pride, nostalgia (reposted from birbsite & extended)
I've been thinking that I miss pride events with that particular mix of celebration and fuck-you I recall from my twenties.
And then I realized, the particular mix I recall probably came from inside me, and it's not about the events as much as I thought. I think maybe I just miss my early-twenties fuck-you.
I don't think everybody else misses it, though! I suspect I was less fun to be around when I was so angry all the time.
activism, depression, cont'd
That anger came from outrage and that outrage came from a conviction that things *can* and *should* change, right now, should have changed already.
Change takes sustained effort and rage is not sustainable. But if we aim for incremental change, we get *nowhere*. So where does that leave us? That sounds like activist burnout is inevitable, and when I think about throwing myself against that wall *knowing* it won't fall before I do, I start to think, why bother?
activism, depression, cont'd
@sev So many people around me are doing activism fueled by rage and anger at the system, and...I just can't process that myself. I just don't have that rage.
I struggle with feeling like that's the only (big, public, noisy) way to be an activist, when I easily forget the other ways I do so (my job, my /life/). It's a turbulent time and so /exhausting/ because of it.
activism, depression, cont'd
@sev Mmm. Yeah. Thanks. :-)
activism, depression, cont'd
@emanate without the quiet work, we don't get to *keep* what forward movement we get. So, what you do is an integral part of making progress.