I Ain’t No Goodall – Grief, Privilege, and the Discipline of Hope
- Brainz Magazine
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Ken Breniman is a queer author, licensed clinical social worker, yoga therapist, and thanatologist guiding fellow mindful mortals at the threshold of life, death, devotion, and (r)evolution. His work blends neuroscience, primatology, Celtic wisdom, and psychedelic integration to invite braver ways of being human.
When Dr. Jane Goodall died last year, I was both saddened and, eventually, mobilized. Emerging research in grief psychology and neuroscience suggests that when grief is tended, it can become a powerful motivator, left unattended, it can become immobilizing. This is an empowering reframe, one increasingly relevant in a world shaped by collective loss.
I wasn’t grieving because Dr. Goodall’s work was unfinished, nor because her legacy felt fragile. I was grieving because she embodied a way of being human that now feels endangered – patient, relational, scientifically grounded, spiritually humble, and hopeful without being naïve.
In her final interview, she looked directly into the camera and into the eyes of anyone willing to meet her there. As an ancestor-in-training, this elderly woman took a sip of Irish whiskey and made a simple request to the world, “You have it in your power to make a difference. Don’t give up. Do your best while you’re still on this beautiful Planet Earth.”
Not perfectly. Not heroically. But humanely. She reminded us that hope is not a feeling, it is a discipline. A practice. A choice repeated daily.
Her death stirred grief in me, not just for her, but for the part of myself that had been waiting. Waiting for certainty. Waiting for moral clarity. Waiting for permission to act without contradiction.
Instead, I stayed still. I wrapped myself in existential analysis like a weighted blanket and mistook paralysis for wisdom. Eventually, the weight became too heavy, and something else stirred, an urge to move.
From despair to motion
I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, where being different is noticed early. Later, I moved to Japan, came out, and found myself part of the early 1990s LGBTQ movement, one that wasn’t loud or performative. We were simply people showing up, risking small acts of honesty in daily life, often without language, legitimacy, or safety guaranteed.
Ironically, it was in another country, living as a visible outsider, that I learned social change doesn’t always come from volume. Sometimes it comes from intentionality. Sometimes it comes from knowing when to speak and when to listen.
When I returned to the United States, I became a social worker and grief-tender, walking alongside people navigating trauma, loss, and mortality. Years passed. I continued to serve. And still, the world hardened. Climate disruption accelerated. Extinction became visible rather than abstract. Authoritarian impulses, once considered fringe, began moving closer to the center.
There is a particular despair that comes from understanding too much and moving too little. It can masquerade as maturity. In my mid-50s, I began asking a different question, "What is the smallest honest action that might interrupt my numbness?" For me, the answer was Borneo.
Why Borneo, and why now
Orangutans are not symbols. They are kin, sharing roughly 97 percent of our DNA, and they are exquisitely vulnerable to instability. Habitat loss has long been the headline. Climate disruption is now accelerating that loss, with researchers warning that its combined effects may push already fragile populations toward extinction.
Peer-reviewed research estimates that over 100,000 Bornean orangutans disappeared between 1999 and 2015. Today, fewer than 105,000 remain in the wild. Climate change compounds this loss, erratic weather, prolonged droughts followed by intense rainfall, disrupted fruiting cycles, and collapsing forest canopies force orangutans into increasingly dangerous proximity with humans.
Females give birth only once every seven to nine years. There is no quick recovery from compounded stress.
What unsettled me most was a line from Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael that began haunting me again. If gorillas were gone, what would that say about humans?
Rwanda and Uganda have made remarkable progress in gorilla conservation since Quinn wrote those words. But now another of our closest relatives faces climate-accelerated erasure. That realization became too heavy for me to hold without moving.
The sound bath question, asked honestly
Before leaving for Borneo, I offered a sound bath to chimpanzees at a local zoo. The keepers were receptive. The chimps were curious, alert, engaged, choosing proximity and distance on their own terms.
That experience matters. And it proves nothing. Does it mean displaced, traumatized, and orphaned orangutans will find singing bowls soothing? Does it mean local communities will welcome them as meaningful tools rather than foreign curiosities? Does it risk becoming another well-intended imposition carried in by a Westerner?
I don’t know. And that not-knowing matters. Primates are individuals. Sanctuaries are complex systems. Cultural relationships to sound, ritual, and outsiders vary widely. What regulates one nervous system may overwhelm another.
So I hold this not as a solution, but as a hypothesis, one that must be tested slowly, ethically, and only with consent. If the answer is no, I will listen. If the answer is yes, I will remain cautious. Receptivity is not something I get to assume. It must be earned.
Singing bowls: Borrowed, commercialized, complicated
Singing bowls, often marketed in the West as “Tibetan,” originate from Tibet, Nepal, and the Himalayan foothills, where metal bowls historically served many purposes – ritual, alms collection, meditation support, and daily use.
What is less acknowledged is that the modern wellness framing of singing bowls is largely a Western reinvention. Claims of ancient, exclusively meditative use are often overstated, retrofitted for global wellness markets now worth billions.
Naming this matters. I am borrowing a tool that has been romanticized and commodified, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes carelessly. That reality demands humility, not defensiveness.
Why test this with primates at all?
My working hypothesis is simple – apes in captivity, particularly those recovering from trauma, may benefit from carefully introduced, choice-based auditory enrichment that supports regulation, curiosity, and agency.
This idea is not speculative fantasy. Zoos and sanctuaries routinely use auditory enrichment as part of welfare programs. Professionals at the Smithsonian National Zoo, the Oakland Zoo, and others have expressed openness to exploring this question when framed ethically and non-intrusively.
That receptivity doesn’t prove effectiveness. It does suggest the question is legitimate. So rather than speculate endlessly, I chose to volunteer for a month in Borneo and donate a set of singing bowls, purchased with funds generously provided by my yoga students, as a potential tool the sanctuary may or may not choose to use in the future. Experiment does not mean extraction. It means observation, consent, and restraint.
The white savior mirror
I am a white American man with a passport, education, and professional flexibility. History is heavy with people who looked like me traveling somewhere “to help” and leaving harm behind.
If this becomes a story about my meaning, it fails. If it centers my voice over local expertise, it fails. If it turns animals or communities into aesthetic backdrops, it fails.
The only ethical posture I can find is this – to be a participant, not a protagonist. Show up. Follow local leadership. Accept correction. Leave changed, hopefully, for the better. The work, then, is not to withdraw in fear of getting it wrong, but to stay in relationship – to listen, to be accountable, and to keep choosing care over control.
What this is really about: Grief, privilege, and the search for direction
This is not about orangutans alone. It is about grief seeking direction. Privilege seeking responsibility. Love refuses to stay theoretical. If there is a way to use my access, care, curiosity, and devotion to primates, without pretending I’m saving anyone, then this work is worth doing. Time will tell what is welcomed and what is not. Listening is part of the work.
A closing question
If you read this and think, 'That’s him, not me,' pause. What part of you has gone dormant because the world felt too broken? What longing did you label impractical or naïve? What gift is still waiting for permission to be used?
You don’t need to go to Borneo. You don’t need a platform. You don’t need perfection. But you do need to choose.
You may need to curl up with despair for a while, most of us will at some point. Let stillness help it pass through you. Just don’t mistake it for a destination. Don’t let it become so heavy that it keeps you from moving.
Eventually, my hope is this, you will crawl or step, however awkwardly, toward what you love. My lifelong hero spent her life reminding us that hope is not a feeling. It is a discipline.
I’m choosing to practice it in a way that makes sense to me, imperfectly, visibly, and in motion. And I choose to believe that when we act with humility rather than dominance, with devotion rather than despair, we are not acting alone.
We are walking with those who came before us, with elders, with teachers, with ancestors like Dr. Jane Goodall, who spent her life showing us how to belong to this planet rather than rule it.
Only that we keep choosing life while there is still time to choose it.
Read more from Kenneth J. Breniman
Kenneth J. Breniman, Grief Guide & Mindfully Mortal Therapist
Ken Breniman is a queer author, licensed clinical social worker, certified yoga therapist, and thanatologist whose work lives at the intersection of mortality, meaning, and transformation. Drawing from neuroscience, primatology, Celtic wisdom, and psychedelic integration, he challenges the myth of human exceptionalism while honoring the precious role each of us plays in the ongoing evolution of our species. Ken is the author of a three-body solution and subversive acts of humanity, and the creator of the See-Soul children’s grief literacy series. Through writing, teaching, and ritual-informed practice, he guides mindful mortals toward deeper humility, resilience, and collective becoming.
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