‘The world is our house. Keep it clean.’ That’s a Chinese proverb. The world is sliding into the mud of 1930s fascism, sleep-walking into Dystopia on a burning planet and Trump the puppet of various people even more malevolent than he is, with Elon controlling everything. (And that name? I imagine his parents liked the name Leon but were dyslexic. Apologies to anyone to whom I caused offence with that bit of facetious frivolity.)
Where we are now (for instance, did you know that the average American child, by eighteen years old, has watched 16,000 murders?) is the ultimate result of thirty to forty years of NeoLiberalism, of the constant downgrading of public institutions, the privatisation of almost everything and the colossal state-sanctioned transfer of public wealth into a few private hands. One per cent of humans now own 50 per cent of the wealth and the op 10 per cent own 85 per cent of it.
The system works well for the top 10 per cent
The system works well for the richest 10 per cent of adults, who hold 85 pre cent of all earthly wealth. ‘Things get less exciting if you belong to the other nine-tenths of the human population, who have to split the remaining 15 percent of the world’s economic resources.’ (Beck, 2025, p.238)
And in a world in the above state what can we do? Be kind to each other and ourselves and keep singing, dancing, drawing, gardening, laughing, cooking, composing, loving, painting, swimming … reminding ourselves that this too will pass, and to do what Eleanor Butler, one of the Ladies of Llangollen – https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Ladies_of_Llangollen
wrote: ‘There is no refuge from the horrors of history but in the mild majesty of private life.’
Martha Beck’s Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity and Finding Your Life’s Purpose
And while we continue to practise our majestic little lives within our narrowing budgets, now there is scientifically verified evidence of the massive benefits of practising the arts. American sociologist Martha Beck in her new book Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity and Finding Your Life’s Purpose (Piatkus, 2025) reveals extremely heartening news about what we can do to improve our lives – and the lives of others around us. While we are making art it is impossible for us to feel anxiety.
During the Covid lockdown Beck – see https://marthabeck.com – developed an online course on creativity in a world that had become overwhelmingly uncertain. While researching this she learnt how creativity affects the brain. To put it simply, enormously and beneficially.
Making art for as little as 45 minutes reduced subjects’ cortisol levels, no matter what their skill level. Colouring in reduces stress and colouring in round objects does so even more. Dancing reduces the risk of dementia in studies comparing it to golf and other sports, which do not. Writing expressively re trauma for 15 mins had long-lasting positive effects on physical and mental health. Studies of trauma survivors showed that when these people used art to help process their experiences, their risk of developing PTSD reduced by 80 per cent.
Creativity is a way to love: Gina Chick’s We Are the Stars
Beck claims that the whole point of all the arts is to express the artist’s personal truth in ways that can be understood by the people around them. In other words, Beck writes, creativity is a way to love. We need to do art but we also need human connection.
This point is also forcefully explored by Gina Chick in We Are the Stars. ‘What is life but a series of stories?’ she writes (p. 424) and ‘Surely that is what we’re designed to do, transform our pain into art and give it to the world like a shout in the dark.’ (p. 391) The book is what we might expect from the granddaughter of Australian writer Charmian Clift who won the Alone Australia contest run by SBS last year: a rollocking journey told in a unique voice, exuberant with energy, creative drive and love.
Martha Beck’s latest book is in the Canberra library system and I had to return it before taking many notes from it but you should borrow it too – or buy it – it’s a great read and she’s very funny. I edited a lot of social scientists in my past free-lance editing career and sociologists don’t often write as well as Martha Beck. She’s got the rigorous evidence but she makes it readable and funny, which is a real gift. The book is full of great anecdotes as well and trenchant observations like this: ‘Statistics are people with the tears washed off.’
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