2025.9.10 👉 198 ways to act, finding a path through a tangled forest of ideas

The Work Beneath is an ongoing letter on change for a just and thriving world — in systems, in teams, and in ourselves.

Dear lovely colleagues + friends,

The news has been extraordinarily heavy, and I remind myself that bearing witness matters. It was a good time to read this short essay by Solitaire Townsend (shared by Karen Mitchell, Futureproof Cumbria's chief executive), It's All Going To Be OK: But perhaps not for the reasons you think.

Will we make it? I have no idea, no one does. Despite millions of words written and careers built on being ‘futurists’, no one can say with certainty what will happen next.

And this is the important part: you don’t need to know.

You don’t have to be sure the world will get better.
You don’t have to have faith that your work will ‘succeed’.
You don’t need to measure your contribution in final outcomes or global milestones.

Because the value of working to make the world better doesn’t come after.
It’s not dependent on applause, proof, or legacy.
The worth is in the doing.

I'd also tucked the A6-sized How to Change the World by John-Paul Flintoff into my backpack for the flight. The Appendix includes an inspiring list of 198 Ways to Act excerpted from Gene Sharp's 1973 The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Even more inspiring is thinking about all the people over the centuries who've engaged in those non-violent resistance tactics, from vigils to strikes to skywriting.

People change the world again and again. We can do the same.

Wandering through the woods with a laptop

I've had this newsletter half-written for some time, partly due to travels, partly because I’ve been deep in "the German Forest" – a phrase I heard from Caroline May of Switchblade Lemonade, who got it from Jad Abumrad of Radiolab.

The German Forest is what Radiolab staff call that terrifying middle stage of any creative project where you're surrounded by too much material and can't see your way out to a finished piece – whether you're producing a radio piece, writing a novel, or <ahem> writing a research paper, or putting together a new team and new ideas for a client proposal.

For me, it feels like I'm flailing about in a sea of post-its and digital notes. It’s all-consuming, disorienting, and from the sounds of it... totally normal. 😮‍💨😂

Besides giving this messiness a name, Abumrad also notes that:

(a) the messiness is essential to the creative process

(b) structures help, e.g., storytelling rules, forms of poetry, proposal formats.

I’ve never had a name for it before, but I've been in the German Forest many times. I've come to accept the messiness not just as necessary – but as a sign that I'm doing something that's worth doing. And I can feel there's a difference now. It's still messy, but I trust that I'll find my path through.

Two things that I'm finding helpful:

1️⃣ Ask the classic questions that researchers and communicators would ask.

Researchers and communicators are professional idea wranglers, so they ask great questions to help lay a path through the German Forest. I saw this up close and personal in shaping our piece on race equity and the health effects of air pollution with two of the pros at Impact on Urban Health, comms manager Patrick and head of evidence & learning Deon. Here are a few questions drawn from our conversations:

— What did I hope might emerge when I started?
— What's the problem I'm trying to solve? What questions am I trying to answer?What do I not need to solve? Try to get as specific about this as possible.
— What's in – and crucially, what's out – of scope this piece? I often want to cover everything. It helps to say "this is what I'm not looking at now - let's park it for the future."
— What do I want people to think, feel, or do differently because of it? I find that thinking of real people who are 'them' (not you) really helps. What's in it for them – WIIFM? (As the wonderful presentation and leadership coach Amelia Saberwal continually reminds me and her other clients.)
— Who is this for, really? What decision are they trying to make, and what will your writing do?

2️⃣ Getting offscreen and into a different physical and mental mode:
— Draw it out with a real pen and a blank sheet of paper. I've found this to be especially helpful after too much exposure to generative AI.
— Go for a walk or a jog and think it through. My dear friend and fellow independent consultant Huria says she feels so strong when she runs – and so for her that's a great place from which to do her best thinking. When do you feel strongest? Can you bring that into your workflow?
— Talk it through with someone. Really, talk. Out loud. To a human. Or to a Rubber Duck (another thing I learned from Amelia!)

Links

— Here's how to portray extreme heat as the danger it is, without photos of people splashing in fountains [Climate Resilience for All, as shared by freelance sustainability comms consultant Christina Hayes at Cambridge Grove Consulting's July get-together for independent consultants working on climate]

— "Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?" asks the Chris Messina character in the 2013 dramedy Celeste and Jesse Forever, starring Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg as married childhood best friends who break up. "Stop focusing so much on being right" is one of several good pieces in this NYT round-up of relationship advice. [NYT gift link]

— “The idea that you might offset the harm you’re going to do to a fragile and ultra-globally-limited chalk stream network ... fundamentally fails to recognise the non-fungible nature of nature.” Robert Macfarlane, writing in the New Statesman, on the seductive falseness of offsetting.

✨ Connections these last few weeks – amazing fellow independents!
One of the things I've loved about working independently is being in community with fellow independents, and learning from their skillsets and perspectives so different from my own. Some are dear former colleagues, others I've met more recently. This summer I got to meet up live or virtually with:
— Caren Holzman of Enabling Outcomes, a facilitator, strategist and evaluator with a focus on development outcomes,
— Imo Martineau and Matt Whitney of Cambridge Grove Consulting and previously colleague at Clean Air Fund, who hosted a lovely picnic for independent consultants working on climate and clean air, including Caro Fry, Sandra Roling, Tracy Corley, and Farid Kelekun,
— Kavita Prakash-Mani of Dragonfly Advisory, who advises investors, NGOs and corporates on protecting nature, mitigating climate change and benefiting communities on the frontlines,
— Louise Mousseau, a philanthropic advisor specializing in fund design, innovation and early stage social investing, previously at Impact on Urban Health and UnLtd,
— Claire Barry, fellow Londoner-turned-resident-of-the Lake District who's part third sector communications consultant, part teacher and practitioner of psychotherapy,
— Annie Barber, obsessed with using evidence & learning to drive positive change, previously head of MEL at Clean Air Fund. We're cooking up an equity meet-up in London in November – stay tuned!
— Urvi Doshi, who works with mission-driven innovators in education, learning and professional development, and brilliantly facilitating Meaningful Work Collective's writing group from her home base in Singapore.

As always, thanks for being here and until next time,

Patrin

PS If you know others who might enjoy this letter, feel free to pass it along — and thank you!