19: Writing into the Dark: Dementia and the Cultivation of Human(e)ness

It feels, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, as if the world is drowning in a whirlpool of dark ideas, dark thoughts, and their consequences – not just for the social and political ecology of humans but also the habitability of the planet for all species of living beings. Can we make any difference at all to the potentially apocalyptic future that is approaching and, if so, how?

Like many other liberal-minded people, I have lost faith to some extent in the ideals – such as mass protest movements, rational arguments, everyday activism, even education¹ – of my youthful years. Instead, my chapter proposes an intimately personal approach: in effect, an invitation to encounter the darkness within ourselves in the form of illness. And specifically, because it holds such terrors for most of us, the illness we call ‘dementia’.