The Overwhelm

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. You're listening to a point of view, a personal essay from a leading writer. Here's A. L. Kennedy.

Well my bingo cart for horrifying things in twenty twenty five is already full. It was full before anyone made an awkward gesture. Twice and then talk to the German far right. And there's the bird flu and the people flew and inflation and I'm over in America right now. The plan was to write peacefully in the woods, but past the tree line there's this churn of firings and hirings and disappearances, websites and names, words, money, people.

and executive orders are flying and there's fear out there in communities that aren't necessarily mine, but there's still communities. And it's designed to be fast and chaos and it is. It's overwhelming. I came here by ship. I find planes overwhelming, and the January Atlantic provided thirty foot waves and winds over eighty miles an hour, but it was calming at first. Staggering with every step, being launched up or dragged down into nauseous weight, it wasn't just something I felt.

Other people were reacting just as I did, weathering the same force majeure. That was a relief. I wasn't alone. Now I can't emphasize enough the privilege and comfort in which I live, and my onboard experience was wildly distant from that of terrified people with nothing, trying to reach safety in overburdened, unseaworthy little boats. Still, like many in Britain and around the world, I'm getting used to being thrown around, scared if I rise, heavy and sickened when I sink.

Mostly that's not visible in the wider world, so it's lonely. And this grocery bill is what now? Did I accidentally buy both oat milk and a car? And there's less work, and my friend has waited how long for their operation, and why does there seem to be literally no time for anything? None.

As it happened, my ship wasn't really designed for the open ocean, more like a quick cruise in the summertime med, and she had a flat bottom and high sides that made her handle, just a little like a drunk goat on skis, but our captain did wonderfully. She responded to reality with foresight and expertise. She threaded us in between the worst of the gales, took care of us all, passengers and crew. We made sure safe and sound.

I mean the metaphor's right there, and you get it, but I will say, if she'd had the mentality of a hedge funder, an authoritarian, a compromised politician, an edgelord gazillionaire, Then she'd have shorted the stocks of the shipping line, made us fight to rent life jackets, having thrown fifty percent of the total overboard because scarcity is good, right? It drives demand, and then she'd just have run us up against the cliffs of Greenland at three AM and ka ching. Profile.

Beginning to feel a little overwhelmed after days of literal storm, I looked the way I generally privately feel by lunchtime, but because everyone else did too, we were smiling. We caught each other's elbows and commiserated with the nauseas. and those who were trying to celebrate a retirement, a life travel ambition. Even when our nights thumped and swayed, at least we knew it was happening to us all.

When some distant stranger wakes in a cold bedroom, an improvised shelter, a toxic relationship, and even on dry land they feel that sick, swinging drop of fear in their stomachs. If they're abandoned, if their country no longer institutionalizes mercy. Considering the lack of wisdom and compassion we see apparently gaining global power, that's overwhelming. It is in fact an overwhelm.

Let's pause, take slow breaths, imagine holding kittens, unless we're allergic and think how interesting it is that overwhelm has been a noun as well as a verb for centuries. since at least fifteen ninety six, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and who could have guessed it? Use of the noun is increasing again, Yn ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud.

And I had a novel published this month, good news, in amongst the other things I write, usually for roughly ten percent of what I got thirty years ago, bad news, even though everyone's doing their best. Good and physical books are awesome and can't be withdrawn by possibly untrustworthy, all powerful tech bros and AI is coming for us all. Bad, bad, bad. But I still have my job for now. Good. I don't know. That's what being overwhelmed does. It stops us knowing. Deep breaths though. Kittens.

The overwhelm is the friend of every dodgy sales pitch, for bad ideas, bad leaders, bad products, because it extinguishes thought. Headlines and influences, online radicalization, they get more unquestioning traction if whatever they say overwhelms. Authoritarians conjure horrors of the imagination while planning real ones, and trashing the governments we pay to guard and service.

Predators thrive in storms and profitable instability, while we waste mental bandwidth we don't have trying to understand chaos. Real world storms like Eowyn are getting more severe and frequent, and that won't stop. And we all end up having to cope with the damages, the cleanups and putting right. The storms in our minds, bodies, lives, hearts.

They can be just as damaging, but when we are overwhelmed by the yowling overwhelm, we can lose hope in anything ever being put right, or an end to trouble. And the depths of isolation between us can be overwhelming all over again. As capitalism gives way to corporatism, with something that looks remarkably like fascism not far behind, the overwhelm has been amplified and weaponized.

In all the noise, the simple pseudo solutions and slogans of would-be demagogues cut through and prosper. That's why they and their allies, opponents of democracy among them, helped arrange the noise. deep breaths, soft little pause, sunlight on the roll of the ocean, more breaths. There are solutions to feeling overwhelmed. Taking a break. We're busy. Listing and organizing future tasks.

Busy Detaching, journaling and meditation. Did we mention we are busy? Detaching this stuff's racing all over me like weasels on speed. Meditation. What about self-care? Why? I hate myself for failing to cope. Saying no. If I say no, then some other swine will say yes. Cultivating gratitude. For what? Life, my loved ones? Beauty? Art? The green gleam in the peak of a wave? What if I can't reach them because the overwhelm is in the way? Deep breath.

Don't get me wrong, all those things help. Overwhelmed friends who understand our overwhelm mental health professionals if they aren't, you know, overwhelmed, a bit of a walk, a good apple, staying in the moment. This moment, when we're here together. Talking. Listening. Together and talking and listening. That's three good things. We have that.

The overwhelm has in some contexts been actively designed to remove us from our joys and leave us with bleak pleasures, cruelty, hating others, seeing them harmed, the grubby little treasures that authoritarianism hoards. We have three good things already. And we have the experience and wisdom of all the human beings who have at times been overwhelmed and come through.

The point is the overwhelm is a lonely, thoughtless, joyless, relentless place and we are not designed to live there. Decency, compassion, democracy, peace They can be hard to explain, a bit too nuanced to yell in a gale, but we need them. We need them to clear up the mess. have time to care for each other and find beauty, and all of those things also drive back the overwhelm. They give us agency, purpose, comradeship, focus and joy.

How do we yell about those things in the storm? Make them simple enough to cut through, be audible for those in the overwhelm? We don't get simplistic, we get fundamental. We could hold on to love. Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd

Writing and art and people who helped me when I was in the overwhelm gave me that as an idea. It sets a high bar that I mostly limbo under, but I keep trying, because those people who helped me seemed happy. And far from the overwhelm. May it keep far from you. There's a divide in American politics between those Democracy is in peril, and those who think it's already been subverted, hollowed out from the inside.

To the White House, we go through the looking glass, into a world where nothing is as it seems. The coming storm from BBC Radio 4. Listen on BBC Sounds.