I’m scared, I can’t see the future.

by itchysilk | Apr 13, 2026 | Scratch, THE ITCH | 0 comments

I took my friend Sarah to a Leith Ross concert in Dublin. She says I listen to a lot of depressive music but I think it’s slowly growing on her. The room is small. I like the concerts better here. In Paris you’re further away from the music. Here, if you wanted to reach out and touch the people who helped you cry to a soundtrack, you could. I don’t do that though, I feel like that would be weird, frowned upon even, and for good reason. They cry when they sing “(I Can See) The Future”. I almost do too.

For a long time before I settled on Political Science, I didn’t know what I wanted out of life. I had an abundance of aspirations, had trouble picking just the one. Shan’t I read every book? Watch every movie? Live all the lives, like Barbie! But of course, she’s blonde and American and I, neither of those things. So even if she can do all of that, I probably couldn’t. Your twenties are a weird decade of life, but that’s expected. It just so happened that mine coincided with the Earth facing a much more worrying crisis. Older folks really hate it when we say we don’t know. It’s not considered enough of an answer. I think it’s because they realise how little they allow themselves to admit that they have no clue what the fuck is going on in the world. They were like us before. And who doesn’t want grand great things happening for them?

I’m living my life in parentheses (and yes parentheses instead of em dashes, just in case someone might think I used ai). I’m leaving my life in parentheses, just for now, just until I have a better answer to give. Jack of all trades, I shall be the master of none. Even if I had things I was certain to know, what would it mean next to all the things happening around the world? I do want a plan, a five-year trajectory, a clean little sentence about what we will become. Something you could write on a name tag. Something you could say at a dinner party without anyone asking a follow-up question. But I think what bothers is not the uncertainty itself. It’s the possibility that the uncertainty is justified.

If you look around for too long it becomes difficult to pretend the future is a stable object. It used to be described like something you could walk toward in a straight line. Study this. Work hard. Get there eventually. The instructions were clear enough that you could blame yourself if things didn’t work out. Now the instructions feel… incomplete. Every day there is a new thing to worry about. The climate. The cost of living. Wars you watch unfold in real time on a screen small enough to fit in your pocket. Entire industries that appear and disappear before anyone finishes writing the university course about them. And then someone asks what you want to do with the rest of your life. It’s a very big question to ask people who have grown up watching the ground move.

My friends are some of the most self-aware people I know. Sometimes it feels like we have a full diagnostic manual for being alive. And yet knowing the words doesn’t necessarily make the future easier to navigate. People like to interpret this hesitation as weakness. As if we are standing still out of laziness. But standing still can also be a form of caution. A way of looking around before stepping forward. Older generations sometimes talk about us as if we are uniquely lost. But I wonder if what they are really seeing is a generation that refuses to pretend certainty where there isn’t any. Because if the world itself feels unpredictable, then not having a perfectly articulated life plan might not be a failure of character. It might simply be honesty. The future has always been uncertain, yes. We just happen to be very aware of it. And awareness can look a lot like hesitation.

Yes, I’m scared; that I can’t see this sacred land of hope, where I’ll get a job and world peace. I wish nothing more than to say with certainty, that everyone will come to their senses, sit down at the same table and foster understanding and compromise. But men are jealous lovers to the power they hold. The problem is that the people in charge rarely speak the language of uncertainty. Politics rewards the opposite. Certainty polls better. Certainty wins elections. Certainty makes for cleaner headlines. So instead we are offered very confident answers to problems that are obviously not simple. Close the border. Drill more oil. Trust the market. Trust the state. Trust technology. Trust tradition. Someone always claims to have the single lever that will fix the entire machine. It would almost be comforting, if only it were believable.

But when you grow up watching crises stack on top of each other you start to recognise the pattern. The solutions arrive pre-packaged long before anyone agrees on what the question actually is. Politics becomes a performance of reassurance rather than an attempt at understanding. That’s why it feels so strange to be young right now. We were taught to analyse systems, identify incentives, question narratives. Then we look at the institutions running the world and realise that many of them function by doing the exact opposite. Admitting uncertainty is treated like weakness. Changing your mind is treated like betrayal. Complexity is treated like an inconvenience. So the people with the most power often behave like they are the least allowed to say “I don’t know.” That is where the real fear comes from. Not the uncertainty itself, but the suspicion that the people steering the ship are pretending the ocean is calm.

Uncertainty, handled honestly, is not paralysis. It is the beginning of responsibility. It forces you to ask better questions. To build systems that bend instead of break. To plan for multiple futures instead of insisting there is only one. That requires patience, humility, compromise: the political virtues that are hardest to perform in a thirty-second clip. So we live in this strange contradiction. A generation trained to recognise complexity entering a political world that still rewards oversimplification. We hesitate, we analyse, we question. And from the outside it can look like fear.

Maybe it is fear. But it might also be the first honest response to a world that refuses to sit still. For better, for worse.

In this article I sit down with Chloé Pilliard . Not only is she an important member of Fridays For Future she’s also one of my closest friends, and agreed to lend me some of her valuable time to discuss Politics, Consumerism, Ecology, Activism and more.

Questions will be in bold and answers in Italics.

In high school because both of us wanted to study politics, we got into pretty intense debates on how we wanted to engage with climate change and how we would live our lives knowing that potentially our way of life would be threatened by imminent change, do you think your opinion has changed much since then ? What’s shaped the way you think about this issue lately?

Chloé : “Regarding the current inaction of states both on the national and international scale, I think that the collapse of our current socio-economic system needs to be considered seriously. I do think however that I really want to fight for a future where humans could leave peacefully after capitalism. I have no idea what this world would look like, but that is an idea that I think is worth fighting for !“

For anyone who might not be familiar with Fridays for future, do you want to give a quick rundown of what you think people should know about it?

Chloé : “It is a movement that originated from a call made by the now well known Greta Thunberg (I don’t know about you, but each time I hear her speech at the UN “How dare you” I get really emotional), from Sweden. It began as a youth movement advocating for ecological and social justice and mainly thanks to the famous strikes for the climate, for instance localised in front of government buildings, and mainly by skipping school. It is also non violent and thus enabling young people to be involved in activist activities without putting them at risk.

The movement has grown since, and nowadays there are so many branches in different countries, over the 7 continents, with different techniques to milit. We moved beyond simply the climate strike even if they are emblematic of the movement. Each of the branches are independent, and can have different view points, for instance on The Palestinian genocide some decided to openly stand for Palestine while others decided to stay more discrete.

Now in France more specifically, we have different branches in several french cities, our actions are not only limited to climate strikes.

And most importantly, Fridays For Future is one of the only youth-led organisations that take care to politicise the youngest, including minors : that might be one of our main strengths. Because activism is a good way to fight over climate anxiety, and for our future itself, and I don’t understand why the youth should be excluded from this fight.“

Do you think people care enough about the climate crisis right now?

Chloé : “I think we speak of the climate crisis as something that can be manageable in the future, as we do not really see it for ourselves (at least in Europe, apart from hotter summers), the direct consequences of the climate crisis.

It became part of the picture, hearing that things are going bad, COP* after COP* : nothing really changed structurally.

However, I do think that most people are usually pretty open to discuss it, as such they care : what is lacking though, is a common imaginary about a post-capitalist future.

“It is easier to imagine the end of the world rather than the end of capitalism” As Joost de Moor had underlined, I think a big issue with the current crisis is that we simultaneously know a crisis of imagination, we have to work on the way to imagine and communicate about a post capitalist and happy future. “

*Conference of the Parties are the supreme decision-making body of a United Nations environmental treaty, most notably the UNFCCC (climate change framework). These annual meetings bring together signatory countries to negotiate actions on global issues like climate change.

Would you consider Ecology the main thing you advocate for? If so, do you think it exists as a standalone claim?

Chloé: “I would say I personally claim an intersectional approach to the transitions, encompassing social and solidarity based transitions (including feminist, LGBTQIA+ and anti-racist fights) as well. It is a broad approach to the transitions, that are definitively plural, but I do not think that we can approach the climate crisis any other way seriously, because at some point everything intersects. It has notably been studied by Rebbeca Crenshaw, Angela Davis…

Ecology as a standalone claim does exist, or at least is claimed by some, but to me it is not something to be regarded as serious.

For instance it is a claim regularly put forward by right wing parties trying to “handle” the climate crisis, forgetting the whole point of the transitions : ecology without class struggle is just gardening, and I would add to that without feminism, anti-racism, social and solidarity struggles ! So yeah, it is a rather ambitious program. “

Who would you say are the activists you look up to most?

Chloé: ” As I grew up, it was obviously Greta Thunberg, again my eyes get instantly watery when I re-listen to her famous speech “How Dare you”. During high school then I was (and still am), really impressed by the work of Camille Etienne.

Nowadays, I also realise that you do not need to make big things happen to be considered as an activist. For instance I would absolutely consider my friends from Fridays For Future France activists as well, and it is important to remember that we can all act in our own ways sometimes even with limited time, or means. That’s why I really like The Fable of the Hummingbird** from Pierre Rhabi : together we can stop a fire.”

**. When a massive forest fire starts, all animals flee, except one tiny hummingbird that carries water droplets in its beak, insisting it is doing its part despite the overwhelming destruction.

Do you think it’s harder to make your way into activist spheres as a young woman?

Chloé : “Well, it is a bit paradoxical but also extremely revelatory of a structural patriarchy that persists I would say.

For instance in Fridays For Future France we are a majority of women, I would say in most ecological organisations it is also the case. However, at the moment you look at high responsibility jobs, it is mostly men.

I would also like to make a point to claim that there is also a part of the climate milieu that stays really bourgeois and white. Again, sadly in Fridays For Future France, we are mostly upper/ middle class white young people. It is not to say that lower class and racialised people are not present in the milieu, because it would be so wrong, just look at the incredible work of Banlieu Climat, but there is surely behind the same patriarchal system, a racist one, and a need to work on representation! “

I don’t know if you’ve seen the online trend right now of people saying “just be vegetarian without the bacon”? A girl was saying how she really wanted to be vegetarian but she just liked bacon too much and couldn’t see herself ever giving it up fully and most people urged her to just do it and keep eating bacon for now, because that would still be an improvement. Do you agree with that rhetoric?

Chloé : ” Yes, I do agree. For some, it could be considered as a simplistic and naive rhetoric, but to me the first steps are the most important.

I am not a perfect ecologist, and will probably never be. As such, we really have to be careful with the idealistic idea that everything has to make total sense, or be perfect to act for a cause, because it can actually discourage you from doing anything at all.

First, it is better than doing nothing, and it is always a pathway to move forward.

Personally, it took me 2 years to fully transition to vegetarianism, and I still eat fish on special occasions. I don’t think I could ever be fully vegan as well !

You have to do something that works for you, especially if you want it to last.

Of course, it should not be used as an excuse to not make structural changes, especially when talking about our governments and institutions.

I would also like to underline that if we as citizens have to act, changes also have to come from above : it is too easy to blame your citizens for the climate crisis, without ever interrogating those who actually have, and are in power. “

You were one of the first people I know that has consistently thrifted most of their clothes, and you did that long before it was ever even popular. How did you get into thrifting? Also initially how did people react to that ?

Chloé: ” I think I became attentive to the climate urgency around high school, and back then I was a bit desperate to act, because inactivity made me really anxious.

It was way before I joined Fridays For Future France, so the only things that I had were individual gestures.

I did my research and saw that I could act on three main things : my meat and animal derived products consumption, stop taking the plane and finally to stop buying new products, including clothes.

At first I struggled a bit with this third objective, because you have to know the good places, but little by little it became overall a really fun activity. At first, my parents wouldn’t believe that I could only buy secondhand, but today I have shown them the contrary and my mom and sisters even follow me sometimes. So I would say I did a good job. My dad also tries to buy more responsible items etc.

I also did develop my style way more than if I had just continued to buy in regular stores. It was overall less expensive as well. Today, it is just part of my life, and an activity that I really much enjoy.

However, you still have to be cautious when buying new pieces, even second hand,because you can also overconsume this way. “

How do you think our generation’s relativity to Politics and Activism is different if at all to the previous ones? Do you think we’re turning away from institutions ? Is that a good strategy ?

Chloé: “I think there is a form of discouragement of young people towards our institutions, because they are not up to the task of the transformations that the climate crisis requires.

I don’t know if we could say that we are more activist than our parents, mine were not either way so I did discover a whole new world when entering climate and feminist activism.

For those of us that are more rooted in an activist community, I think there is a strong sense of belonging that we can definitively retire from, and it is really rewarding. For me, it is a second family, it has enabled me to grow, to define my identity, to be confident in the values I stand for etc.

But there is also a balance to have, definitely, because pressure to be a perfect activist is dangerous and you will not be useful to the fight, nor happy in life if constantly angry, sad or claiming something. “

If you had the power to put any law in place right now what would it be ?

Chloé :”I would re-take the original ambitious measures of the Convention citoyenne pour le Climat, one of the only good ideas of Macron’s Mandate, that was a success on principle, but never implemented. It was a great example of participative democracy and of a bottom up approach.

As such I would work on a law implementing a quota in individual and collective use of the plane, the most polluting means of transportation, long before cars’, for instance. “

Do you think the governments have failed their youth? Not just on the topic of climate change specifically.

Chloé : “I do think that there has been a strong wave of hope surrounding the 2015-2016 years. It was also the year where we saw the rise of the climate movement, notably led by Fridays For Future’s huge strikes.

The first mandate of Macron in France has been marked by a lot of promises around ecology, the well known ‘this mandate would be ecological, or not be at all’. At the same time, inside the EU, the green parties also have made remarkable scores. So there was a favorable context back then for this wave of hope as well?

However, it sadly stayed just the state of a wave, the transformative changes that we hoped for would happen did not in fact occur.

As such, I do think that any government is condemned to stay in a status quo form, it is too demanding for them to literally revolutionise our way, and their way of living. We are embedded so strongly in capitalist economic and social structures.

I do think however that at a smaller scale we, as individuals, have the power to transform our way of living, in our cities, in our villages. That is mainly where I get my hope, from the strength and organising communities that I think are decisive for our future. Take the example of the Incredible Edible movement that I quote a lot, because they literally started from one village (Todmorden), before being now active in more than hundred of communities in the UK. They are revolutionising our ways of consuming and producing foods by transforming cities in playfields for food self-sufficiency. “

Is there any « closing statement » you want to add? What do you want people who read this to remember ?

Chloé :”It is really difficult to be hopeful about the current state of the world right now, and about our future, that’s undeniable.

I would like however to conclude on this thought : the current anxiety that a lot of us share about our future as humanity (because let’s be clear, without us, the planet would actually survive pretty well) is also a strategy perpetuated by the powerful, those with economic, social and cultural capital. Make us too depressed to act, too petrified to start a revolution.

But I am a bit of a rebel, and I will not starve and resign, but fight to live, not just to survive.

I personally find a lot of hope in little gestures, as simple as going to my local market, thrift shopping with friends, planning trips in Europe by train… It honestly doesn’t have to be super complicated, just speaking about what you do, and how you perceive things can sometimes make people change behaviour and start rethinking their own way of living.

For those a bit in a mental breakdown state, I do recommend the watching of Tomorrow, by Mélanie Laurent and Cyril Dion, that is in my eyes a masterpiece in exposing all the positive and sustainable futures possible to us. Finally, also remember that hot people vote, and for parties that actually care about the planet.

So on this appeal to all to be a bit of an activist and a bit of a rebel, let’s be sober yes, but not unhappy! “