Human 30: Emma Pocock

CEO at FrontRunners

After growing up in the Pilbara, Emma moved to Perth as a teenager. She holds a degree in Women’s Studies, a Masters in International Development, and has written a book with her husband, Dave, titled ‘In Our Nature’. Em has been a lot of things in her life - a florist, youth worker, research assistant, has been involved in various think tanks, and in politics. She spent a year living in Japan writing poetry, and another in Zimbabwe working on a citrus farm. Currently, Em runs her own organisation, FrontRunners, that supports athletes and sporting organisations tackle the climate and environmental challenges we all face.

Emma is a human mammal. Here are her thoughts:

What brings you the most joy in life?

There are so many things – nature, loved ones, writing. One thing I’ve been thinking about recently is the joy that comes from hard but productive physical work. I experience this both gardening and as part of our local park care group which involves lugging heavy branches and logs into big piles as we remove the non-natives and restore the woodland. There’s something deeply satisfying about getting to the end of either activity and feeling really worn out but being able to see the effects of what you’ve done. That is one of my favourite feelings.

What does success mean to you?

I suppose it’s not something I think about a lot. Maybe endeavouring to answer the questions life asks of you?

What do you see as your greatest achievement?

This isn’t really the lens through which I view my life. I’ve done a lot of things that I feel proud of, but I think it’s the small, everyday things that make us who we are and when we focus only on big achievements, we can often obscure what kind of person we were in the making of them.

What are you most grateful for?

I try (and often fail) to keep up a gratitude practice and the few things that reliably come up are: my partner, Dave; time spent in Nature; relationships that stretch and nurture; and having a body that is healthy and capable.

What is something most people don’t know about you?

I only ever had three wisdom teeth.

Who or what has had the biggest influence on your life?

Apart from the obvious answers – my parents, my beautiful sister, Dave – the people that spring to mind are the writers whose work has shaped me: Mary Oliver, Rilke, Rumi, Maya Angelou, Madeline Miller, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Paulo Coehlo, James Hollis… to name a few.

In our culture we often lack the language and courage to say things that speak to the core of human existence, our desire to make meaning out of our lives, our longing to belong, to be seen and to count for something. But in writing (and in songs) those things can be said in a way that transcends those limitations, making it possible to imagine something bigger, more powerful, more meaningful. Or at least that’s how it has been for me.

“You are only free when you realise you belong no place - you belong every place - no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.” - Maya Angelou

“I live not in dreams but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future.” - Rilke

“Go out in the woods, go out. If you don't go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.” - Clarissa Pinkola Estes

"Emerson, I am trying to live, as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was less in my head to examine, not to speak of the busy heart." - Mary Oliver, Red Bird

What do you regret?

On the one hand, so many things. Mostly moments where I have been unkind or careless, made jokes that have hurt the feelings of people I love, not been courageous enough to do what I think is right or necessary. But I also know these things have been some of my greatest teachers. In the words of Dr Hollis:

“There is more mess of things to be made ahead; some of them will be our great teachers, some will cause us to grow, and some will bring the fullness of failure to bear on the encounter with the mystery. Great meaning will often come from such dismal moments; they are our moments, our meaning, and we will be entitled to them because we will have paid dearly for them.”

Has there been a defining moment in your life? Can you tell us about it?

Meeting my partner, Dave. Being friends with someone who has so much courage and who lives so honestly has had a huge impact on how I see myself and the world around me. It’s not always easy, but it’s always good.

As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

It changed all the time… a writer, a politician, a diplomat, a lawyer.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I sometimes wish I had been less worried about keeping the people around me happy as a kid. But now I can see how that served me well. Learning to follow my own inclinations as an adult but with the ability to understand the needs of the people around me is its own kind of strength. So, I’d probably just tell baby Emma that she was ok and she would work it out.

What is the most important thing we can teach kids in school?

Curiosity and how to be in their physical bodies.

If you could have a conversation with anyone, living or dead, who would you choose and why?

In the age of podcasts, I feel like we get to hear so much from some of our best thinkers, writers, scientists, academics. One of my favourite podcasts is called Longform. They interview longform writers on their work and lives and I’d love to have such insight into some of the authors I love from centuries past – Rilke, Rumi, Jane Austen, Henry David Thoreau. If I had to pick just one, I’d probably say Thoreau. I love reading his journals and would love even just to hear what his voice sounded like.

What do you doubt most?

So many things! In my teens and early twenties, I was so sure of myself and the world, of what was right and what was wrong. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become less and less sure about so many things. But I find that uncertainty liberating in a way.

My certainty in my teens could sometimes create a rigidity and inflexibility that wasn’t particularly pleasant to live with or be around and was at odds with some of my values of kindness and generosity. The more room there is for grey, for nuance, the more curious I feel about the world, the more generous I can be.

It’s not to say there is no possibility of reaching a conclusion or truly knowing something, but it changes the way I approach difference and disagreement and I hope it makes me more kind.

When did you last have a significant change of mind?

I recently discovered I love anchovies after believing my whole life that I hated them.

What is the role of luck in our lives?

I suppose luck is a positive form of chance and so it does play a role. I have a personal gripe with people attributing to ‘luck’ what is actually the result of either hard work or structural advantage. On the one hand if someone has worked incredibly hard to achieve something and then gets described as “lucky” it diminishes their efforts. And on the other, if they are rewarded for things they did not work to accrue and call it luck it misses the structural factors at play. We often call things luck or lucky when they certainly are not.

Do you have a favourite quote? What is it? Why do you like it?

At the moment, this quote sits on the wall above my desk:

“It is six A.M., and I am working. I am absentminded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc. It is as it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be a hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt.” - Mary Oliver in Of Power and Time

I hope to be able to one day answer the questions life is asking of me without shame or guilt.

What would you do with your life if you had unlimited financial resources?

I would write. I would buy up land to manage for biodiversity. I would find ways to use my resources to bring an end to fossil fuel exploration, help transition fossil fuel communities to the new economy, and fund climate litigation. And I would try to help build the new models we need to reorient our lives back toward Nature.

If you could have the definitive answer to a single question, what would you ask?

How do we get out of the mess we’re in?

What concept/fact/idea should every human on the planet understand?

We are part of Nature.

Do human beings have free will?

Given we’re born into particular families, societies, nation states, and times, and those things shape what we can even conceive of, as well as the course our life takes, I suppose we don’t have free will. Just the possibility of making decision within those limitations or opportunities.

Do you believe in God?

I grew up in a family with a strong Christian tradition. My grandfather was a Baptist Minister and my parents always really involved in our local church. There were a lot of things I loved about growing up as part of that community. As I got older some of the beliefs began to grate against my own experience of the world and the things I was learning. I began to have questions that weren’t always welcome or encouraged. That resulted in me moving away from churchgoing.

I haven’t spent a huge amount of time dwelling over it. Lots of friends and people I grew up with who have left the church or faith of their families and childhood have needed to push far away from it but that hasn’t been my experience.

I don’t know precisely what I would say I believe now, but I do have a love for the unfolding mystery around us. I often find myself looking for and revelling in transcendent experiences in Nature and music. I have a deep longing for meaning, and I still find real value in some of the teachings and texts of that tradition I grew up in.

Could we be living in a simulated universe?

There’s a walk I take a few times a week that goes past a walkway over a creek. On the underside of the walkway “The Matrix was a doco” is spray painted in large, wobbly, black letters. Seeing that a few times a week is honestly the only time I ever think about this question – so often, but without any depth.

If we are, whoever is in charge could really be doing a better job.

Will the continual development of technology have a net positive or negative influence on humanity?

Oh man. I have such a fraught relationship with technology. On the one hand I know, rationally, how much it has given us as a species and on the other I often fantasise about life without so much of it.

Thinking about the damage it’s wrought on Nature but also on our psyches, it’s very hard for me to appropriately weigh the negatives and positives. It seems to me that perhaps the problem is not the technology we have and continue to create, but our relationship with one another and the world around us. As if our technological knowhow has outstripped and been prioritised ahead of other kinds of knowing, ahead of our care for Nature and one another. I think if we could correct that balance, we could reorient toward a net positive.

What is the single greatest achievement of humanity?

I don’t know about the greatest, but I am extremely grateful for our ability to tell story, to make myths. They have often served us very badly, but when they serve us well they have the power to reshape everything.

What do you see as the biggest existential threat to humanity?

I want to say the climate crisis. But I think it is what sits behind that – our muddled relationship with Nature, our inability to see our proper place in the great web of life.

What does it mean to live a good life?

I think living a good life means not being afraid to look beyond the edge of the map of known terrain. To have more days when you overcome the twin gremlins of fear and lethargy that sit at the end of our beds every morning. To have the courage to try and answer the questions life is asking of you.

What is a good death?

I couldn’t possibly hope to say it better than Mary Oliver:

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

— Mary Oliver

What question should I have asked you?

Maybe: what is the role of love in our lives?

Thanks for your time, Em!

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