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regardless of how much we believe we have learned, as the saying goes, we don’t know what we don’t know. Many of us would not be in this work today if someone along the way had not been patient with us.
This is not to say that we can joke our way out of problematic moments.
Sadly.
We know that movement work can endanger our lives, but if we also believe that human lives have value outside of capitalism and structures of productivity, we must value our own.
Lungo also emphasized the importance of understanding that movement work is “a life journey” and that “things happen slowly over time.”
“We actually don’t need to move everyone, all at once,” she explained. “We need to move a smaller portion of people than we actually think” to initiate major shifts in political thought and action.
Taking the time to learn and to study and to grow your skills is as important as getting off your ass when shit is happening, and heading to the streets.
I think the best way to do collaborative and collective care is to ask, How are we backing each other up? How are we encouraging each other to take the breaks we need, but not making ourselves make impossible choices?
Saavedra explained that capitalism “creates this expectation of what we call the eternal summer and this expectation that everyone should be in the eternal summer all the time.”4
It’s important to understand that deciding it’s time to end something we have created is not a mark of failure.
I had a feeling that I sometimes get in justice work, one that I am sure some of you can relate to, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be at that moment in time.
the work of fighting for other people and a better world can bring rewards we never imagined, and those rewards will often come in the form of relationships.
In a world that is breaking down our connections, isolating us, and sub-siloing us to death, life-giving relationships are our best hope.
We all need more grace. Many of us are just trying to keep our heads above water.
“No time can be easy if one is living through it,” said the great writer James Baldwin.
I agree with poet and writer Elizabeth Alexander, who, in the wake of the 2016 election, reminded us that “there is more than one thing happening at once. So, as bad as this is, it’s not the only thing.”
Despair is a thief. It saps your energy, depletes your time, and robs you of your ability to dream.
Many days I’m annoyed as hell at my fellow human beings and express this to anyone within the sound of one of my rants.
You are not needed everywhere, but we are all needed somewhere. It’s important to find your somewhere and plant yourself there.
Sincerity is a virtue.
We can personally make ripples, but it takes collective action to make waves.
there is always a next right thing to do,
History teaches us that relatively small groups of people have been responsible for some of the most consequential societal changes.
Though we can’t stop all suffering, we can each work to lessen suffering for someone else.
For me, hope is not a metaphor; it’s a lived practice. It isn’t a thing I possess. Rather, I have to remake it daily.
To paraphrase Rebecca Solnit, hope isn’t a substitute for action; it is a basis for it.
Even if the end times are upon us, we should still plant trees.
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
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Abundant leadership is about sharing space and power, as opposed to capitalist competition over space and power.
One of the contradictions of capitalism is that while we are dependent on intricate production processes for our basic needs, we are increasingly atomized and isolated from one another.
