What to pack (and why it’s not what you might think)

Dear friends,

In a recent interview, Anders Ladekarl, head of The Danish Red Cross, now retiring after 19 years at the helm of the organization, was asked what he felt had most changed since his early beginnings in the field 25 years ago.

He replied without hesitation, ‘the sense of altruism’. Once readily present, now elusive at best. 

Where once we lent a helping hand out of a sense of commitment to our fellow human beings, it is now entirely permissable to offer aid if, and only if, it is economically and politically beneficial to us.

So have we all just up and become more selfish, or are there bigger issues at play here?

The German sociologist Hartmut Rosa argues that modern life with its rapid and relentless acceleration in everything from communication to transportation has resulted in ‘a fundamental feeling of alienation, where the world feels cold, indifferent, and solely something to be managed or conquered’. 

He posits in his theory of resonance that some of these feelings of alienation are due to a lack of resonance in our lives — the lack of a genuine, responsive relationship to the world, one in which we are touched by it and answer it in turn.

And herein lies perhaps the (optimistic) answer to the question posed above.

What if the loss of altruism so acutely felt by those in need isn’t the inevitable result of increasing selfishness, but is due ‘simply’ to the fact that we have lost our way; that we have given up so much for what we are now realizing is so little? 

Rosa’s theory has as much to do with our own malaise as it does with the knock-on effects on others, and he believes that a solution can be found in the (re)cultivation of deep relationships with ourselves, others, the natural world, and society.

So as we turn off the computer, switch on the auto response, and pack our bags in pursuit of rest and relaxation, perhaps we can include, along with the books and the sunscreen, a healthy dose of Hartmut Rosa resonance theory. 

That one 'simple 'summer accessory might be just what we need to reconnect not only with what matters to us, but also with what matters to those most in need.

Happy summer and see you at the shop!