A head start on sustainability
I've spent many a night pondering our planet’s future after reading an article or watching another documentary on the environment. A word of advice: this isn't exactly the type of activity I would recommend before bed when your goal is to get a good night's sleep. And unfortunately, there has been one recurring theme throughout all the information I've been consuming: things are bleak. In fact, way worse than we can even possibly imagine. And at this point, I think most of us can at least agree that sustainability is a vital component in the fight to reverse the adverse effects society has contributed to climate change.
Gentrification of Space by Diyan Duke
We look around and find that “sustainability” has seemingly usurped bandwidth as the word du jour in the business lexicon. Every big corporation worth its weight in NFTs is touting sustainability as part of its core principles and company mission. The word seems to roll off the tongues of entrepreneur billionaires in their TED Talks and Hollywood celebrities in their Tik Tok videos every 5 seconds. We seemingly find ourselves seated in the pews of the Church of Sustainability but what impact, if any, is the Gospel of Sustainability actually having on the daily lives of people? In reality, if we continually hear the sermon of climate change and sustainability one or two things will start to happen. Either the message will start to lose its effectiveness because people tend to tune out or guilt will creep in. The questioning starts: am I a bad person because the t-shirts I wear and the power bars I eat aren’t sustainable? Should I buy an electric car? Does the food I eat come from a sustainable farm? The precarious situation we find ourselves in during this period of history is overwhelming.
*NFT stands for non-fungible token and is a unit of data stored on a blockchain, the same technology that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ether are based on. NFTs certify a digital asset to be unique and provide proof of ownership of this asset. This could be anything from a JPEG image, video clip, MP3 or even a Tweet.
Attention passengers!
So one night as I was lying in my bed trying to drift off to sleep, while going down the state of emergency rabbit hole of our planet, I started to think about the protocols of an airplane emergency. If you have ever flown before, you know that in the event of an emergency one must put their own oxygen mask on first before trying to assist others. And that made me think: is it crazy to suggest that just perhaps we need a paradigm shift in terms of how we view sustainability? Do we have to consider our own mental sustainability first?
I believe sustainability starts at home; but not with the fancy water bottles, or the clothes in our closet which claim to be made from ocean plastics, or even the recycled packaging tossed in our waste bins from expensive bio-brands. I mean really at home, as in our own mindset based on our own mental health. I see the planet’s environmental issues as symptoms of our own mental health struggles, which continually disrupt the symbiotic relationship we share with the earth. Honestly, between societal pressures, the stresses from work, school, and let’s not forget a little something I like to refer to as a global pandemic – how could we not be struggling? It’s pretty safe to assume most of us are not operating at our optimum level. Coupled with the fact that for decades corporations have consistently given us free front row tickets to the Narcissism Concert Tour starring The Key to Happiness is More Things as the headliner, which has obviously led us down a path of unbridled consumerism and unchecked levels of unhealthy consumption. If society were in fact a person, it would surely fit the description of a very unhappy and depressed one. A person who needs more and more in a desperate, feeble attempt to fill some type of void.
Sustainability is a “vibe”
The United Nations Member States in their 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was drafted in 2015, outlined at the heart of their 17 Sustainable Goal Developments that good mental health was a priority for reaching those very goals. In fact, Dr. Ragnhild Dybdahl from Oslo Metropolitan University in her 2017 research article Mental Health is an integral part of the sustainable development goals, examines further the role of mental health being a necessary component to achieving success in each of the 17 developmental goals.
This is why I don’t believe we can continue to divorce mental health from the topic of sustainability in the mainstream zeitgeist or quite frankly any of the ills of the world. Sexism, racism, climate change, workers’ rights, and the threat of war all intersect. The pure desire and the commitment it takes to ensure that you and I, as well as the generations that come after us can live in a better, more sustainable world begins with a healthy mindset. In short as the younger generation would say - “sustainability is a vibe.”
Having grown up an athlete, my coaches would often tell us to “get our minds right”; because when the mind is right the body tends to follow. The awakening for me, which started me on a path towards a more sustainable lifestyle, happened as soon as I decided to move to Germany from America in 2009. There was something profound that occurred when I was forced to condense my life down to a couple of bags. Moving to Europe where the streets, apartments, and the majority of supermarkets are considerably smaller than in America challenged me to re-examine my mindset on consumption and materialism. A good majority of us tend to spend our lives collecting things, and for what? Do material items outside of those with sentimental value actually improve our level of happiness? I would unequivocally say no, and there is increasing evidence to illustrate this belief.
Shuxiang Fu and Yaozgong Liu in their 2019 research paper Research Progress on the Influence of Materialism and Its Interventions examined the positive and negative effects of materialism in the world in order to compare and contrast this with China’s current era of wealth explosion and the impact that has had on Chinese society. Throughout their research they discovered studies that showed people with high levels of materialism in some cases showed less positive emotions, higher levels of depression and loneliness and a reduced willingness to participate in community activities.
University of Corona vs Influencer State by Diyan Duke
Ballad of the Customer Service Rep by Diyan Duke
Gentrification is a complicated issue by Diyan Duke
Towards less
The more I decluttered and downsized my material items, the more I found myself doing this mentally as well. Having fewer material things has allowed me to be able to do away with beliefs, thoughts, and toxicity which no longer served me in a positive capacity. Please keep in mind that when I say fewer material things, I’m not suggesting you give up everything you own, take a vow of celibacy and move to a remote village in the middle of nowhere. But if that makes you happy then by all means go for it! Realistically, we all have to start our journey somewhere. There is an African proverb that says: “If the rhythm of the drum beat changes, the dance step must adapt.” Seeing the world we live in changes day-to-day it would certainly behove us to learn a few new dance steps. I suggest starting with a dance move I like to call “balance”. Make a list of things that are really important to you. The things on the list don’t even have to be material items. Then think about what in your life doesn’t align with what’s on your list. That is your starting point, building around what is important to you in order to create a sustainable lifestyle. I believe if we all did something like this we would see the positive benefits immediately. We start to get closer to a sense of balance between what I need and what is completely unnecessary mentally and in the material world.
There has been a sense of freedom and relief in being able to focus more on the things that are important to me and bring me happiness which I discovered were not material in nature. Inwardly, I have become a more mentally healthy sustainable person due to this shift. Outwardly, I am now able to live a more sustainable lifestyle as a member of society. The decisions I make now are no longer just about me but also about how they affect future generations. I am convinced that the only way we can improve the outlook of life on this planet, especially in the western world, lies in the fact of tackling mental health first and foremost. I fear without doing that, all of the progress we have made towards sustainability will be for nought.
I try to create works which provide social commentary on contemporary themes by deconstructing subjects to an almost childlike image. The Impasse is a sketch drawing depicting the stress and burden of too many choices in modern society. We find the character boxed in by the availability of choice. The subject’s heart and mind both prisoner to the bliss of wanting more.
Night on the Town (mixed media on paper) by Diyan Duke
Sources
Dybdahl, B. (2017). Mental Health is an Integral Part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Prev Med Commun Health. DOI: 10.15761/PMCH.1000104.
Fu, S. and Liu, Y. (2019). Research Progress on the Influence of Materialism and Its Interventions. Psychology, 10, 358-370. doi: 10.4236/psych.2019.103025.
