I have to say I do have a problem with “organisations” working with people – so I hear you on that one to the point when I began to wonder about myself. But then I realised that it is the way people organise that is problematic for me in the sense that there tends to be an issue driven approach instead of a building block approach

Everything you’ve said here outside of that–i identify so much with. it seems like such a privilege to work on relaxing, being good to yourself, etc–but I wonder how much of that is 1. a sign of how violence has become so integral to our structure (really, what would the other choice be here, run yourself to the ground i.e. punish yourself for not being as punished as others are?–so while the government is busy punishing them, it doesn’t need to worry about *us*, because we’re doing it’s job *for* it) and 2. how taking care of yourself has been incorporated into the capitalistic system–that is, taking care of yourself is a ’special treat’ that you get for ‘working hard’–taking care of yourself is something you buy, something you *earn* while showing your dedication to capitalism– NOT a human freaking right.

I mean–i’m speaking *very* generally here, because what *is* taking care of yourself? Is it taking a bath and ‘destressing’? Or is it making sure you get to a dentist? Or is it going for a walk? I think ‘taking care of yourself’ is *so* hard to define–but OUR structure tries to define it *for* us every single day–so that we can *buy* it–but maybe liberatory ‘taking care of ourselves’ is something different. maybe it’s something that can’t be bought, and so we have to work harder to find it–or maybe it’s *easier* to find it because it’s been sitting in front of us all this time…

I am SO rambling right now.

another connected/not connected thought. I am thinking of a comment that Fire Fly left at my blog one day–a long time ago. And she was talking about coming down from the stress of WTO protests that had happened in Australia–it had involved spying and surveillance and violence…and she talked about how the thing that felt most right to her and her friends was sitting around eating simple food and listening to a friend play guitar. There’s something in there, some truth in there that I can’t hear or see right now, but I know it’s in there, and I keep thinking back to it right now.

One thing I still struggle with though is trying to find a healthy balance of positive and negative motivation… Like you mentioned building this new world is a long-term project, that it’ll probably take place over your children’s or maybe their children’s lifetimes… I’ve thought about that too, and you’re probably right. I should be realistic, otherwise I’m setting myself up for massive disappointment, I’ve thought to myself.

But I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it if things aren’t drastically better by the tail end of my lifetime. I just can’t stand the thought of being 60-years-old and watching the destruction wrought by some US-backed army on the news. I can’t stand the thought of waking up one morning at that age and reading about another young man or woman being murdered by the police. I really, really want to live in something closely resembling this new world, not just to hope that my children can live in it after I die. Is it wrong to want that?

Sometimes it feels amazing to carry that passion into my work – I can get a lot of shit done when I know I’m making progress with others towards making this vision into a shared reality in our own lifetimes. Sometimes it feels like to let go of that vision would be to abandon people who are suffering right now, who obviously can’t wait for a distant new world. But more and more often this (selfish?) desire feels like a burden – it makes new outbreaks of violence, like the latest one in Gaza, or setbacks in movement-/world-making felt all the more strongly. It brings back those feelings of demoralization and powerlessness that sometimes push me into a temporary but total withdrawal from my own important work and activism.

I don’t see Scott or other wonderful organizers in my community get to that place, I admire them for it, and so I wonder if I should resign myself to not living in that new world after all – if at least in the present-day that would make me a more positive and effective person, or if on the other hand it might at times make me more complacent… or, and most likely, if this is a kind of false dichotomy I’m imposing on myself. There’s a balance, I think, that I just haven’t found yet…

(I hesitated for a long time to submit this comment here, since it feels like a personal, incomplete, and possibly selfish and nonsensical thought that’s not directly germane to the subject of the post… but on the off-chance it makes sense to some other folks, here goes.)

to stick with mattilda’s comment–I want to just point out (be a little clowd on the party), that I’ve had those same conversations you’re talking about lisa–and it didn’t go well. I’ve lost friends/family because of conversations like that–and I want to reaffirm, deeply deeply reaffirm that when experiences like yours are supposed to happen, they are SO beautiful and SO important and SO healing and deeply deeply radically about love.

But I also want to deeply affirm the many times that those conversations DON’T go well…that lots of times, they can destroy as well. Or you can be that person that, like i was and still am in probably most cases, still unable to swim in the deep end. still unable to handle that quiet pause before an answer or the vieled look. or who can finally handle it, and loses everything anyway.

This is so where jess and I wanted to go–into those deep dark places of reality–negotiating between the worst choice and the most awful choice. because that’s where liberation, radical love, building new worlds stems from–but they sure as fuck aren’t easy choices, and the way our system is set up now–it sure doesn’t *teach* you how to make those choices (or show you ways to navigate through the choices, at least)……

I am thinking very deeply right now, and I thank everybody for contributing their thoughts….

The only thing I have to share in response is something I did two days ago that felt more right and love-ful than anything I’ve done as an “activist.”

One of my dearest confidants and friends is White. She is one of those woman who I feel validates my problems, affirms my opinions, and keeps my soul.

That kind of friend.

When I was in the beginning throws of learning about organizing within a beautiful group of radical women of color, I began to deconstruct what my new world was looking like – gorgeous faces of color, of life that I never had before – and began questioning the relationship I had formed with so many others who were becoming slowly confused as to my life direction – “feminism,” activism, movements, and justice.

And yet something felt off as I kept organizing and ignoring this tug in my heart that kept whispering, “This is good, but it’s not radical love.”

Radical love takes time to see. It takes this near superhuman experience to patiently wait and persevere through the shit that is impatience, NOWNOWNOW urgency, and panic that comes with the urge to DO SOMETHING NOW TO CHANGE THE SYSTEM, CHANGE THE WORLD, CHANGE THE MODELS.

I think the “now” of everything nearly killed me.

Radical love meant calling my best friend and crying my truth out…that I loved her despite all our differences, how much pain I was in because of my activism, and how much I needed her to understand that her *Whiteness* wasn’t the problem, it was my inability to understand what it meant now that I finally understood my own *Brownness.* And my indescribable drive to deconstruct “White” feminism and western concepts of privilege slowly began to fade and in its place was a small peace of green, a handful of grass meant to be planted for me, just me. And it filled me with a wind and softness that I haven’t felt in years.

It was time to admit that “activism” as I had come to know it was a wonderful but imperfect thing.

The racial point between me and my friend is not what is important. My point is that radical love takes us to the places we most resist to pick up the bricks over THERE, in the darkest terrains of our hearts, to build a new world.

It means somehow finding a way to let go of the parts of you that are in terrible pain because of activism and the truth that it will never fulfill you the way life alone is meant to. And it means that a nuanced way of being is in order.

Radical love and building a new world means building a new life for activists where our progress is measured by what we build, not by what we take down (as Obama iterated the the other day).

I agree with you, BFP, that this IS different than movement making. It’s LIFE making.