August : SUSTENANCE

The theme for August is SUSTENANCE

Unus Multorum LIVE - 4/4 - SUSTENANCE - EXTRA →

SUSTENANCE
It has all been laid bare.

Our world is not set up for self-sustainability.

As individuals, households, communities and countries we are connected in a tangled web of supply and demand, just-in-time delivery, a global labour-force and a wide network of social connections and ways to communicate.

While confined to our 5-mile radius, we discovered quickly how much we relied on the outside world for our physical and mental health, but also how it was also kind of nice to have the pressures of that outside world somewhat removed. We watched as some of us were designated ‘key workers’ and asked to keep going, at great risk to themselves, in order to sustain the rest in their bubbles.

None of this is sustainable, but was it sustainable before?

In order to sustain my particular situation, I had to remove all hope that it would ever change. To protect myself, I have tried to have no expectations. But to live, I have found, one must note the passing of time in some way. Without days of the week, months or travels, we have turned to other systems of measurement: birthdays (and birthday cakes), the growth of our sunflowers and the maturing of our neighbour’s lambs.

Will we have the energy, when and if all this ends, to rethink the sustenance of ourselves and our communities? Can we?

 5 August, 2020
Julie Upmeyer