We Find New Fields Within Ourselves During Crisis

One of the initial sparks of curiosity that fired my novel was the idea, from the writing of novelist Jay McInerny, of a special kind of “aliveness” during times of crisis. In his book, The Good Life, he describes the characters as having, in the aftermath of September 11, a sense of being present and alive with an intensity that, if they were honest, had been missing from their lives before. At least, that’s the way I remember it. 

I’ve thought about this idea in the upheavals of more recent times, including the pandemic and now with the treachery and assault on values, institutions, and population groups by the Trump administration. The idea presupposes a sleepwalking prior to the crisis, a sort of fugue state; something which is not hard to imagine in our times given how much of our attention and energy is sapped by the algorithms of late capitalism, hustle culture, and the all-consuming nature of modern careers. So, when crises occur, jarring and destructive though they are, do the pain and shock awaken our psyches into an exquisite mindfulness, a throbbing sensitivity that we feel acutely in our hearts and through our senses? 

I find this to be true, personally. Over time I’ve also found the opposite to be true, including in this time of shock and grief – parts of us may die, or become inert during crises. Perhaps they, like fields, simply must lie fallow, because they have been exhausted–beliefs we once held or goals that have become too taxing to reach for. Perhaps some fields within us are awakened to action and growth, watered by surges of grief, anger, and even love. Of course, both can be true simultaneously as we discover new fields of emotions and experiences within ourselves, while letting go of others, like broken dreams. 

If there is any gift we can give ourselves in times such as these, it is to make peace with the seemingly mercurial and even warring seasons within ourselves. To know that crisis, like climate change, can jumble our personal seasons. If we accept the metaphor, we assume that we are each vast territories, multiple fields that are in different stages of fertility and breakdown, hope and grief, power, and surrender. This complexity may burden us but it also makes us strong, pointing us sometimes slowly, often inexorably, towards renewal.