [he] can [he asks] whether feeling that way makes them more effective."
What, dwelling on the suffering of the world doesn’t goose you toward solutions? Everybody tells me how much better I’ll feel when I consider how much worse off others are.
source: The New Yorker, January 22, 2007
I've struggled with Depression and one of the ways I can tell I'm in a bad way is if I find myself dwelling on the troubles in the world. So much suffering! Hope will seem to me counterfeit, hypocritical. Feeling defeated, I will have little energy for doing anything.
When I am not Depressed the weight of the world doesn't bow my shoulders. I also feel less grandiose -- whether that's the grandiosity of feeling I must Change the World or the feeling there's Nothing I can do. I like Lovins' approach, even if in my head I'm thinking "about all the bad things."
(By the way, I like reading the diaries by people who are calling voters and walking precincts; the personal testimony about the work you do to Change the World ... or your backyard.)