I have wanted to try to organise my thoughts into words for a long time now, and each time I sit down to do it, it all feels too huge and just too f*cking dark. But I am going to persevere, as it’s starting to feel like an actual blockage in my mental system: all these thoughts that flood my head every time I go to write a post or send an email and then stop because it just feels too weird to be going on like normal when all these things are happening around us.
I saw someone on Instagram post that any therapist who isn’t mentioning world news and events is being negligent and it struck a chord. I keep questioning if I’m properly depressed, or just affected by what I am seeing. And I know that its so many of us – floored daily by what we have seen unfold in real time on our phones: the utter horror of the cruelty, so many injured and dead children, what is clearly a genocide … and then the lies, the covering up, and not only by the perpetrators, (a country’s name I don’t want to write here for fear of cyber attacks, which I’ve had) but of our own government, supporting, aiding and abetting an evil foreign power, and then arresting its own citizens who object.
I feel sick that I was excited about Labour winning the election, that I encouraged others to vote tactically. Yes we got the Tories out, but for what? It’s almost worse, the insidiousness of Labour politicians pretending to be one thing and then doing the opposite: supporting this massacre in Gaza, continuing austerity here, parroting Reform talking points about refugees and asylum seekers, and embarrassing themselves with their own clumsy attempts at flag shagging.
The problem is every time I try to write this all down, it just sounds so obvious. What is the point of saying these things that everyone already knows, or anyone who would buy from me would already know? But it’s honestly driving me to distraction trying to hold it all in. This year, I’ve almost felt like I’ve been in hiding, shrinking away from any kind of ‘showing up’ here because of the state of the real, much more important AWFUL THINGS that are going on, waiting stupidly until there is some good news, or signs of this hellscape coming to an end. So many days are a blur of confusion about what I’m most angry or upset about and this deep frustration and sadness that I am utterly unable to help or create any meaningful change. And then comes the guilt at my own situation, my own lovely life.
I know it doesn’t help anyone who is suffering that someone on the other side of the world is feeling bad about what is happening to them, but there has to be a limit to what we can witness and still be expected to function as human beings. We are all having to numb ourselves just to cope. Things that would have shocked everyone, been headline news for weeks pass by with barely a mention. It feels like everyone with a shred of empathy has become incredibly depressed and the psychopaths are flourishing.
Somewhere around 2016 the world took a wrong turn, and I honestly don’t know how we will find our way back. The media’s misinformation and wilful neglect of their duty to report the truth as they unashamedly serve their billionaire owners means that we don’t even have a reliable news source any more. The mass killing of Palestinian journalists should be a warning to us all. How long until we in the supposed ‘first world’ are functioning like some Russian state, where those who speak out are simply killed? In America it's started already, murdering politicians and firebombing the houses of judges who rule against them. I’m too scared to go back to visit, which is probably irrational, or is it? They are pulling up people’s social media, and my business is right there to easily find.
I think back to those mornings of the past with The Today programme on Radio 4 and feel such a longing for what we’ve lost. Yes there have always been media biases, but what is going on now is truly the post-truth world that we warned the internet would bring. And it all seems to have happened so much faster than any of us thought.
We humans have lost our way. This year Elon Musk became the person to be worth $500 billion. If you saved $100 a day it would take you 13.5 million years to save $500 billion. He could clean up the oceans, end world hunger … the list is endless. This beautiful planet provides us with everything we might need, total abundance, and it is all being hoarded by a few monsters. (I will never get over Musk saying that empathy is human’s greatest weakness.) A few horrible insanely rich men, men you wouldn’t want to stand next to, never mind speak to, boring, tedious, incels are deciding the fate of our world.
I have said before, that I don’t want to bombard my customers with a litany of all that is going wrong, but because my designs often have a political message, I keep feeling called to say something, to use whatever small voice I have to speak up, and then immediately feeling unworthy of saying anything that will matter, aware that I’m no political expert. But it feels utterly weird and unnatural not to address it all either and just go about life as usual.
It’s a strange disconnect trying to run a business with goals that normally should follow some sort of a calendar of events: Witch necklaces in October, Christmas designs coming soon etc., while the United States where my dad, my brother, and so many friends live, is literally being dismantled and destroyed. Obviously this has affected my own hopes and plans to expand more into the US market, but that seems utterly inconsequential. And meanwhile just keeping going running a small business in this country is becoming harder and harder and harder, thanks to Brexit which we KNOW was funded by billionaires and Russian money, and yet still, nothing is being done to reverse the damage. I really believed the Labour government would do more, but it seems so many of us were hoodwinked at the last election to vote for a government that is probably paid for by the same billionaires as the media, Reform and the Conservatives. Prove me wrong! It’s a seriously fucked up time. If you’re a similar age to me, you probably also grew up terrified of the threat of a nuclear war, and I realised the other day that it’s back … but only one of my many worries. My kids are saying they don’t want to have their own kids. They have no hope of ever buying a house. They have no idea where to look for actual news or what to do about the inequality that is threatening to destroy all but a few.
I have felt a funny pang of jealousy when orders come in for Hope necklaces, as I’m struggling, really struggling, to be honest. There are glimmers, and I do try to look for them. Zack Polanski is brilliant, and yes I’ve joined the Greens, and maybe this movement of people like them and Mamdani in New York will succeed (if they aren’t assassinated). From the amazing numbers out at the No Kings march, it’s pretty clear that if we all rose up together we could do it. But it all feels too polite still. A tweet I read from a Georgian (country not state) said her American friend asked her why their protests aren’t as effective, and she said, ‘because you go home between them. We stay there night after night.’ But how on earth can we all afford to take to the streets for the next six months or a year, or however long it would take?
My lovely friend Helen who is an active campaigner to for a greener world, invited me to an evening last week at the woodland home of the founders of OneClimate. We heard about the failing health of our rivers and watched a film about methods of dealing with the increase in flooding, which is only going to get worse. Afterwards, I spoke with our host, Anuradha Vittachi, who with her husband founded OneWorld.net the world’s first portal on human rights and sustainable development. They are now workign on the Mycelium Map - connecting people in their local communities to take action on climate change, and the Hedgerley Wood Trust focussing on the power of empathy as a way towards personal and planetary health. While we all ate the food we had brought to share, she had talked about the importance of connection, and how all of our problems stem from us not feeling connected to each other and to nature. Aware of my increasingly hermit-like existence and trying to make small talk, I said how nice it was to be out, not sitting at home feeling depressed about the state of the world. I expected her to nod and agree, but she thought for a moment and then said that feeling this sadness is important too. She told me how Greta Thunberg went into a deep depression as a child when she first learned about climate change. For years she was in the thick of it, she said, her parents so incredibly worried about her.
It was such a wise answer, and strangely comforting. My small talk had verged on a sort of toxic positivity that has become the norm. It’s too easy to tell ourselves that we just need to get outside, cheer up, or manage our mind better, when we are just deeply, and understandably sad about the truth of the situation. Greta’s activism came from having been in this state for years. Strength can come from these dark places and real change comes from actually acknowledging the wrong that is happening.
When you read about Greta there is always a mention of how her intensity is somehow linked to her neurodiversity. Having a heightened sense of empathy or compassion for those suffering is apparently one of the signs of a neurodiverse brain. I mean, WTAF. I would suggest that the rest of the brains are the real problem. I am nothing at all like Greta but it did make me remember how I had a similar transformative realisation when I was six, and saw whales being slaughtered to near extinction on TV. I just couldn’t understand how people could be so evil, how my parents were still able to live normally while this was going on. I remember studying grown ups and trying to understand when they became broken, so numb to things that should affect them. Surely they could make it all stop, if all of them cared enough to work together to do something about it. I spent years of my childhood campaigning in the only way I knew how, going door to door in my neighborhood getting signatures for Save the Whales, and setting up a stand outside the post office downtown. I honestly didn't understand why everyone wasn't doing it.
Earlier this year I went down the ADHD rabbit hole after several people in my life pointed out that I probably do have it, and that maybe it’s why I often struggle with aspects of running the business. Maybe I do, and maybe it does lead to a hell of a lot of overthinking but it’s also what spurred me on to start the bloody thing. And I didn’t really ever set out to run a normal business. It came from a place of wanting to speak out, to connect, to create and share my designs, that then turned into a business later. I’ve always found the other stuff: social media, promotion tricky, but that’s because it’s not really where my heart is. To a business expert I am not reaching my full potential because I keep hiding, hesitating, not wanting to sell or post anything inauthentic. But maybe that’s ok, and maybe that’s what customers connect with. I guess what I’m trying to say (to myself) is it’s ok to feel shit about the absolute state of the world and go a little quiet. In my mind, it’s weird not to feel shit right now.
I keep saying I want to start hosting in person events, because real connection is really what we all need. I would love for Wear and Resist to move in a direction that feels more fulfilling in that way. I have an incredible space here and would love to fill it with conversation and connection. Maybe focussing on that for the goal for 2026 is the answer, and where the joy will come from again.
And again, thank you if you've read this far. It's felt good, at least, to get these thoughts out.
Sarah xx
