Nicole Woods

We are wired to seek and sustain relationships and cannot survive without them. The future of the human race won’t turn on space travel or climate tech, but on our ability to attach to others. A sense that we matter, that we can call on and be called upon by others to ease burdens and celebrate joy.

Said differently, society today frames productivity in a way that only sees “doing” and excludes “being”

“[...] The distinctive feature of the societies to which this historical process [i.e. capitalism and industrialist mass production] gave rise is that productive activity is mostly governed by a logic that tends to strip it of things like meaning, playfulness and sociability.”

When we can begin to tap into the deep vessel of who we truly are, so many things would end about oppression. I believe the powers that be don’t want us rested because they know that if we rest enough, we are going to figure out what is really happening and overturn the entire system. Exhaustion keeps us numb, keeps us zombie-like, and keeps us on... See more

As author and philosopher Bonnitta Roy would say, we must “dream ourselves awake.”

But in excess, self-development can create a world of self-interested individuals and that’s what I’m up against here. I’m against the continual process of self-betterment at the expense of community-betterment. I’m against participating in too much theory and not enough action. We can focus on being more loving and more empathetic and more... See more

caretaking is a kind of liberation

Building alternatives to extractive economics isn’t just about critiquing the system from afar/behind our screens. It’s about actively rewriting the story at the local level, where change feels personal and immediate. When those benefits are visible to the people we care about, they have the power to inspire more systemic change over time.

Perhaps it’s because some cultures – especially those somewhat insulated from the West’s relentless march towards individualised efficiency – have managed to preserve something we’ve lost along the way: an assumption of goodness in others. A default that sees a stranger and thinks ‘guest’ rather than ‘risk’. How ironic then that the countries we’re... See more