Finding Hope in Hard Times
Dear friend,
The hammer blows of unaccountable corporations rain down on the people of your hometown. It’s global.
I knew it as a kid without even knowing what a corporation was. You could see it everywhere—in the way people worked, the food we ate, the schools we went to. Deep under the surface, I felt a trap being loaded, ready to spring. It started to come out when I began writing diaries in my early teens.
These are hard times, for so many people, on so many levels.
I have Zara with me again today. She’s dozing in the kitchen. We’ve got the garden doors open and the sun shade up, sheltering the outdoor couch.
Earlier, Zara joined Ash, Flynn, and me for breakfast. We listened to music and talked about the Sheffield scene, our hopes and challenges.
It was a late start—we had a late night with some of Ash’s old friends in Stoke Newington: Dave, Danny, and Marcus, who are in the process of selling the shared space they’ve run as a co-op since the ’90s. Beautiful, funny, ‘wonky’ people.
Ash and Flynn have gone into the city to hang out with more of Ash’s friends, and I stayed home to catch up on things and be with Zara.
We met Sue out on the Marshes. She told me about her niece—no interests, afraid to leave the house—and it hit me hard how difficult it is for so many people. Fear is a prison. It cuts you off from your natural curiosity. It becomes a descending spiral.
Getting out into the world matters. Not just walking past people, but exchanging a nod, a smile. Saying something silly. Like the strangers who comment on my Earth Runners.
“I like your sandals,” said a Rasta woman as she strolled past with her daughter in a pushchair. She wore a beautiful red, green, and gold dress. Her little girl was splayed out asleep, arms and legs flopped like a starfish—the very picture of relaxation.
I thanked the woman and complimented her on her super-chill child. She smiled, and we went on our way.
When you’re out among people—no matter where—you find kind ones. The world is not as frightening as the one beamed at us through our devices.
Those screens connect us to the collective dysfunction of systems and beliefs enshrined in laws that cause misery. Even if you have very little, your attention can be monetised. On the most basic level, you can be made sick. Healthcare is big business.
As we walked, I told Sue how the past twelve months have radicalised me. Watching civilians murdered, children starved—seeing the perpetrators hand out food, then shoot the hands that reached for it. And our own local MP complicit. Supplying arms. Denying genocide.
Sue told me about her Glaswegian working-class family—the trauma, the generations blighted by alcohol.
“You’re just put on the wheel,” she said. “Worked to death. When do you have the time to heal?”
I told her how I’ve been wary of responsibility since my personal struggles began in 2018. Seven years now. That feels like a significant number.
I would’ve said more, but we reached the footbridge over the river Lea and had to guide the dogs past a cyclist. The moment passed. Sue headed home to Walthamstow, and I made my way to the clean part of the river so Zara could drink.
On the way home, I saw a handwritten sign:
Cherries £10 a kilo.
It had blown off the box outside the corner shop. For some reason, it came into sharp focus. It was there Sunday, the day the woman with the relaxed kid smiled at me. All these moments gather.
These are hard times. Who can’t see it?
Are we becoming disillusioned with materialism? Maybe. Maybe there’s a doubling down too, from those struggling to adjust to the shifts underway. The false self clings to the illusion of separation. And it has no shortage of victims to prey on.
Then come the devices, the cultural machinery—making it seem like we have limited choices. Few alternatives.
But each one of us is an alternative. Utterly unique. Utterly connected.
The tops of the clouds are bathed in sunshine, which throws deep shadows underneath. Construction rattles the local skyline with pile drivers and machines. Everything is changing.
Change and growth go hand-in-hand with the cracking of the shells of our old false selves. It's unsettling—but growth is natural, even when we fight it, even when we wish things were like they used to be, when it was easier.
Who’s having an easy time right now?
Do you know anyone who doesn’t find some part of life a struggle?
The way of compassion, forgiveness, and kindness is open to all of us. It’s not about being pious or good—it’s practical. Grounded. Of the earth.
Simple in concept. Infinitely nuanced in practice.
Every day, we can choose to connect: to creatures, to plants, to air and sunshine and water. To the people who cross our paths or our minds.
It is happening.
Never give up hope. Even in the hopeless places.
You are not alone.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey