Change is Gonna Come

Adapting with Pleasure

Everywhere, it seems, change is happening at an accelerated rate. Between the pandemic, wildfires, droughts, disrupted supply chains, political and economic upheaval, we are all getting a master class in adaptation. Sometimes, it feels like we are white-knuckling our way through an onslaught of bad news in the hopes of returning to normal. But, what if our new normal is rapid change? If so, we might want to prioritize the practice of adapting.

Here on Cape Cod, the ocean offers daily lessons on this. On this 70-mile stretch of a sandbar, incoming tides sculpt the beach into a new form every day. Sometimes the waves leave behind rolling hills, other times they flatten everything for miles. Boulders emerge and disappear overnight. Storm swells carve out bottoms of the dunes, taking with them a few feet of shoreline as they retreat. The coastline, always in flux, recedes about five acres every year. Houses built close to the edge have, on occasion, slid into the sea. 

One response is to bring in sandbags to try to stop the erosion. But, there is only so much sandbagging one can do. There is no resisting the ocean. The most successful creatures here, from shorebirds to humans, are the ones who adapt to the ocean’s daily doings. 

I have been researching how organisms adjust to new environments and thinking about how pleasure plays a role in both our desire to adapt and our ability to do so.

The next couple of newsletters will be looking at this. I would love to hear from you. When have you adapted to a challenging situation? What helped you do so? Do you think pleasure has a role to play in how we address something as enormous and existential as climate change?