TONTS. - Rediscovering Your Wild with Sarah Wilson

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

Sarah Wilson is a journalist, multi-New York Times bestselling author, podcaster and social entrepreneur who hiked the world with one bag of belongings for eight years to understand our need to reconnect with life again. The salve, she found, to our loneliness, overwhelm, climate anxiety and angst was to rediscover her “wild". Sarah wrote a book about her discoveries which is both moving, rage inducing and ultimately uplifting called This One Wild and Precious Life. She now also hosts a podcast inspired by her wonderful book called Wild with Sarah Wilson where you can join Sarah as she explores the big philosophical, spiritual and social themes of our times with the big minds she encounters around the world.You might also recognise Sarah from her best selling book and hugely successful company I Quit Sugar.I found Sarah however through another one of her books called First we make the beast beautiful. In this book she uncovers what it means to live with anxiety and it is both a frank record of her life growing up on a rural property in a minimalist household as well as a guide for others seeking to find comfort and help in navigating what it means to be human and how to live with mental illness. Sarah’s search for meaning and her giant intellect and thirst for knowledge has taken her to so many wild places and I felt so privileged to sit with her for an hour and ask her question after question. I hope you enjoy this big conversation about everything from why we are here and the meaning of life to Sarah’s incredible gift for entrepreneurship running a thriving enterprise as a child called Creation Engine making library bags and elephant pins in her bedroom.Sarah has also just launched on Audible – Make Anxiety Your Superpower where she speaks with 10 people living with different flavours of anxiety, in honest and open conversations about their shared experience. From panic attacks to high functioning anxiety and control, Sarah listens to these incredible, yet all too familiar, stories and shares her philosophy and practical tips to not only help reframe anxiety, but to go one step further...to make it our superpower.For more from Sarah you can find her at www.sarahwilson.com or @_sarahwilson_You can email me with suggestions for episode topics and guests to [e-mail] credits:Editing - RAW Collings and Claire TontiTheme music - Avocado Junkie and Alice in Winter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just a warning, this podcast contains discussion of mental illness and also information about the climate crisis. If this brings anything up for you, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or speak to someone you trust. Hello, welcome to Tons, a podcast of in-depth interviews about emotions and the way they shape our lives. I'm your host, Claire Tonti, and each week I speak to writers, activists, experts, thinkers, and deeply feeling humans about their stories. My guest today, Sarah Wilson,

is a journalist, a multi-New York Times bestselling author, podcaster, and a social entrepreneur who hiked the world with one bag of belongings to understand our need to reconnect with life again. The salve, she found, to our loneliness, overwhelm, climate anxiety and angst was to rediscover her wild. Sarah wrote a book about her discoveries, which is both moving, rage-inducing and ultimately uplifting, called This One Wild and Precious Life. She now also hosts a podcast inspired by her wonderful book called Wild with Sarah Wilson, where you can join her as she explores the big philosophical, spiritual and social themes of our time with the big mind she encounters around the world. She is definitely someone for talents, don't you reckon? You might also recognise Sarah from her

bestselling book and hugely successful company i quit sugar i found sarah however through another one of her books called first we make the beast beautiful in this book she uncovers what it means to live with anxiety and it's both a frank record of her life growing up on a rural property in a minimalist household as well as a guide for others seeking to find comfort and help in navigating what it means to be human and how to live with mental illness. Sarah's search for meaning and her giant intellect and thirst for knowledge has taken her to so many wild places, internally and externally.

And I felt so privileged to sit with her for an hour and ask her question after question. I hope you enjoy this big conversation about everything from why we're here and the meaning of life to Sarah's incredible gift for entrepreneurship, running a thriving enterprise as a child out of her bedroom, making library bags and elephant pins. Sarah has also just launched an audible, Make Anxiety Your Superpower, where she speaks with 10 people living with different flavors of anxiety in honest and open conversations about their shared experience. From panic attacks to high functioning anxiety and control, Sarah listens to these incredible yet all too familiar stories and shares her philosophy and practical tips to not only reframe anxiety,

but to go one step further, to make it a superpower. All right, off we go into the wild. Here she is, Sarah Wilson. Thank you so much for joining me, Sarah, today. I thought I would start with a poet called David White, who I found through you. And I mean, I love Mary Oliver, but this poem spoke to me and I thought I would just read it. And then I might ask you why it reminds me of you and your work. Sure. Is that all right? Go for it.

Okay, cool. We love the moment in a seeming stillness, the breath in the body of the loved one sleeping, the highest leaves in the silent wood, a great migration in the body of the loved one sleeping. The highest leaves in the silent wood. A great migration in the sky above. The waters of the earth, the blood in the body. The first soft stir in the silence beneath a strident voice. The internal hands of our mind, always searching for touch. Thought seeking other thoughts, seeking other minds.

The great arrival of form through all our hidden themes. Our life like a breath, then a give and a take. A bridge, a central movement between singing a separate self and learning to be selfless. What do you think? Why did I choose that? Well, I remember once somebody said to me that I was all striving, no arriving. And that poem evokes that, this idea that the meaning and the beauty comes from that reaching outwards, the ache forward. I chose it as well because in reading your work, in reading First We Make the Beast Beautiful

and this one, Wild and Precious Life, and listening to some of your podcasts, it strikes me that you're someone who is seeking but also has found something in the search for meaning, I guess, in the something else. Could you tell us a bit about what you mean when you write about the something else? Yeah, the something else is this sense that we're missing something. Yeah, it's this kind of carrot that dangles before us. You know, there's this idea that we're living this life and yet there's something that we're not quite getting to. And I've got so many different metaphors for describing it. We are aching forward to something and yet we run from it at the same time. And really what it is, is it's a relationship with ourselves and with the planet.

It's a stillness that we can arrive at. And some people might call it truth. So, yeah. And I think what happens is we actually realise, I do two full circles. I do a full circle in First We Make the Beast Beautiful, which is a book about our own personal anxiety, the demons inside our own head. And there's something else in that case is definitely a relationship with ourselves. It's called coming home to ourselves.

And ironically, the full circle with that is that you go, you are sent out into the world, out into this sort of anxious grasping at things because you're running from yourself. And then what happens is that anxiety, that desperate grasping eventually sees you go through so much pain that you must eventually return to yourself. And obviously, I spend a whole book, 300 pages explaining how that works. But what ends up happening is you realize that it's the striving, it's the journey, it's the aching, it's the striving it's the journey it's the aching it's the the search for the something else that delivers you to that something else you know which is such a comfort and every religious tradition has taught us this but to find comfort in the journey to find comfort in the practice in fact that is the meaning of life you know and then in first

week and then in this one wild and precious life, which sees me take that same kind of concept but out into the world because what I felt was that there was this collective anxiety playing out. It was no longer about our own just internal stuff. It was now happening on a broader level and playing out with the COVID, you know, the pandemic, with Black Lives Matter, with the Me Too movement and, of course, with Black Lives Matter, with the Me Too movement, and of course, with the climate crisis. Yeah, I think that there's something else in that case.

And I don't necessarily refer to it there. I talk about an itch in that book, the itch being this sort of overwhelming sense of guilt, frustration, anger, and complete awareness that we are complicit, we're both victim and perpetrator. And the vastness the the bigness of it is just so full on and it's there as the elephant in the room but I think that in terms of uh there's something else I would say that there's something else in that case it's a relationship with the planet relationship with the oneness that unifies all of us you know I quote Patti Smith in in that book um who talks about you know basically we go and try to find our footprint on the miraculous. We're born with this sense, you know, where we come out of our mother's wombs just with this incredible awe. And I think we get removed from it and then we spend so much of our life trying

to come back to our footprint on the miraculous to search for that. And so I think that there's something else in that case is definitely that it's the relationship with the oneness of life. You write so beautifully about that. And I think in so many different ways, you allow people to access that feeling because really it's a feeling that is very difficult to put words around. Poetry is the best form of it. And that's what I explore in the book, which is why David White gets brought into the book and a number of different poets. And I call it soul nerding. Soul nerding is a type of religious practice or spiritual practice, I should say, where you actually absorb yourself in art forms like poetry and painting and classical

music. And those art forms, but particularly poetry, can take us to the thing. It's almost like the gaps between the words. It's what's not said that delivers the most powerful meaning. Prose, you know, and conversation, in its trying to point to the thing, it doesn't get to it, you know. Our hearts aren't taken there. Our heads are taken there and they get in the way. takes our hearts there you know it's a bit just a little dappling of words enough for us just to to get there to get there in a different way i through our hearts yeah so and and very much that book was an attempt to try to get to the heart of the matter to get to the heart of humanity to, to get to the heart of humanity, to connect people to this one

wild and precious life so that we can save it, you know, because that's where we're at. Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to ask you about your own story of finding yourself. And I know you've had a number of diagnoses over your life and you talk a lot openly about your anxiety and bipolar, manic depression. Do you want to tell us a little bit of your story? I know you've probably told it a thousand times. Is it for people who haven't ever accessed your work before? Yeah. Tell us that. Well, I mean, you know, from a functional level, I grew up in a country, on a subsistence living property in a large farm or a large family, I should say. It wasn't a large farm and very basic existence. I was an intense kid. I had lots of sensitivities.

You only kind of reflect on things afterwards when you've got to write a book about it and do podcasts where people ask you these things. One shouldn't think too much about your childhood. We all had one, and none of us had a perfect one. And I think around about 12 or 13, my complexities started to get more complex. You know, I sort of turned to religion. I studied different religions. I would read the Bible and check out different churches. And, you know, this is before the internet. You know, I think I looked up the yellow pages.

And when mum and dad went into church, you know, to town on a Sunday, I would ask if I could be dropped off at a different church, which, of course, I had to beg mum and dad to let me do it because I was meant to go to the Catholic church they were all going to. So there was sort of that. I was just trying to work it all out. I also developed anxiety. I wasn't sleeping. My obsessive compulsive disorder ignited at that stage, and it was linked to my sleeping. And it was a sense that if I didn't do these particular rituals, the term OCD gets bandied about very loosely. But really, at a technical level, it involves an obsession and a compulsion and the two feed off each other and you go into this loop that you can't escape. And for me, it was this idea that if I didn't do these particular rituals, then something bad would happen the next day to the family and I would

be responsible. And OCD stays with me. It's in my bones. It's in my viscera and I live with it every day or more to the point every night. And then I also got very enterprising. I developed a business at the age of 12 and it made quite a bit of money, made a bit of money for the family. And yeah, so I think the three were all connected. When I was about 17, 18, it was all getting worse. I had an eating disorder briefly. It didn't last too long. It was just a manifestation of my anxiety. And then at 21, I was diagnosed with what was called manic depression back then.

It's now called bipolar. I fought the diagnosis. I went to seven different psychiatrists thinking that one of them would tell me I didn't have manic depression, but one had to point out to me, here are the list of symptoms, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Now that was certainly the case. And then I was put on antipsychotics and anti-epileptics and I developed an autoimmune disease as well at that stage and I think the two are connected once again so it was Graves disease and you know I sort of stabilized for a bit I went on to medication I stabilized I was doing therapy and then my autoimmune diseases

came and went at 34 I then got Hashimoto's and and had a very big breakdown and was suicidal. And so, yeah, I think at various stages, come off medication, tried to find different ways. Eventually, this journey led to me going on a six, seven year journey, which became First We Make the Beast Beautiful, which was my desire to reframe my experiences of both my so-called mental illness and the way that I'd been medicalised and treated through the contemporary medical system, I needed to frame it beyond that to more of a spiritual, philosophical, evolutionally biological and historical lens, you know, because the story of anxiety is very different to the story of anxiety that we know today. I mean, this is a anxiety only entered the DSM which is the main diagnostic tool

used by psychiatrists in the west in 1980 and what do you know it was a year after the first anti-anxiety drug was invented so so yeah I guess that was my journey. Yeah. That was very succinct. There's so much in that and so much experience in that. Could you talk to me about the positives of when you are in your zone, when in a way on the way up to that kind of mania, or you use the analogy of a kite, when you're kind of flying as a kite with someone who doesn't suffer from these kind of conditions, could you talk us through the positives of that? Yeah. So I suppose, and I tend to veer towards the manic side of things, I don't get the depression so much anymore. And really because I just think every part of me just is so fearful of the depression. For some reason, my personality, my character can handle the highs.

I think most people with manic depression do it. And I suppose, yeah, I think also I gloss over the lows and I focus on getting myself out of it so heavily. I sort of almost pretend that it hasn't happened. So, yeah, the highs. Generally, it is a form of excitement and it's a form of expansiveness. When I'm starting to go, when the kite's starting to fly up, you know, and I'm letting out the string, I feel incredibly connected. I develop a physical agility. I don't

sleep much. My adrenals are just going, going, going going and I think expansive and I'll go even an edge further and then an edge further so my ideas can get pretty wacky you know if I don't if I don't if I'm not careful and I've actually learned to start allow it to expand to a certain point and stay there you know in terms of my thinking I can become very well you said the positives I was gonna say I can become very impatient no you you said the positives. I was going to say I can become very impatient. No, you can share that too, absolutely. I find other people very difficult to be around. I have this incredible love of humanity.

And so I will often have to go home and cry out my love of humans and I can actually feel their humanity. I can feel children's pain and their joy and that kind of thing. And it's too overwhelming. I was seeing a guy recently and he sort of said to me, you've got so many emotions, it's like your container's not big enough. And I was like, yeah, that's kind of it. It also can feel like I'm running down a hill so fast,

like the momentum is so fast that my legs can't turn over enough to hit the ground. And so I'm just free falling. That's what it kind of feels like. I'm not getting any traction. But yeah, as you're going up, it can feel great. But then as it starts to get high, you're aware that, oh my God, this is going to peak out any minute now. And I know what comes next, which is the crash. And so there's a panic as well that's sort of inherent in it. Yeah, but, you know, obviously on the way up there's this absolute love.

It's pure love. And it's like I just don't have enough faculties to express it all, you know. There's not enough, there's enough pores in my viscera for it all to come out. And I want to share it. I want to share it all. You know, there's not enough, there's enough pores in my viscera for it all to come out. And I want to share it. I want to share it. So the best thing for me to do is to write,

to write it out. And it doesn't often make, the content doesn't often make it to my books, but the spirit of it will eventually, it'll eventually come out again. I can't often read what I've written in those times. I write in shorthand. I studied in those times. I write in shorthand. I studied journalism. So I'll write in shorthand because that's fast enough for the thoughts.

But yeah, the ideas will sort of still stay there. They'll stay there and I'll have memories of them and then I'll come back to it and they do enter my book. So yeah, the exultant moments do end up being in my book, but I do express them in a way where other people will be able to relate you know yeah absolutely and that's what I felt when I read your book too that there's an accessibility to it at all different levels in in whether you're living with someone who suffers from anxiety or you have different extremes or or not as much you know I just thank you I think you've just given such a gift to so many people with the work and the hours that you've put in.

You can tell each word is so carefully thought through. I wanted to ask you where that drive comes from. I mean, you have just done so much in your life. You talked about at the very beginning as a kid having this really successful business. What was that that you developed? And then, you know, you end up having I Quit Sugar, which is a movement and such an amazing company that you developed.

Tell us what the business was. The business, yeah, the business I used to make, I used to make library bags out of Calico. So I bought a bolt of fabric of Calico and I'd make these library bags and then I'd paint them and sell them in really expensive toy shops. And they sold for $15 and I got $7.50 a bag. That's a lot of money back then, like in the 80s. So, yeah, and about once a month mum would drive into town on a weekend

and she'd drop me off at sort of the rich suburbs and I would literally walk around and peddle my library bags to expensive shops. And I don't know where, you know, I don't know where I would, I think I just went through the yellow pages and researched places that would sell these things. I also made doll's house furniture. So out of these modelling clay, and I'd make accessories for doll's houses. I then had a line of jewellery that was kind of novelty jewellery. I'm not joking.

People loved these things I made that were sunbaking elephants. They were elephants in bikinis that I stuck on a piece of like plastic that was striped that was like a towel and glued a pin on the back and it was like a brooch, like it was the 80s. And then I also hand-painted gift cards. So it was all sort of gift stuff. So I would also go to expensive galleries and gift shops and they'd sell these little pictures of native Australian flowers

that I would then wrap in cellophane and package up. And then I had a little stamp that I made up and my business was called Creation Engine and the Creation Engine came out of the steam of the steam train. Oh, my gosh gosh I know I I had a knack for marketing it's so bizarre and I have got four brothers and a younger sister they're all younger and I would line them up on a weekend and there'd be a bit of a production line I mean they'd lose interest and run off and climb a tree and whatever swim in the dam

um but yeah that's what I did and made quite a bit of cash. Yeah from the sounds of it so you've always had that entrepreneurial spirit has that been connected into the way that your brain works does it soothe you doing that kind of work like what does work give you? I just don't I've never been able to find a point to life other than being highly than being productive and missing outwards like I don't do leisure it's taken me um a long time to realize that I don't like leisure I don't have hobbies I you know apart from outdoor stuff you know um but even then movement for me is a maintenance thing it's to kind of maintain my health from a mental health you know and my happiness so and again it's a it's an urge rather than something that I like I don't buy the equipment like people go oh you know well maybe

you get into the hiking gear or into the camping get like no I mean my hiking gear is ridiculous you know I just don't have hiking gear I instead of just I have a pair of hiking shoes and I've had them for ages but they're not like state-of-the-art. I wear a sports bra and, you know, generally I own just one pair of shorts, it's the same pair of shorts. I have an old shirt that I wear and I'll wet it in water and put it over my head and I use this one shirt, you know, in all different ways as I'm hiking.

I often don't hike with a backpack. You know, I'll drink lots of water before I go and I stick a credit card down my bra and my phone down the other side of the bra so for me hiking is an expression it's an outlet I just do it yeah and for those that don't know you you mean hiking not in the sense of like some people do which is like a couple of hours up a nice hill you do like serious hiking like eight hours right like yeah or six days or something yeah yeah I'll carry all my gear and then sort of in some ways the way I live my life or the way I did live my life before COVID was

one big long hike because I lived out of one backpack and it was a carry-on backpack which of course I researched because when you've got a bipolar head you go and do this I researched the perfect backpack which was big enough to actually hold sleeping bag tent stove food for a couple of days but and also but also could fit in carry-on on a plane so when I was writing this one wild and precious life as as you know because you've read it but for those who haven't read it, I hike around the world for three years to tell the story, to investigate, and so I go in the footsteps of Nietzsche when he was writing Thus Spoke Zarathustra, you know,

up in the Swiss Alps, and I hike with David White in the Lake District in the footsteps of Wordsworth, and I live down this one bag, you know. So, yes, hiking is just, it's kind of just what I do. I don't own a car. I walk everywhere. And often it's cross country. Find a way to sort of get to the city by running through gullies and whatever. And I turn up to meetings pretty much as I am now, you know, singlet and sports. I love that. What does that do for your mind? Because is that why you do it? Because it feels right for your mind?

Like a bath or a salve? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I'm going to sound obnoxious and arrogant maybe, but for me it's almost a way that I just, that's just how I have to be me, you know. I feel very constrained, yeah, If I don't have that outlet. Yeah. I love how you talk about walking slowly too. If you're an anxious person, the walking, the slow, not the 10K running intense cardio F45 stuff. Yeah. Breathing

and the walking. Yeah. Because walking goes at the same pace as the discerning mind. And we emerged as humans upright, you know, rather than on all fours. And at that time, as we emerged in that way, it was partly because of the way our brains were operating, our brains were able to get bigger. And we developed a sophisticated prefrontal cortex. And that's where discerning thought occurs, as opposed to the amygdala which is the ancient part of the brain that controls fight or flight or whatever it might be and so walking and discerning thought are very much you know knitted together and it brings us into a very soothing place when we walk it's a familiar thing and we can actually access the best of our functioning. So that's why a lot of thinkers walked. It's why a lot of psychiatrists do walking meetings with their clients, because you can

actually think way more clearly. And for anxiety, it's a wonderful salve, because quite often with anxiety, you know, it's a deficit of ability to think clearly. Now, the other thing is, is that we can't be anxious and walk at the same time. Because when we're walking, it does tell our brains there's no threat here. So our amygdala backs off. It goes, well, there's no, there's clearly no tiger about because Sarah's not running, you know, to actually tell. And so, you know, we're still prehistoric in the way our biology works. And so when we we walk we're literally telling our brains all is okay so the best i mean i often say to people if you're having a really anxious moment you know deep breathing and meditation it's a bridge too far it's it's just a little too much you know but walking is magical it just does it

for you just start walking and it will just it will tone down your anxiety for you. You don't have to try so hard. Meditation and breathing exercises are great as a maintenance thing, a modulating exercise or practice. And, you know, it's incredibly important to ensure that you don't get those anxious attacks in the first place. But when you're in the middle of one, walking is the best thing to do. Yes. You write about meditation in a way that makes me feel like I could actually do it. Of course.

Because it's maintenance, right? Rather than being something where you have to sit on a rock and understand all of the different mantras. And obviously those are such beautiful ways of meditating too. But the verdict style you write about and as your meditation teacher, Tim, taught you, could you tell us a bit about maybe why you hit there and what meditation gives you, maybe what verdict style is? I've asked a three-pronged question there, but I'll give it over to you. I'll answer in a three-pronged way. So Vedic meditation, it comes from the Ayurvedas or the Vedic texts. So some people might have heard of Ayurvedic medication or medicine.

It's all part of the Vedic tradition that occurred sort of 5,000 years ago. It predates Buddhism by 2,000-odd years. And the Chinese went to India and took the Vedic teachings back to China and it became Buddhism. So the three tenets of it are meditation, yoga and the Avedic eating. So if you think of turmeric and all that kind of stuff, that all comes from that tradition. It's about balancing out your doshas and all yoga and all meditation stems from this tradition so it's a very original style but it really doesn't matter what style of meditation you do in terms of me how did i come about it i came about it because i decided to have a three strikes and i act rule

and it's funny because i interviewed brené brown and we were sitting in this kind of hall and we're having a big chat and we both bursted tears when we realized we both worked to this that if the universe plants something in front of me three times, whether I like it or not, I just have to act on it. And that's what happens. Three people mentioned Tim's name and I was like, oh God, I better go and check him out. And that just happened to be how I came across him. Now, I encourage people to try different types of meditation if you need to. Don't be scared, though, from paying for it and paying handsomely for it because quite often when it's free, we don't take it as seriously. You might be fine with that, but I actually found the commitment and the Vedic tradition says that

you pay a decent amount, you make that sacrifice so that you actually do turn up, you know, and commitment is so much part of it and vigilance is so much part of it. So it's a 20 minute meditation and you're given a mantra by your meditation teacher that's particular to your gender, but also your stage in life and so on. And essentially, it's just a vibration that actually gets your brain energy settled in a particular way. Now it can be a breath, you know, that you focus on. It can be a light. It can be whatever it is.

People have different techniques. But the main art form, main art to it is that you gently, and there's this word called sukshma, which is a Vedic word that basically means gently, delicately and without effort. So sukshma, you apply sukshma, which is just a beautiful word, isn't it? And it's drawing yourself, every time you feel your mind wandering off and going off into monkey mind, you gently draw yourself back, your attention back to the mantra. In my case, it might be a breath or whatever. it's the in the practicing of the pulling

back of drawing back essentially into yourself into that relationship with yourself that builds a muscle that then enables you to be calm and centered in the rest of your life and you may have heard me say this I've said it a few now, that it's actually really awesome to be a bad meditator. Because the worse you are, the more your mind races off. And the more you've got to go and gently, like pine sukshma, gently bring your attention back. So that muscle builds more so than if you just kind of chill to start with. You know what I mean? So it's the practice of meditation, not the Zen, Tao, blissful experience of it that counts the most, which is, again, we go back to the beginning of this conversation, it's the practice,

it's the striving that matters. So I actually find great comfort in that. And anyone who's struggled with meditation, you might find it a comfort as well to know that that's the point. Being shit at it is the point, right? Because you keep having to use that muscle and it's then going to play out in your life outside of meditation. Yeah, absolutely. And it strikes me it's that the striving is a lesson in life in general, right? Because it's the striving that teaches, it's the striving and the hard work and when you're in that struggle that allows you growth.

Yeah. And I think as you write in the book, there are so many writers and teachers and thinkers who all kind of end up coming to that same understanding really, isn't it? That it's the footsteps in front of the other, not necessarily the end destination. Well, what are you going to do when you get there? Yes. I don't know. I don't want to get there, you know? No, I know exactly.

It reminds me of a story Nicole Kidman said that when she won her Oscar, she was sitting in her hotel room alone and just cried because she felt alone and lonely. And I often think about that. Don't know why. I haven't met Nicole Kidman, but I just often think that, that, yeah, maybe the joy is more in the uphill, like the hike, rather than necessarily the end point.

And that brings me to asking you about loneliness because, you know, we hear the term, like, loneliness epidemic and those kinds of things. Could you talk us through your research into loneliness? Yeah, where you're at with that now? It's funny because we actually have more social connections today than our parents and our grandparents did. We have more interactions. We, in fact, most of us and and this is leaving aside the marginalized communities you know whether you've got a disability whether poverty might be racial there's a whole range of things that do render some people terribly alone without without being

connected into the social fabric um but generally for most people we actually have more interactions than we'd care to have except except they're not meaningful. And the meaning has been removed. In fact, I was listening to a podcast the other day, and it was talking about how it was talking about sort of Instagram fame and all that kind of thing and how shallow and empty it feels and how it's leading to this incredible depression. And he distinguished between recognition and attention. So, so much of what we have in the world today is interactions with other people where we get attention. But if you're not respected by the other person or there's not a relationship that's

meaningful, then you don't get the recognition. And ultimately, we're after recognition from others. So, I sort of postulate that we're not so much lonely from other people. It's more that we're lonely from ourselves, from that connection with ourselves, a relationship with ourselves, because we're constantly distracted away with technology, you know, with the noise of other people. But the other thing is we're also lonely from a connection to life. And some philosophers call it a moral aloneness because we exist in a culture, the neoliberal system, that actually disconnects us

from the matrix of meaning, the matrix of what life is meant to be about. And ultimately, we are meaning-seeking beings, right? We exist to find our purpose. Generally, we accept that frogs don't sit there wondering why they exist, right? I mean, you know, it is possible that they could, but generally it's accepted that humans are the only species that have an awareness that we're going to die and an awareness of the absurdity of our existence. So we're going to die and an awareness that of the absurdity of our existence so we're constantly trying to find the meaning behind it all and so yeah but we have lost the dialogue the framework the structures that encourage that kind of meaning seeking and so we are very much a generation or two who feel alone that moral aloneness um and you know and so what

we do is we spend our days scrolling uh looking for something i don't know what we're looking for when we're scrolling you know recognition no doubt as opposed to attention we spend our days shopping i mean it breaks my heart and we know it's bad for the planet. We know that it's that we know of this thing called the hedonistic treadmill, that it doesn't deliver, you know, never does, because we keep looking for more and more. And yeah, that's what we do. Because in the absence of structures and rituals and protocols that engage us in moral belongingness. Yeah. I think that there is something in the ether because I know Adele's album, for instance, is written about the relationship with herself and a love story really about finding herself. And it strikes me that

that is the antidote, right, as you talk about to loneliness. And I loved what you wrote about how it's not loneliness from other people, as you said, or anything like that. It's the loneliness from a rift within our own selves of not knowing ourselves. And then it strikes me that if we don't know ourselves and present who we really are to people, how is anyone ever going to truly know

us? Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. We put up false selves. Instagram being a perfect example of it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And we've got to be careful as well because some of the reaction to this moral aloneness is a bit of a self-worship you know the whole self-love me me me and spiritualism has been hijacked by individualism as well and I write about this in the book about spiritual materialism and so there is a danger that people can go a bit too internal and my message in this one wild pressure and precious life in particular is to focus more on a relationship, a meaningful relationship with the broad flow of life. So all very well, get to know yourself, do the work on your yoga mat

or with your green smoothie or whatever it is that you do, your tarot cards or whatever, but then take it out into the world. Get out there and be of service because ultimately we're meaning seeking machines but we find our meaning through other people you know and through nature as well and that's one of the big things that I really push in the book is that our engagement with nature is one of the best ways it kind of mainlines us into our sense of connection with the broader matrix of life so I do warn against too much of knowing yourself, know thyself. Like it can get too self-absorbed and that has been hijacked

by the individualism of our contemporary neoliberal culture. So don't take it too far is my message. Instead, go out there and help people and get out there and be involved in the big important issues of our time, like the climate crisis, you know? Absolutely. With the climate crisis, do you want to tell people who don't know how you landed in this role of advocacy? I know so many people really value and respect the work that you're doing now in this space. How did you get there?

Oh, it's funny. I sort of, every time I rant about climate, I watch, you know, a couple of thousand followers drop off. So interesting that you should say that, that people, you know, respect it or whatever, you know, and then I go, oh, shit, I better put a picture of myself in there, you know, in my threadbare clothing, you know, trying to look fashionable. So how did I fall into it?

I've always cared about it. It's been, you know, I grew up on a subsistence living property with an incredible value for stuff, as in a sense of where it comes from. We had goats for milk and meat. We had to kill our goats. So, you know, the goats, we lived quite high and so it would snow and it would get cold in winter and we'd bring the little baby goats inside the house in front of the fire and they were like pets. And when I used to get agitated as a teenager, I used to go up

and lie in the goat shed on the goats. I used to just lie on top of them because they were warm and they would lick me. So they were like pets and then we'd have to actually take them to the abattoir and get them killed and then bring it home and have the meat in our freezer. Yeah. But we had no rubbish service and mum and dad were broke.

So we didn't buy anything new. Everything was recycled, repurposed, And that's just what we did. If we needed a hinge, there was a junkyard and Dad had everything lined up. Everything was fixed by him. We just learned to fix everything. Our clothes were all from St Vinny's. The clothes that St Vinny's threw out and was sent into mechanics because my father, grandfather worked for St Vinny's tearing up the clothes into rags for mechanic shops. So he used to bring us the clothes. So we would sort of

fix things and, you know, me and my brothers, that's how we dressed. So there was an appreciation of that. And I suppose you could say I've got poverty syndrome, but I've got a respect for austerity. You know, only buy what you need and don't throw anything out until you've used it in every single possible way so it's funny then I of course I ended up working for News Limited then I was the editor of Cosmo at the age of 29 but I still rode a bike to work and I still wore secondhand clothes no one knew and I still had those values I never accepted the free handbag I've never owned a handbag in my life so So yeah, I suppose it's always been part of me. And then, I don't know, I kind of am surprised that anyone with their eyes

wide open and curious with a love of life isn't absolutely fired up, rabid, 100% strapped into the climate movement. I don't understand how anyone who is a very caring human can't be engaged in this. Now, that's my limitation, you know, and it's a constant battle for me to understand with compassion why people are still caught up in the consumer cycle, you know. So, yeah, that's a long answer. My short answer is I've always been involved and how could you not be, you know? Yeah, absolutely. If you had to take like a snapshot photo of where we are right now in terms of the climate crisis, what would you say? We're a few minutes from midnight.

What does that mean? Well, there's a doomsday clock that tracks how long existence has got and we're a few minutes from midnight. We haven't got long. It's worse than what people think. However, the hope is more worse than what people think. However, the hope is more radical than what people realise. So all the solutions to the climate crisis exist. Okay, so they're all there. What people don't realise is we are prevented from accessing them by predominantly

the fossil fuel industry and politics, which are funded by the fossil fuel industry's interests. So we should be absolutely angry. We shouldn't be sad and doing sad emoticons on pictures of straw, you know, like turtles with straws up their nose. We should be absolutely furious. We knew all of this 30, 35 years ago. The fossil fuel industry hid the information from us and they've managed to peddle a discourse of confusion, of climate denialism, climate doubt, and then, of course,

blaming the consumer, telling us that we've got to count our carbon footprint and we've got to recycle and that's the problem and if we don't all do it, then we're all going to die. And that's the story. They've peddled it actively, proactively, and that's so that they can avoid, you know, reducing their profit line.

And this is not a hysterical story. It's just the truth. It's the truth. We've just got the David and Goliath battle because, you know, to try to explain that, I was doing a podcast with somebody this morning and they're one of the best climate journalists in America. And she said that to tell a lie takes five seconds to try to debunk a lie takes years because by the time the lie gets out there you know cognitive dissonance kicks in and confirmation

biases kick in and people want to hang on to it. We like doubting the fact that we might die from the climate crisis, right? We would prefer to stay in that mindset. And so fossil fuel industry gets in there. And by the time people like myself and this other journalist that I was talking to gets to try to explain it to people, people want to unfollow me because it's just too hard, right? So, yeah, I would say we're a few you know we're very close to to extinction you know we're referred to as the sixth extinction um and we don't have much

longer left now do i think that we're going to wipe ourselves out in our lifetime some people do some people think we've got we you know that children today being born today won't live a full a full life and there's a chance that that will be the case for hundreds of millions of people that's sort of the forecast i think that it'll be more a case of we won't return to normal we won't you know like i was speaking to a biologist um who's an evolutionary biologist she's was one of the authors to the fourth and fifth editions of the IPCC report. And she was saying that, you know, I was like, well, kids being born today in sort of 2050, will they be able

to see animals in the wild, you know? And she said, you know, like, will they be able to see koalas and kangaroos? And she said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we'll have to see them in like a dome because they're not going to survive in Australia in 2050 and she was seeing that as good news we'll still be upset they won't be dead so this is the this is what we're facing yes we'll still be alive but life will look exceedingly different can you tell us why for people who aren't across all of this and I know they should be but also life and

people are fragile beings and human beings are and not everyone is across it why is that the case life will look so different oh okay well it's global warming so people hear global warming and I think that's everything and but people will focus on plastics and fast fashion and all this kind of thing the thing we've really got to focus on is the heating of the atmosphere. So at the moment, you might be familiar with the term, we can't go over 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. And to do that, we've got to get down to net zero emissions by 2050. Now we're saying by 2030, we've got to be at 75%. That's essentially

where we've got to be to survive and to have a life that can be livable, to be livable. Because of the warming of the planet. The warming. Which then changes the atmosphere. And it's the carbon emissions that are causing the warming of the planet. So we've got to reduce our carbon emissions so no more emissions go up into the atmosphere and cause the warming. Now, we're currently in Australia at 1.44 degrees

above pre-industrial levels. The rest of the world's around about 1.2. At 1.5, they say it gets really critical and dangerous. As you get beyond two, you have tipping points. So you'll have the permafrost in the Arctic Circle goes, which then releases methane, which is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, which will heat things even more, which will melt more ice, which will then see sea levels rise.

And we're looking at sea levels rising by the end of this century by 10 feet. So you're looking at cities like New York City, Miami, Shanghai going underwater and entire nations going underwater. So New York currently is building a wall. Most of these nations are building a wall. There is literally not enough money to build a wall high enough to block out 10 feet of water.

So this is what we're looking at. This is a likely scenario. Yes, we will survive, but we'll have to adapt. Now, the main thing I'm concerned about is it's going to be food shortages that will be the problem. And we're already seeing it. There's food scarcity starting to play out. And that'll be because of the climate conditions, the global warming, right? And so as that happens, as somebody I interviewed in my podcast said, hungry people don't lie down and die, they fight. So mass civil unrest is going to be the reality of our future as people fight for somewhere to live and something to eat.

And what worries me is we don't have the emotional bandwidth to deal with that. So, yes, we will survive and we'll crawl our way forward into the future, but it's going to be really sad and really ugly. And there are solutions. They're there. But we're going to have to fight for them because we're fighting against a Goliath, the fossil fuel companies and government. And they will move.

They move when we make a noise. And the data says only three and a half percent of us need to make a really loud noise and change happens. And that's been proven with a study that researched over a hundred years worth of peaceful protests. So all I can say to anyone who's listening to this and getting concerned is show up and make a noise and care and do everything you can. And it's not about recycling, you know. It's about not buying things in the first place because then you stop the demand for the goods, right? So that's what we've got to be doing.

We've got to actually vote climate at the next election, which is my next project and i will be doing a lot of mobilization and education around that to steer people who are concerned about this and actually want our leaders to do something and there's a wonderful hopeful message and it lies in understanding that independence these climate orientated independence are the way to go and if anyone's interested um at the moment the instagram handle there's nothing posted there but i'm starting to collate people on it it's called at vote women in um i'm probably going to change it but that's where it's all going to happen it's going to kick off shortly and i'm going to be holding people's hands through this next election

showing them where to vote how to vote how to ask the right questions in a fun sexy way way. So, yeah, the other thing with global warming, just bear in mind that Australia is going to be one of the most affected places in the world. The predictions, the modelling done by the CSIRO says that Sydney, for instance, is going to be by 2050, which is not that long away. You know, we're looking, what, 28 years away. Sydney will be 3.8 degrees above pre-industrial levels. We don't really survive.

We will no longer have a winter. That's what they're saying. By 2050, Australia will no longer have a winter and things like summer sports are going to be impossible. So there'll be no cricket, you know, there'll be a whole bunch of things we just won't be able to do. Australia is just going to be way hotter than the rest of the world. yet the horrible irony is that we have the worst climate policy in the world. So there's been a bunch of models done. The most recent one, out of 60 countries, Australia ranks number 60. At the COP26, we were awarded the Colossal Fossil Award

for the biggest climate failure. We literally don't have a climate policy in this country. We are singled out as the worst, the worst. We're massive emitters. We're massive consumers of plastic. We produce the coal and we're not signing up to the commitments that the world needs to sign up to if we're going to have anything resembling a future that can be bearable. Why, in your opinion, is that the case? Oh, it's not my opinion. No, no, I mean, why is it the case, I guess?

Why is it the case? Because Australian politics is absolutely wedded to the fossil fuel industry. Now, that sounds like some conspiracy theory. Well, it is. It's a conspiracy. It's corruption. Now, I'll also point out to you that we are the only OECD country in the world, so developed nation, without a corruption commission, an anti-corruption commission, the only one,

right? So other countries have mechanisms in place, and they're not necessarily perfect, but at least it's there to ensure that these fossil fuel companies don't corrupt politicians. So we had this incredible situation where, for instance, the COVID Recovery Commission that was set up by the Scott Morrison government to lead us out of the COVID, you know, the pandemic, was stacked and run by fossil fuel executives. Now, of course, what was their solution that they came out with after they had a whole heap of money thrown at them? Oh, a gas-led recovery. Gas is a fossil fuel, but we're all being brainwashed into thinking

that it's a really good viable solution. It is not. The rest of the world is moving on from gas. There is no future in gas. And there's other solutions like solar and wind, which Australia has more of than any other place in the world, which we're totally ignoring because it's free. Wind and solar is free. The fossil fuel industry can't make money out of it. Since the Australian government has currently got 100 fossil fuel projects that are up for

consideration, since COP26, they've approved four. And the main lobby body for the coal industry itself came out and said, we will not meet the 2050 commitment unless there is absolutely no more coal projects or fossil fuel projects launched going forward yeah so the only lobby but the its own um lobby body the global energy agency i think it's called came out and said that and uh we we are still talking how wonderful it is i think scott morrison just the other day said he did a little jig when they approved the latest coal project. It's just, I mean, it's all infuriating and infuriating doesn't even cut it as an adjective, right? But no, it's infuriating. Let's pause on that. We've got to get angry. Anger is actually a really good emotion to have because fear and guilt and grief and shame sends us into

overwhelm and we do nothing and we just go and buy more shit. Anger, it means we can point our finger at someone and go own up to this, own up and change, right? We can actually rally around it. Yeah. Can you tell me something that was really interesting? I read that, you know, there's often the argument, well, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, right? Jobs and growth. Can you tell me in real terms what it means to move away from coal for jobs? Because I think that's really interesting. Well, the first thing to say that is that anybody who works in the climate realm is very, very aware of the human beings whose livelihood relies on coal. And so the language that's always used, you'll hear the words adjust transition.

So nobody who's calling for an end to coal is saying that we should just wipe out these people's livelihoods. We are calling on the government to throw maybe some of the money that's used to prop up the fossil fuel industry in Australia, because they all get subsidies, massive subsidies, $10 billion, right? Why not divest that into projects that can move these people into the renewable energy sector, right? And everything points to that making sense. Now, there's going to be obviously a little bit of give and take and a reskilling and things like that. But if we turn, well, for starters, there's only 20,000 jobs in Australia in coal and about 40,000 in sort

of other fossil fuel industries, so 60,000 or so in total. Now, just to give you an indication, I think Melbourne Airport employs 200 000 people woolworth's employs 100 000 people like 60 000 ain't a lot of jobs and we talk about them as though the whole economy is going to collapse like people are going to lose all these jobs and families are going to go and look i absolutely feel for the families who are reliant on the coal industry but my answer to that is the government needs to step in and retrain them and give them new jobs and give them hope. And they're going to be new

jobs. They say that there will be at least three times as many jobs in the renewable energy sector as there are in coal because incredible infrastructure needs to be built. Plus, because we've got so much solar and wind we can actually export that we can actually become an incredible exporting country at the moment we export raw crude materials offshore where they then get processed and then we import it back in so fuel for instance we port back in in the end we pay way more than we get as a country in terms of selling, you know, these fossil fuels off. So it's a complete furphy. The jobs aren't there.

The economic trade-offs aren't there. On top of that, what I would also say is the world is now putting in place what are called border tariffs. So the carbon tax got wiped out by this Liberal government, right? It lasted a short period of time under Labor and, as a result, emissions dropped. It did its job it's and the liberal party takes credit for that when they're trying to tell the world that their emissions have dropped they actually use that modeling and bring it into the equation which is hilarious but not um so the carbon tax which we got rid of is now

being played out around the world and so you've got the eu for instance the us canada japan just as a starting point saying that they're going to be putting in these tariffs which are essentially a carbon tax where their country gets the the tax the money instead of so if we had a tax here in australia where people who are burning emissions are taxed for that, for their pollution, and it went back into Australian coffers and could be used for education, could be used for, for instance, a just transition for these coal towns, then we'd be getting the money. But instead what's happening, we're now going to have to pay the tax. So if you're exporting a product into the EU, we're a country that doesn't have a carbon tax, so they're going to go, all right, we're going to tax you at the border and we're going to keep the money. So we

are being jeopardised twice because Australian products are suddenly going to cost a hell of a lot more and these foreign countries are going to get the money, the uplift. So when we're talking about trade and jobs and growth, we are looking at being at a huge disadvantage. And then you've got the head of big insurance and superannuation companies and investment companies saying that they're really worried about Australian investments because already people are moving their money offshore because we don't have a climate policy and the future is climate.

So at every angle, if anybody, you know, whatever the government wants to throw at us, there is a argument that says, actually, you're wrong. And in fact, the opposite is true. Absolutely. Why is it important to you to get women in positions of power? Well, it's sort of funny because it's not even, it's just the way it turns out. Women dominate the climate movement. And so what we're seeing around Australia is a lot of these grassroots groups coming forward. And it turns out it's women saying, putting their hand up and going, I'll take it on. So some of you may have heard of Zali Stegall. She emerged from a

movement called Vote Tony Out. So it was Vote Tony Abbott Out because of his regressive climate policies. And it was liberal voters saying we've had enough. And so a woman put up her hand and said, I'll do the job. And so we have Zali Stegall. There are seats around the nation now emulating that model. And it just happens to be all women. Now... Just happens, just coincidentally. So I think also, it's interesting. My dad, who's a 71-year 71 year old white man he's exceedingly excited about it and he's actually getting it he said Sarah you know I can see that masculine thinking has got us into this mess we need to balance it out with some feminine thinking now the Liberal Party of course doesn't have a quota for women and so that's why we see all these horrible sexual harassment

issues etc happening and culminating right as we're talking today because there's been quite a bit of news this week to this effect. The Labor Party has a quota and so I think they've got about 48%, 49% representation and I think that makes a difference. And so these female independents, what they're going to be campaigning on is climate, integrity, so a corruption commission, which is, you know an there's an independent already fighting for that helen haynes in the seat of indy who's just a fantastic woman she's another independent fighting on climate but she's focused

her attention on corruption so that the fossil fuel industry is held accountable and these politicians who are taking money from the fossil fuel industry it's exposed we have these laws in australia where they don't have to disclose that they're getting money from the fossil fuel industry, it's exposed. We have these laws in Australia where they don't have to disclose that they're getting money from these things. And then sexual equity and then an Indigenous voice to parliament. So they're the four sort of pillars. So I do think that we need to redress the balance.

I do think that a feminine, women are naturally way more engaged in these issues. That's just the truth of the matter. And also when you have more women, you have less sexual violence in Parliament, you know, and that needs to happen. And, you know, women are fed up. Men are fed up on behalf of women. It's embarrassing.

So we're also at the bottom. A study just came out recently. So we're at the bottom of climate, with climate. We're at the bottom of the world, of western world with uh integrity commission and integrity and then we've got we're at the bottom of the world it's just been it just came out this week in terms of gender equity so we've got some of the worst representation in parliament on boards etc we've got a really good education system but after that it all falls apart. And, of course, on voiced parliament, treatment of Indigenous people,

we're also at the bottom. Yeah. We're the worst. And I don't say this loosely. I actually mean like there's international bodies that have ranked Australia last, sometimes second last, you know, just above Saudi Arabia. But we're actually ranked below Saudi Arabia at the moment

on treatment of women. I mean, and that's just insane. Like that's actually insane when you really drill down on it. And it's happened so fast we can't quite believe it's happened to our country. Is that really because of the Liberal government that we've had over the last few years or do you think it's more, you know, deep than that culturally?

It's deeper because the labor party also gets kickbacks from the fossil fuel industry not as much they are more open to an integrity commission so and they are more open on climate policy but they're all yeah the australian system is at a gridlock and the grattan institute did an incredible report in July this year John Daly released it and he said the only future that Australia has to break this policy gridlock is this this notion of independence um so it's a really exciting movement and it will break the gridlock it's not the answer long term but short term it certainly is. But I think Australia is bad personally. We have had 30 years of uninterrupted economic growth. We've had incredible opulence. We didn't experience the GFC like the rest of the world. We're also reasonably protected from COVID. We haven't had

a big shake up. And so we've become, so neoliberalism, capitalism has been rife here and we have lost the ability to rally together as a society and to look after the greater good and to start asking questions about our national identity and so on. And so I think we've become flaccid. We're an incredibly flaccid country. We used to be considered an innovative country. When I was in my early 20s, in the early 1990s, Australia had this incredible reputation for innovation,

creativity, the arts. We won the Olympics in all directions. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was investment in stuff that mattered. We're also doing pretty well on a bunch of other fronts, including treatment of women. There were moves made with, you know, an apology

to the Aboriginal people. There was a bunch of things that were done. And I just think that we've become complacent and we've become incredibly individualistic and consumer orientated. And, yeah, we are now again, I hate to say it, we're at the bottom in terms of innovation. Australia has a really low tolerance for ambiguity and risk.

There's been various studies. And as a result, we have very little innovation happening out of this country now. Whereas when I was growing up, we were considered like freaky for our ability to innovate. Yeah, I remember that. I remember feeling like we were in a country of kind of, yeah, I mean, when the 2000... Everyone loved Australians. Right, like when the 2000 Olympics hit, I feel like there was that amazing energy surge and Cathy Freeman winning the gold medal, and you just felt so proud to be in this country, and then things have really taken a different turn.

I speak to people who've been having to go overseas and a friend of mine turned up at the French airport with an Australian passport and he was just like, oh, you're Australian. Like we used to be welcomed into Europe, right? Like, oh, we love Australians. Now the feedback I get is we are, our name is Mudd. And that's to do with a lot of things and a lot to do with climate and our track record on the environment.

Very much. And, of course, a Prime Minister who lies, the French are livid because they were lied to, you know. And so that's the reputation we have now. And Australians, we need to stand up to that. That is not us. It is not us. And we will be left behind economically if we don't act at this election. I've heard people say overseas that this Australian election is going to be one of the most important elections

in the world. We've got a responsibility because of the climate issue. The decisions that Australia does or doesn't make is going to have a huge impact on what happens and pans out in the rest of the world. So, yeah, so that's anyway. Your question may be, what are you working on next? It's that. It's the election. Absolutely.

Why don't you run? Oh, my God. Can you imagine them letting a bipolar, rabid, bloody bike-r riding feminist into parliament? I'd vote for you for sure. Yeah, it's still a very rigid world. I thought about it and I was approached. I was approached over the course of about a year and there was polling done. My Liberal candidate, the current sitting candidate, sorry, member, Dave Sharma, I know, did some robocalls testing people on my name.

Wow. But it's not, I'm better put to use, educating in a way where I don't, you know, where I can be independent, like truly independent and tell the story. I think that's what I'm made for, is telling the story to people who are feeling overwhelmed by politics and to give them a sense

of hope and to show them the way, not tell them how to vote but show them how if you care about this, this is a really great option and this is where my hope lies. You might want to look into it over there. And once you explain the basics to people, then when they listen to the news or they get a pamphlet from their member or from candidates in the mail, it makes makes sense they're not going into it blind and yeah Australia can't afford to be the laid-back crazy opulent kind of flaccid dude on the couch who can't be stuffed and just flicks between

channels and opines on twitter and orders uber eats and gets fat and slinky. We kind of, that's not us. We've got to shake it up. Absolutely. So where does your hope lie then? My hope lies in the fact that humans will eventually realise that, you know, this is the one wild and precious life that we've been given.

We've got to fight for it. We fight for what we love. And not only do we just kind of, like when we really realise we love something, we fight like nothing else. And I use the example at the end of my book of all those sporting games, football games, baseball games, where the losing side, 30 seconds before the siren, manages to pull out some kamikaze effort, you know, and does the slam dunk or whatever it is, the home run.

And, you know, there's so dunk or whatever it is the home run and um you know there's so many examples of that because humans when we really want something and we're really driven and we're we funnel our energy and we're a few seconds few minutes from midnight and um on the doomsday clock and we're gonna have to you know it's like the siren before the end of the game we'll get we'll have to pull out something pretty Herculean. And I think we're capable of that. And so what we've got to do is start mobilising, we've got to start telling those stories, we've got to follow the leaders who actually inspire that imagery. And yeah, we have to do it now. We have to do it now. The fossil fuel industry will tell you we've got time because that's their latest tactic

is to delay delay tactics glass lead recovery oh we'll just talk about 2050 not 2030 so yeah my hope lies in that my hope lies in you know the journey the fight i'm not optimistic i'm not optimistic but i'm hopeful um And that's different because hope is optimism plus activism. It's optimism plus action. And I reckon that once people activate their fiery, charged up, angry inner self, we're good. So I invite everyone to get angry, get angry at the fossil fuel companies, get angry at these politicians because they're ruining us. Yeah, they're stealing the future away from our kids, which sounds, I don't know, hysterical, but it's just a fact, really. We've also got a prime minister, remember, who's a Pentecostal. Now, to what extent does he believe in what's it called?

The, I've forgotten now, not the Reformation. It's something similar to that. But it's this idea, the rapture, the rapture, this idea that the believers will be saved. The believers will be fine. We don't have to do anything, right? And, you know, his particular faith, which is quite an extreme faith,

you know, theoretically adher adhere to that idea now i can't vouch for whether scott morrison's policies are being informed by that but shit i'd like to know and i've got my doubts you know so yeah the inaction is is incredible and uh yeah this election is going to be either march or May. There's talk of it being called early because ScoMo is in trouble and he will be wanting to avoid a leadership challenge. So be ready. Be ready. Get engaged now. Witness what's happening in the Liberal Party. Christian Porter's stepped down. Greg Hunter's stepped down. Oh, why? They know they're in trouble. Absolutely.

So bringing it back to you quickly. Yes, sorry. I get onto my political rants fairly easily. Don't apologise on any level. Don't apologise at all. It's fantastic. And it's so energising to speak to people who feel it, right? Because otherwise what are we doing?

And I feel very lonely in that. So please, anyone listening, please join. You know, like I say this in my book, not everybody has to be a prophet. Not everybody has to be a Greta Thunberg. Not everybody has to be me ranting around on Instagram and losing thousands of followers each time I do it. But what we can do is choose our profits wisely, support the people that are putting their head up, back them, like them. When they say, hey, listen, we really need you to sign this petition,

it'll take two seconds, just freaking do it, right? Yes, correct. Like, don't wait for somebody else to do it. When they say get engaged in the voting process, you know, just start to move in that direction. You don't have to be the expert. Just get engaged. Follow a bit, choose your profits and follow them and support them, the gritters, the young people out there doing their work. Yeah.

Yeah, so sorry I interrupted. No, that's all right. I was just going to say, I know because I have two kids and it was something I thought about a lot because of the future ahead of us. And I wasn't sure. And I know a lot of young people now are heartbreakingly deciding whether they're going to make that choice. And I remember Osher Gunzberg saying, who suffered greatly from climate anxiety, that

it was kind of this act of hope, you know, that in having kids, you're sort of saying, well, I put my hand up to really deeply care about our future. I'm not saying I don't care. I'm not Milani or Trumping it with my jacket on, you know, I care. And I want a future for us that is sustainable and better, you know. And so that's where I'm kind of sitting in my belief system, I guess, and if people need a reason to really care about it, I think that's one way to speak to people about it and there's lots of different avenues. I wanted to ask you more personally what your belief system is now.

I know you're a spiritual seeker in lots of ways as a kid you were do you have a religion now do you have an overall philosophy and understanding of why we're here what human beings are what what where's your heart and head sitting at I yeah I'm spiritual um I'm not religious and I I would say that I've cherry picked different bits of information. But really, what it comes down to is my belief, which I feel rather than think, is my belief and my faith exists in nature and the flow of life. I totally have trust in the flow of life. And a lot of my belief has been strengthened through my climate work. And it's also guided me in accepting that humans might not last as long as we thought they would. And what actually provides me with comfort to accept that is that I have so much faith in the flow of life.

If life has to kick humans off because we are so destructive and we're ruining the equilibrium of this beautiful planet, then so be it. I'd be really annoyed if the flow of life gave humans a leaf pass, an extra chance, because we don't deserve it. If we have evolved to the top of the food chain and we've had all the resources that humans have had and we've got to this point and the best we can do is destroy ourselves through our greed, we deserve it. Like life should win. I prefer the flow of, I have more faith in the flow of life than a love of humanity. But I love humanity a hell of a lot.

It's a beautiful expression of life. And it'd be a real shame for us to actually do ourselves the disservice of suffocating ourselves into oblivion. I mean, that would be a very sad ending to our contribution to whatever it is that we're doing here. Yeah. Oh, completely. I mean, there's that quote, I think Oprah said that there's only one of us here, you know, that really, realistically, we are the planet, we are that life force, we are that energy and we're an expression of that. and I sometimes do wonder if we're a disease or a parasite as opposed to you know an elephant I don't know I'd like to think not I'd like to

think that as you said it's a David and Goliath battle that we'll win and that well I think it's what is our purpose you know you asked me that at some point our purpose is to fight for our existence always has been. And on the way, we try to seek meaning and perhaps our meaning is in fighting for our existence and actually reversing all the dumb ass damage that our rational brains and consumerism has done. Like we need to reverse that. And it's going to be the biggest challenge ever. Are we capable of it?

Yes. Is it the noblest thing we could ever do yes will we do it it's up to us and in the end like you say what's exciting is that actually it's so good for us all the choices yeah it's again the full circle thing you know we've been looking for something to fight for we've been looking for something meaningful oh here it is here I grant you the climate crisis that we should finish there sarah wilson has granted us the climate crisis to shake ourselves up and change our lives the perfect practice for becoming the humans we would like to become yeah absolutely feet in the ground face up to the sky you're being compassionate

fired up engaged vibrant living at the edge connected to the sky. You're being compassionate, fired up, engaged, vibrant, living at the edge. Connected to the matrix. Exactly. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. What a gift this conversation has been. I really have appreciated your time.

Thank you so much. Thank you for the deep dive into the good stuff. It was great. Oh, it was excellent. And I'll put links to everything that you're doing. You have Wild, your wonderful podcast. Thank you so much, Sarah Wilson. See you. Bye.

What a vast, wide, deep, full-on conversation that was. I loved every minute of it and I hope you did too. My guest today was Sarah Wilson. You can find her at sarahwilson.com where all her wonderful books musings products all the things about her are over on that page you can also find her on her podcast wild with sarah wilson and that's on the listener app or wherever you get your podcast so i totally recommend going to read everything she's written because she's saying some incredibly important things also go and follow her on instagram because her

climate activism is particularly prevalent over there. And it's just so enraging, but also inspiring to follow her work and support what she's doing because it's vital, right? And for more from me, you can go to Instagram at Claire Tonti or clairetonti.com for all my podcasts and newsletter musings. One of which is also called Suggestible, which comes out every Thursday and is a recommendation show with my husband and James Clement. If you need a little bit of reprieve in your week from all the big news cycle, head on over there. We just talk about what we're watching, reading, and listening to and why we enjoy it. And we swap notes and we have a lot of laughs and discuss the exhaustion of parenthood. So that's every Thursday and I'd love you to go and subscribe over there. And we have a Big Sandwich subscription service. It's not for

Big Sandwiches. It's actually for all our podcasts and creative content that I make with James Clement and also the wonderful Nick Mason from the Weekly Planet podcast and the Mr. Sunday Movies YouTube channel. So all our podcasts are over there available ad-free for the cost of a big sandwich, $9 a month. You can support us to keep making what we do. And that goes directly back into us paying our editors and our writers and all the people that work with us in our team and also for us to be able to do what we do. So you can head on over there at bigsandwich.co and check out what we do. That would be lovely if you could. Thank you as always to Raw Callings for editing this week's episode and you can email

the show at tonspod at gmail.com. If you wouldn't mind subscribing, rating and reviewing, that would just be so wonderful you can do it straight in app bloody love it you might even get your review read out on the show and that's it that's it for me i'm sending you a whole lot of love this week be kind to yourself go gently what a time we're living through but we're doing it together. Talk to you soon. Bye. I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I create, speak and write today, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respect to their elders past, present and emerging, acknowledging that the sovereignty of this land has never been ceded.