The System

Are you in it or outside of it? I'm in.

So I asked Sophie, with their Masters Degree / Doctorate / Nobel Prize in Climate Change and Development, what company would they ideally work for, and they said “Shell”.

Shell, wtf? Why would a person who understand climate change want to work with Shell?? It’s taken me about two years to process that and come to terms with it.

It was an incredibly strong statement of conviction on their side, and I really had to adjust my worldview as a result.

But like most things in the post-apocalyptic period since 2015/2016 (my personal reference point-in-time as when seismic events which shook me took place: the UN SDGs and Brexit), I’ve learned to learn and relearn at pace. Survival is about adapting and thriving (the next step beyond survival) is about applying learning at speed.

I’m paraphrasing, but they were saying they could make the biggest contribution not just within the system (in a corporate role), but right at the heart of the system (with Shell of all companies!). Big learning.

In 2018, Extinction Rebellion emerges. (I have huge respect and affection and support for ER and reference them often.) Their DNA is rebellion and civil disobedience. In other words, they are outside the system.

In our personal missions to live true to values we share in the UN SDGs, I think we each make a decision about where we stand vis-à-vis the system.

But sometimes, we actually don’t clearly make that decision, and we waiver between the two: on the one hand, we get angry about the system as an outsider would, and we want to express that anger in a physical form, but on the other hand we stay within the system with no protest and delivering a few MCBs (see micro-consumerist bollocks).

Angry outsiders rebelling to bring down the system or supine drones in the system making it all worse.

That image is so wrong. Where do those people who represent both sides fit in that image?

Here’s my personal view: I am in the system and proud of it. It’s where I can make the biggest change. I am not conflicted, because it’s an unavoidable reality. Thank you Sophie.

Yes, I’m in the system - I have a car, yes I buy Coke (the shit one with aspartame in it) and yes, I eat McDonald’s. Sometimes I actually drive to McDonald’s. I’m not proud of any of that. But I’m OK with it.

But yes, my meat consumption has fallen massively, I have taken huge satisfaction in conducting journeys using only electric transport (train and bike), in massively reducing my work carbon footprint (thank you COVID for the push) and generating my own electricity. Tiny successes.

Within the system, I protest and lobby for change. We evangelise, we encourage, we promote and support pro-SDG things where we can. We argue with clients, global corporations in many cases, about rights and wrongs, we argue over UN SDG clauses in our contracts with suppliers, we spend extra time and money fighting hard for the UN SDG cause, using our business and our team resources and our clients as tools for progress.

I suppose my ask is that you ask yourself whether you’re in the system or outside it.

Can you look yourself in the mirror and say, “Despite the out-of-control capitalism, despite the gross over-consumption of fossil fuels, despite the crushed potential and downright repression of people in their billions on the grounds of protected characteristics, despite the growing loss of life through injustices that we are responsible for, and despite the potential imminent extinction of the human race, I am part of this mess, a tiny, tiny, component, and until such time as my national government wakes up and acknowledges its role in making the change, we cogs can only do what we can do”?

(And I think all we can do is touch others, as many as possible, each and every day with our own personal cause in whatever workplace, friendplace, sharedspace or familyplace we are in, and help them progress with us.)

Your mirror may of course show you a person who actually does not belong in the system.

If that’s you, I can only encourage you to get out of the system, and rebel and disobey. Go now. It works for some people, and the bottom line is surely that we must all follow our hearts.

But I will say, don’t allow yourself to be conflicted about where you are. If you’re inside the bad system, accept the good things about the system and make more good things happen if you possibly can. If you’re outside the system, then be extra outside and make stuff happen.

I can’t argue for who will make the biggest difference - the insiders or the outsiders - or evangelise for one or the other. Find where your own heart is and live it.