Rationale for radical optimism
A photo essay about why optimism is the only way forward, with images from the Black Lives Matter Bristol march taken by Pheobe Montague-Warr.
In late June, during a friend’s 55th birthday picnic, 8-year-old Kayla and I raced away from the adults, nervously gathered for the first time that summer, into the meadow where my 30th birthday picnic had been a few weeks before. When we caught our breath, she casually confessed the conflicting emotions she felt about our new normal: “there are things I like about Covid and things I don’t like. I like staying at home with Mum and Dad, but I don’t like not hugging people.”
Not yet taught to file their feelings away into colour-coded folders, a child’s ability to accept the contrasting shades of optimism and pessimism that characterise their day and age can be reassuring. For those of us who like a good folder system, formed by the neat and tidy aspirations of earlier decades, reports on the present and future of this planet are increasingly tricky to categorise. My filing cabinet is somewhat in disarray.
The quantity of media I’ve consumed, exercise I’ve done, sleep I’ve had, and (most importantly) which day it is of my menstrual cycle, can heavily influence where my answers to questions like ‘is there a future?’ and ‘are we more divided than ever?’ sit on the spectrum of doom and gloom. Yet, my obstinate optimism (and biological drive to reproduce) insists that there is, and we aren’t, even if from some angles it looks like the world’s gone into a reverse spin…