A question for my activist friends...

[pat]

and my friends on the left generally...

How do you avoid despair? How do you not get consumed by the rage?

I find myself sinking into sort of a cynical apathy, that looks at each new outrage and says, "So what else is new?" It's not that I don't care, just that I feel beaten down.

I know that for evil to triumph it only takes good people to do nothing, but how do you keep from that?

Comments

[calebbullen.livejournal.com]

It's a combination of two things:

1. Being aware that things always seem this bad. Especially in American history, it's always doomsday. Somehow knowing it's just one of many doomsdays takes the load off.

2. Being aware of how much is so good right now, especially for you as an individual. the old accentuate the positive bit. I mean when you think of how good you have it compared to so many people, how could you not have hope and feel like you can help make things better for everyone.

At least that's how I tend to look at it. Even though things are bad and getting worse, I ate today. I have a roof over my head and shoes on my feet so it's not like things are all that bad, at least for me. Plus, and I think this might be more of an agnostic/atheist thing, since this is the only lifetime I know of and I don't know when it's going to be over, I've got an enormous incentive for trying to do good and be happy doing it. I can't fix it later on, I can't do any kind of penance, I can't sort it out in a future life, and I can't count on heaven to be my reward. It's hard not to be cheery and optimistic with that view if for no other reason than just practicality.