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

I know what you mean

[oakdragon.livejournal.com]

I went through a bit of post-election depression at the end of last year. I had another bout of outrage when listening to the Clinton biography (unabridged) and was reminded of the outrages of those years all over again.

Perhaps listening to audio books in general on the commute rather than NPR has avoided some of the feelings of powerless outrage and confusion regarding what the general public seems to ignore, but it's only avoidance. I'm also not ignoring completely--I just take it in smaller doses.

The main thing is waiting for the pendulum to swing (after the total confusion that it didn't last November). I must have some hope that things will turn back to the progressive side--if not, I would get caught up in the despair.