Ancestors

Written by frumious bandersnatch on 2025-01-21 at 23:52

Hello, little PSA and maybe wisdom from someone who works in the social justice mines:

1. Just knowing about something isn't the same as activism. Knowing about bad stuff happening without having a plan to tackle it results in feelings of overwhelm, helplessness and cynicism, which are often barriers to actually taking action. Anger and outrage burn brightly and can jumpstart you but they are usually short-lived emotions that are hard to sustain over a long period of time (and even if so, are extremely exhausting). I'm not saying you need to stick your head in the sand, but there is some stuff where the broad idea is enough and you absolutely do not need to read the details or daily updates about it.

2. You do not and will not have the energy to take action on every single thing, it is not possible. Therefore be really strategic about where you spend your energy - where will your voice/action have the most impact because of your influence, power, privilege, position etc. Best actions are low effort + high impact, worst actions are high effort + low impact. What is effortful and impactful is going to look very different for different people, so there will be some actions and causes that maybe isn't a great idea for you to pursue.

3. Social justice has always been and will always be a long-term project. I really disagree with posts being like "how can you lead a regular life while this is happening". In fact it is essential to lead a regular life and have joy, community, connection, art - this is also what you're fighting for everyone to have! You depriving yourself from the good things in life doesn't actually help anyone.

You also cannot pour from an empty cup, and so you must refill your cup regularly. The sum of a lifetime of sustained actions will be a lot greater than a couple of years of intense activity then intense burnout/sickness because you simply cannot keep going. Burnout and unprocessed trauma can also wreak havoc in groups and networks too, so by ensuring you take care of yourself you're not inadvertently passing some of this to other people.

4. Check your ego at the door. This is not about you and being the best ally, a morally perfect person, a martyr or saviour or anything like that. We are all cleaning a giant pile of shit together while the shit machine generates more shit, and the hope is maybe one day everything won't be covered in shit, but in the meantime removing some of it is still worthwhile, even if we can't remove all of it. You're doing cleaning work - essential, important, but definitely not glamorous.

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Written by gahlord on 2025-01-23 at 05:32

@frabjousday May I quote this in a couple places if that’s ok? How do prefer being credited?

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Toot

Written by frumious bandersnatch on 2025-01-23 at 15:47

@gahlord well as a result of going slightly viral I now have a substack

https://badartnewsletter.substack.com/p/unsolicited-advice-from-the-social?r=28866

But if you don't enjoy that version of the post as much I'm happy to be credited as @frabjousday

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Descendants

Written by gahlord on 2025-01-23 at 17:44

@frabjousday thanks!

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