| Amita Basu | The Argumentative Amita | Article No 4 |
(This is the fourth column in The Argumentative Amita series.)
You already know that the things you do that are bad for the planet are also bad for you, and that by eating less processed food, buying less stuff, and using your car less and your legs more – you’d be promoting both climate health and your own health. That’s not what today’s edition of The Argumentative Amita is about. Today I want to explore climate health and mental health as two levels of analysis for the same problem.
‘Levels of analysis’ is a foundational concept in scientific thinking, a concept you can apply to a range of problems. Here is levels of analysis applied to one of my own long-running problems: depression. At the cellular level of analysis, my depressive episodes are caused by disruptions in neural functioning: for instance, the depressed brain produces altered levels of serotonin, norepinephrine (“adrenaline”), and dopamine. At the whole-brain level of analysis, systemic inflammation is involved in precipitating depression, but the relationship is bidirectional: depression worsens inflammation in the brain. (Chronic low-level inflammation, due to stress, poor diets, etc. is a biological condition that also raises our risks of type-2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.) At the behavioral level of analysis, failing to exercise, socialize, and failing to stick to a regular routine raises my risk of a depressive episode. At a social level of analysis, isolation, social fragmentation, and political polarization help explain why I get depressed, and why depression and anxiety have surged worldwide. At a psychological level of analysis, we struggle to hold on to our sense of purpose in the washing-machine of this huge and turbulent world. And as the cherry on the cake, at the affective (emotional) or spiritual level of analysis, there is the agony of witnessing the destruction of the planet.
Ha! You knew I’d wend my way around, eventually, to talking about the planet.
To restate my thesis: our worsening mental health as a species, and the worsening health of the planet, are different levels of analysis of the same problem.
And what is this this secret all-encompassing problem? I’d love to say “capitalism” and call it a day. Here’s a slightly less glib answer: shortsightedness. We’re focusing on short-term gains so much that we lose sight of the big picture. We are a beagle, staring at a bite-sized treat so hard that a whole chicken runs past us unheeded.
Short-term consequences do matter, of course. If you’re crossing the street and an eighteen-wheeler is hurtling towards you, maybe now’s not the best time to assume lotus pose and leisurely ponder life’s deepest mysteries. Human beings have evolved to prioritize short-term and mid-term problems: deciding if this berry is edible or is going to have you doubled up on your cavewoman toilet all day tomorrow seeing God; stopping your giggling toddler from playing with that cute snake in the bushes; warning that well-endowed broad to keep her painted nails off your man. When you only live to be 33, you tend not to spend too much time worrying about life, the universe, and everything. What’s astonishing is that our Paleolithic ancestors had enough foresight to create art that survives to this day, including fertility figurines that clearly catered to a pathological and pervasive arse fetish. Nonetheless, it’s true that our ancestors were focused mostly, necessarily, on the short term: this, plus their lack of organised knowledge, might excuse the destruction they wreaked on the Earth. Fortunately, their tools were as limited as their lifespans. So, for instance, recent evidence finds that Pleistocene hunters crossing over from Eurasia in fact played only a modest role in the extinctions of large mammals in the Americas, which had until recently been blamed largely on overhunting by humans. The reality seems to be that our ancestors came to the New World, they saw a range of mindblowing animals, and they conquered – well, kind of conquered, for their hunting prowess was fortunately as limited as their long-term thinking.
Fast-forward to 2024.
Today the average human lives more than seventy years. That’s a lot of time for us to make poor choices. Many of us, much of the time are still focusing too much on short-term goals, and we’re now sticking around long enough that both the planet and our own mental health are suffering the effects of our poor choices.
Think about the last time you felt that old nameless hollowness and rushed to fix it by buying a new outfit for an Instagram photoshoot, WhatsApp status update, TikTok reel, or Facebook profile photo update. The joy you got from that storm of yellow thumbs-ups and red hearts lasted a few seconds, maybe a few minutes. You discarded your uber-trendy outfit after a wear or three, but now it’ll sit in a landfill for hundreds of years, poisoning the soil and water, slowly decomposing, releasing greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, when your neurons clear away that hailstorm of pleasure-causing chemicals flooding your synapses, you’re left with that old nameless hollowness. Time for another cute outfit? If you’re like The Big Bang Theory’s Penny, it’s time for a pair of shoes, instead. Or maybe your quick fix of choice is a burger, Budweiser, gaming session, computer accessory, or Netflix marathon.
No, I’m not saying that you’re a shopping addict, or a fast-food addict. I’m saying that in 2024, buying something, eating something, drinking, porn, videogames, gambling, television, and social media are the easiest, quickest ways to fix feelings of loneliness, boredom, irrelevance, a lack of purpose, and unhappiness. We know that these are just quick fixes, Bandaids rather than cures. But we keep reaching for Bandaids. We are still, after all, the children of our hunt-fast, die-young cave people parents.
I’ve been there. Having been a minimalist for most of my life, during my PhD I suddenly became a fashionista. I spent hundreds of hours on shopping sites, fashion-advice blogs, and before the mirror. At the time, of course, I was too immersed to realise what was going on. Looking back, I see an enormous, agonising purposelessness. I was stuck in PhD, stuck in my creative writing, stuck in a small town in North India where the long summers and air pollution kept me chronically sick and sleepless. My energies became displaced, my thinking muddied, my problem-solving derailed. I didn’t just start buying lots of clothes – I also began to drink every day, chewed far too much sugarfree gum, and embarked on romantic misadventures.
Of course, addictions and addictive behaviours – whether related to shopping, substance use, gambling, sex, or YouTube – are complex and have multiple causes, including social and genetic factors. Our human penchant for short-term solutions is far from the only cause of the problematic patterns of consumption that are damaging our health and the planet’s. But it is one of the causes.
But what if the train stops here? This is, after all, your train, the only train you get to ride on, and you’re the stationmaster.
What if, next time we feel lonely, bored, or sad, instead of reaching for yet another Bandaid session of retail “therapy”, we decided to just sit with our uncomfortable feelings? Talk to a therapist, or a friend, or a journal. Dig a little, get to the bottom of that nameless hollow feeling. Maybe we’ll realise that what we really need is, not another Instagrammable outfit, or holiday, or car – but a long chat with that old friend who’s stuck with us through relocations, life events, and quiet failures; or a job that perhaps pays a little less but gives us a sense of meaning; or the courage to finally start that creative project we’ve been sitting on so long that it’s given us haemorrhoids; or the magnanimity to forgive that relative we haven’t spoken to in years; or the local wildlife rescue centre that could use our help one weekend a month; or the company of a dog from the local adoption shelter with whom we could explore our city’s lakes, parks, and tiny wildernesses.
It’s not easy, and it’s not quick. True solutions seldom are. But don’t we owe it to the planet, and to ourselves, to peel off the Bandaid and start building a deeper, truer, more connected way of living?
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Amita Basu, is the Columnist and Interviews Editor of MeanPepperVine. She loves Captain Planet, barefoot running, and George Eliot. If dozing in the sun all day were a viable career, she’d be a world-champion sunbather. Her superpowers are befriending any dog on earth, whistling tunefully (while being totally unable to sing), and combining five bright colours in one outfit. Five is the limit, though.
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