Call to Courage

In an age of polycrisis, many of us have lost our equilibrium. Multiple forces destabilize us, from trade tensions and political polarization to a housing crisis and inflation and the arrival of artificial intelligence. Research shows that Canadians have adopted what the executive vice-president of Abacus Data, Eddie Sheppard, calls a “precarity mindset,” or the “concern that the rug can be pulled out from us at any point.” Today nine out of ten Canadians believe that instability is here to stay — that this is “the new normal.” Psychologically, Sheppard has told me, that’s “a pretty big shift.”

Gillian Deacon taps into powerful currents, then, with a book that grapples with uncertainty — a project that was sparked by a period of illness. “When a trapdoor opens beneath our feet and what we thought was solid ground falls away, it’s natural and inevitable that we feel rattled,” the former CBC broadcaster writes in A Love Affair with the Unknown. Later, she...