A Rough Idea: personal essays on trying to be a 'good person' in a world on fire
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This is the first edition of A Rough Idea, a collection of personal essays for paid subscribers. This email is unlocked so you know what you would be getting with a subscription. Future editions will also include additional resources that we couldn’t fit in the free newsletter.
The worst part of going to the hairdresser is staring at yourself in the mirror. The longer I look, the less I can see myself. I become parts, not a whole.
“Do you wash your hair a lot?” the hairdresser says.
“No. Just when I have to.” I lied. I can’t stand the feeling of grease. I know it’s healthy to not strip away all the natural oils. But I never unlearned the beauty ‘wisdom’ sold to me in British teen magazines as a kid and I still can’t bring myself to do it.
She nods, satisfied. I’m getting blue streaks in my hair, like every white woman ‘finding herself’ in a Hollywood movie. Except in the movies, everything else falls into place after the glow-up: haircuts are the symbol of a woman in transition.
In the movies I watched growing up, after the hair comes the fashion makeover, the career success, the group of friends who have endless time to provide advice on my issues. Yoga taught by another white woman who went to Bali one time. True love finds her in an improbable meet-cute. Happy endings. And no climate crisis.
Hollywood is full of shit. Nothing ever ends and nobody ever finds themselves. Because we are not static. We contain multitudes and we reinvent ourselves like trees changing leaves. And the American picket-fence dream sounds like more of a nightmare.
But still, I’m dying my hair. I don’t know why. I wanted to. What should I do? The US is systematically dismantling human rights protections and environmental laws. I broke up with my boyfriend last month. European politicians are working for corporations on the side while voting down the Green Deal. The cost of oat milk went up again. Policymakers are bending over backwards to justify Israel’s genocide. I forgot to message a friend who is ill to check in. My phone knows where I am all the time. A man catcalled me from his car on my way to town. It’s been lovely weather lately. Far away from this country, bombs are falling.
I am 28 and I don’t want the American dream but I don’t know what I want instead and it feels like we’re supposed to know by now. Sure you could get married, buy a house, go travel the world. But what if you don’t know if you want that? What am I doing with my life exactly? **record scratches like in a US high school sitcom**
Well, I’m getting my hair dyed in blue streaks again. It’s expensive, yeah, but I’m trying not to think about it. I stop staring at myself and watch the blue dye run into the sink. It’s probably not totally environmentally friendly. What goes into blue dye anyway? Why don’t I know? Why don’t I ask? Maybe I’m afraid of knowing.
Sometimes when I’m paralysed by the sheer weight of uncertainties of the present day and stuck trying to figure out the best thing to do, the only way out of it is to do anything. Do something. I don’t want to observe. I want to change and grow and fuck up this whole capitalist system but that won’t happen if I can’t get off my damn sofa.
Anyway. I’m starting A Rough Idea as a supplement to The Green Fix because ever since I started writing a newsletter, the biggest response has always been to the more personal editions. Where I or other guest writers have written about eco-anxiety, burnout, and the contradictions of trying to be a ‘good’ person under capitalism, a techno-oligarchy and neocolonial political systems.
The 5,000 subscribers are a testament to the fact that none of us are alone in trying to do that nebulous thing called Making A Difference. For me, the desire to defend climate action, intersectional feminism and social justice extends far beyond my job into every area of my personal life. And I assume many of you relate.
There is a never-ending tension between surviving modern-day Western society, and wanting to embody the revolutionary and regenerative ways of living that are founded on happiness and health for humans and the planet.
I can speak for hours to an unsuspecting friend about how narrow it is that our culture enforces the nuclear heterosexual monogamous patriarchal family structure - and then I still wonder if I should just settle down. I rant about how toxic it is that we are taught to place our self-worth in our economic productivity under neoliberal capitalism - then I work overtime because I just can’t bear to fall behind.
I agree that individualism is exactly what prevents us from collective organising on a major scale - but I still secretly feel like I should be able to uproot the entire system all by myself.
Oh I can talk. But it’s not so easy to do. How do you stop feeling bad about not being productive all the time when you don’t know what else to base your worth on instead? How do you decenter men in your life? How do I know if my Instagram activism is performative or useful? How can I sacrifice my white privilege and not just talk about doing it?
A Rough Idea is part-personal reflections, but it’s also open to you - to ask questions about navigating life as someone trying to do the right thing, to share your own stories, or to propose a topic for discussion.
When the hairdresser is done, she blow-dries my hair and takes a picture for their social media. I wait for my Hollywood character moment but it never arrives - I pay and leave and step back and it’s kind of anticlimactic because I go back into the same life and same Brussels as before.
And I am the same. Except I’m not, because I have blue streaks now. I changed something. Don’t worry, this isn’t a teachable moment. But I feel a little cooler. I stepped out the comfort zone. How do I do that again?