Welcome to Shift The Story

The Way Here, The Way Home

Now we enter the Anthropocene, the age of the Seventh Fire, Kali Yuga, the Polycrisis. Which stories will we follow? Which path will lead us home?

Shift the Story is a space to look at the narratives that define our culture, and question them as they begin to unravel. It identifies the stories that have led us here, that continue to direct us today, and explores different stories, ones forgotten, hushed or washed away. In doing so this Substack searches for a new path where we combine old tales and new with acceptance, respect and wonder at what could be. A kinder world for all I hope.

I believe in the power of stories. They allow us to see the world through new eyes, and in doing so to build understanding, acceptance, and companionship. Allowing us to see together as one. I offer a part of my own story below as an introduction to who I am and the path that has led me here. 

Part I

With a biocentric lens, I look again at all I have known, and am disillusioned by the story of our culture. I seek a kinder existence with people and planet, and to understand what this means in practice. 

I am Keshav, a 24 year old British Indian, born and brought up in Birmingham. I strongly believe in a need for systems change, for a reassessment of how our culture lives on Earth, and a shift in the stories that determine this. I hope that change, perhaps broadly in line with deep ecology and degrowth, could help us lead happier, more fulfilling and ultimately fairer lives, in greater harmony with others, human and non-human. Yet I seek to challenge these ideas, develop them, and add my voice to the call for a better future. I also wish to live in line with what I believe. I have felt the strain of dissonance between what I think and say, and what I do, and so it is important for me to practise the change I want to see. With a love for the natural world, for adventure and living simply, I want to work hands-on for a wilder future, opening my door to nature as a teacher while I develop my ideas. 

How I got here

I. Systems Change

“Same minds, new programs… Changed minds, no programs” - Story of B, Daniel Quinn

I like to understand how things work from above, looking at the whole picture, connecting the dots. By linking ideas and events I begin to make sense of why things are. I took a keen interest in history and economics towards the end of school, and went on to study Economics at University of Warwick. There my disillusionment grew, as I started to build an understanding of how the world’s economies, and thereby systems, functioned. I saw the impact that economic interest had on humanity, how growth was an agent of destruction as much as progress, how development was often a zero-sum game. I felt deeply at odds with what I was learning - a concept of more always being better. How could it be that consuming more, spending more, producing more was held to be positive, that consumerism fuelled our systems and bought us prosperity? I was not sure that this was the prosperity I wanted. Where was the value in appreciating the little things, the gratitude for gifts that do not have a price, that are given by the Earth, that demand reciprocity without the exchange of money? In an economy driven by consumption and growth, what values can prevail? 

I found reprise from this challenge of narrative in modules of Economics of Ecology, Development and Behaviour. The latter two revealed another side of economics, a side challenging the status quo, implying that the rules of the game were incorrect or unjust, hinting at an imperfect ideology and planting the seed for system change. Meanwhile, Economics of Ecology, despite being a short module without much of the traditional ‘content’ that I had grown accustomed to, laid bare the holes in economic theory as much as its practice. How do we value ecosystems? Or ‘ecosystem services’, defined as “services provided by the natural environment that benefit people”? In thinking that we are separate from the environment we aim to value the Earth’s resources that we can commodify - we may start with food, shelter, fuel, but what about valuing an ecosystem’s role in earth systems, in climate regulation? And what about when we blur such lines of separation and consider the intimate relationship between us and the Earth, one of giving as well as taking - how do we put a value to a spiritual homeland? The hard lines of economic rationality could not equitably solve this puzzle. In a degree which equates knowledge with quantifying, much like modern science which lays the foundations of our society’s ways of knowing, I was lost. I began to question not only the acquired knowledge of my degree, but also that of modernity itself. Perhaps it was this that gave weight to an estrangement from the observed truths of “western” knowledge, and opened the door to different forms of wisdom scarcely practised today. 

I believe my study of Economics, the good and the bad, along with my native curiosity and desire to question why, has enabled me to gradually dissect the economic system we practise worldwide today, and through this our culture. I now seek to investigate change. 

II. The World of Work 

Armed with an economics degree and more importantly the revelation that we live in an imperfect system, I took a position on a two year graduate scheme at NatWest Bank. After two years and four different rotations I emerged thoroughly grateful for the experience, and more resolute to drive change. 

Working for NatWest Group in particular, I was able to observe the inner workings of an organisation leading the ‘green transition’ for traditional UK banks. Banks control most of the available global capital and since the Paris Climate Agreement the largest banks have invested more than $4.6 trillion into the fossil fuel sector - they have the influence to perpetuate its use, or mark its end. Admittedly they do not and cannot work in isolation, but their importance in the economic system cannot be understated. Working across the bank, I saw just how far we are from a truly ecologically-friendly society, and how hard and slow it can be to drive change, nevermind instigating systemic shifts.

During the two years I was lucky enough to gain a huge amount of varied perspective: I worked for NatWest’s Accelerator, speaking directly with entrepreneurs many of which were sustainability focused; I worked in a highly dynamic team at the centre of driving climate solutions and partnerships through the bank; for my final rotation I joined a design team, giving me an invaluable introduction to service design and systems thinking. Through this graduate scheme, I developed my ideas and began to share them. I led a “book club”, unnerving my team with a discussion about tipping points and the ruptured Anthropocene. In the design team I held a workshop, raising the argument for collective effort before diving further into the role design has in creating a sustainable future through an ideation session. Yet, I learnt the most by leading the Education workstream of the Sustainable Futures Network, a bank-wide volunteer network blissfully independent from the bank’s targets, a space to challenge and speak freely. This workstream had already held presentations over the last few years, covering a wide range of topics including Climate Change, Biodiversity, Oceans, Consumerism, Energy. Before I joined they had reached over 10,000 bank staff. The material was incredible, especially refreshing to see being shared within a bank, yet the results seemed limited. People still gravitated to how they could limit their individual impact through small changes - save energy by turning off computers, send fewer emails, buy fewer things. Valuable changes, but I felt disheartened, like I was missing a key audience. I wanted my colleagues to internalise the content of those packs, to feel, to open their eyes to the imperfections of a system they perpetuated. I wanted them to consider how they could act, not limited to individual changes in their personal lives, but as a collective, driving bank-wide change and even changing the system. We were reaching colleagues who were directors, sector heads, the decision-makers of the bank. Now I needed to inspire them. 

I sought a change in direction - our main focus became setting up regular half-day workshops with speakers, panel debates, entrepreneur showcases, all centred around solutions for a sustainable future. I wanted to encourage colleagues to question how things work, to help them be brave in their ideas and empower thoughts of a different future. In my mind, this would evolve to an ‘Earth Festival’, a vision of an alternate path, a tangible expression of what could be, a half-day experience to take away and strive towards. To help us see a way forward. 

I chose to leave the bank at the end of the 2 year graduate scheme, and had to content myself with leaving this vision to my co-lead with the ball already rolling. I knew at this stage that the bank was no longer the correct teacher for me, and so I left the corporate world behind, and a month later left the UK, system and all, for a five-month journey through India.

Part II coming soon