Okay, so… I want to talk about the elephant in the room.

The small things we do in our everyday lives— things like sorting your trash, smiling at strangers, or buying second-hand clothes—those things matter. They do. But they’re not going to be enough. Not by themselves. We as people need to do more.

And that’s a really hard truth to carry.

It sits in my stomach like a stone sometimes.
The truth is: these small acts won’t secure a safe and just future for the majority.

Because what we’re facing is not small.
The kind of change we need isn’t going to come from everyone just doing their best as individuals. It’s going to come from us organizing—like, really coming together. Demanding better. Saying no to “business as usual.” Making noise. Showing up. Resisting. Reimagining.

And let me make this clear.
Thinking or saying “If you’re not vegan, what are you even trying or saying that you care?”
To me, that kind of thinking is harmful. It’s like saying: “If you’re not sacrificing everything, or if you haven’t cut your own emissions by 100%, then you’re not worthy of caring or acting or speaking up.”
I think that is incredibly shaming—and most of all, it’s paralyzing for people who want to help but don’t know how, or feel they don’t do “enough.”
Shame is not the way. We are all guilty of hurting others and the planet. That’s just the reality of living in this world.

We do need a kind of revolution.
And I don’t say that lightly.

That future we dream of? The one where people are safe, where nature is alive and thriving, where our great-great-great-grandchildren still have water and soil and joy and shade? That future won’t happen unless we accept that we’re going to have to make real sacrifices. Not just switching to oat milk or buying secondhand—but also rethinking what we value, how we live, what we accept, and what we demand.

I know that sounds scary. And I know that for some of us—like me—it can also seem impossible.
Because here’s another truth: Personally I can’t go out and do all these things.
I have physical limitations. I deal with chronic pain. My body doesn’t let me move the way I want to. I can’t be out there protesting or rewriting the system. It breaks my heart, honestly, because I want to so badly. And I bet so many other people experience something relatable. 

But. That doesn’t mean we’re powerless. TOGETHER is where the answer lies, it’s where it lives, burns like a wild flame. Together IS the “how.”

So yeah… the hard truth is: this is serious. And scary.
But the beautiful part is this: the solution is connection.
The solution is care, learning, trying, failing, showing up again.
The solution is us.

 

This is something I think about a lot — and it’s something we can easily drown in.

To put it simply: leaning too much toward either simplicity or nuance can be deeply problematic. Yet both extremes hold truth and importance.

The Golden Path of Radical Clarity

I try my utmost to make everything I write short and clear enough to share the absolute core of Heartline, while also keeping it nuanced enough. It’s hard to keep this balance. 

“I need to be able to explain it to a 5 year old, while also making sure there's meat on the bone”.

We live in tangled times. Especially the climate crisis — it touches injustice, history, emotions, systems, and pain. And often, people respond by making things even more complex. They pile on nuance until the heart of what they’re saying disappears.

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"Fuck Nuance" — and Why Simplicity Isn’t Stupidity

Sociologist Kieran Healy wrote an essay in 2017 called “Fuck Nuance.” It started as a critique of academic culture, but it hits on something crucial for anyone trying to make change — especially in overwhelming times.

Healy’s core argument: too much nuance can be a substitute for clear thinking.
In his words: "The urge to add nuance may be a substitute for thinking, not a part of it."

Instead of saying something brave or useful, people:

• Add layers until no one understands them

• Say "it's complicated" until no action can be taken

• Avoid commitment

• Signal their cleverness instead of doing the hard work of clarity

• Lose the audience they were hoping to reach

And the result? People stay passive:

• “I’m not qualified to speak on this.”

• “This is too complex to do anything about.”

But meanwhile — the world burns.

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How This Relates to taking Action for Justice, The Climate & Utopian Thinking

In climate talks, this overcomplication can be deadly:

• “We can’t just reduce emissions — what about…?

• “We can’t talk about degrowth without addressing….”

• “We need all kinds of … before even starting.”

Yes — these things matter and it’s not wrong to think like that. But if we keep adding layers we end up doing nothing. We stop making progress.

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Complexity — Not an Excuse

The Heartline follows a golden path: Simple enough to understand. Complex enough to be real.

The Heartline is not about being right — it’s about being clear enough to move.

We’re not simplifying the world. We’re remembering what’s at the core:

• A livable future.

• A place for everyone.

• A world where change comes from care.

I don’t want a culture where people are shamed for not saying it perfectly. I want a culture where people feel free to speak — even in rough words or half-finished ideas.

If the world is drowning, we don’t need more perfect essays. The Heartline is not meant to be perfect. Not flawless. Not all-explaining. But real enough to hold onto — and simple enough to share.

This is my attempt at taking steps towards the unknown and without having thought everything through. Had I decided to do that I probably would have never started, but now I’ve met so many people already who see the dream. I’m happy I dared to begin.

Whether or not you've ever seriously thought about utopia, most of us carry around some vague feeling of what could make the world better. Maybe it's replacing capitalism. Or getting everyone to stop eating meat. Or banning cars. Or investing in new technologies. There are so many ideas—and it's easy to get caught up in arguing which one is the right one — or just feeling completely lost.

Discussing all this means we care. But if we get stuck in our own vision—our own belief that this is the way—we don’t get very far.

Like I’ve said before, what I want is for people to start imagining. Really imagining. Utopia. Alternative futures. Not to settle for less just because we don’t know the full path there.

But when every person on Earth has their own vision. What then?

We can't make them all come true. Not even close. This is a massively complex problem, and there are so many viable solutions, but there is no ONE correct answer. No single silver bullet. And that’s not a failure—it’s just the truth for something this big.
But it’s easy to become narrow minded and lose sight.

I had a discussion with my grandpa recently. At first, we disagreed. I was frustrated—feeling that politicians were moving too slowly, making small, short-sighted, naive changes. I felt like they didn’t take the climate crisis seriously.

He didn’t say I was wrong—but he helped me see it differently. A political party isn’t a single voice. It’s a group of people who all have their own dreams and had to make compromises just to form that group—and then more compromises to get anything done in a wider system. That doesn’t mean there isn’t corruption or selfishness in politics. There is. But it reminded me that even inside systems I don’t trust fully, there are people trying their best to fight for a better future.

It also reminded me: the world is complicated. Good people can disagree. And we all still have to share this planet.

That’s why we need to:

1. Do everything we can. Eat less meat, sort trash, reduce car production, fly less, choose wisely, speak up. It all matters. More is more.

2. Think long-term—and beyond our own bubbles. We can’t just do what works for us. We have to think on behalf of others—people far away, future generations, other species. Especially the ones who don’t get a seat at the table whether it be their age, their location, existence.

3. Let ideas collide. And learn from each other. So many things in this project changed just because I talked to the people around me. Not just the ones who were excited. The sceptical ones. The too-busy ones. The quiet ones. Every single one offered something I hadn’t seen before.
We learn and grow from each other. We need to lean on each other. That’s the only way forward.
We learn so much from each other when we actually listen and are open. 

The Heartline is built on that belief:
We don’t need to all agree. We don’t need to all be the same. But we do need each other. We can’t do this alone. And we shouldn’t have to. “Alone, we can move fast. But together, we can move far.”