I am currently signed up for more e-newsletters than I can count. Well, I suppose I could but, English major. I read, not math. Anyway, as I clean out the backlog from being on vacation (although shoutout to T-Mobile’s easy-to-add, justifiably priced, and capable international data plan), two in particular have stuck with me.

The whole thing on 404 Media is worth reading, but here are the quotes that resonated with-slash-attacked me the most:

• “If there’s one thing I’d hoped people had learned going into the next four years of Donald Trump as president, it’s that spending lots of time online posting about what people in power are saying and doing is not going to accomplish anything. If anything, it’s exactly what they want.”

• “…perhaps the greatest of these sins is convincing ourselves that posting is a form of political activism, when it is at best a coping mechanism…”

• “Legacy news outlets cynically chase clicks (and ad dollars) by disseminating whatever sensational nonsense those in power are spewing. This in turn fuels yet another round of online outrage, edgy takes, and screenshots exposing the ‘hypocrisy’ of people who never cared about being seen as hypocrites, because that’s not the point. Even violent fantasies about putting billionaires to the guillotine are rendered inept in these online spaces—just another pressure release valve to harmlessly dissipate our rage instead of compelling ourselves to organize and act.” [emphasis mine]

• “So what is the alternative? If we log off, what exactly are we supposed to do instead? How are we supposed to get information without constantly raising our antennae into the noxious cumulonimbus cloud of social media? It isn’t quite as simple as ‘touch grass,’ but it also sort of is.”

Rose then goes on to talk about the importance of doing things in the face of fascism by using community networks that already exist offline, like volunteering with mutual aid groups to provide hot food and warm clothes for the unhoused.

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This to me partnered well with one of my favorite contemporary minds, Robert Jones, Jr., and the piece he wrote for 100 Days of Creative Resistance.

• “I don’t think it’s merely happenstance that human beings can conceive of an idea like peace. It must mean that it’s a possibility, one that requires extraordinary ongoing effort since we, human beings, aren’t of one accord on this measure; and violence tickles our fancies much more than harmony does.”

• “When we cannot rely on our government—and it seems that, for the foreseeable future, we cannot—we must rely on ourselves. Not as individuals, but as community. Fortunately, my Ancestors left a blueprint. In times when my entire world is destabilized, I return to their wisdom. Because I’m a writer and not, say, a painter or a musician (though paintings and music can have just as much of a profound effect on me), I go through my stacks to find the books that not only made me a better writer, but also made me a better reader. I look for the books that challenge me.”

What I most appreciate in this essay is that despite leading with such a powerful quote about art, about creation as political practice, Jones turns to what others have said. He is an immensely talented writer who is able to share his own marginalized experiences as a Black, gay, disabled man out into the world. But when he is frustrated with the state of that world, he turns to what others have said — “I look for the books that recognize the human experience as complex rather than simplistic and keep me from becoming a junior version of my oppressor, but in marginalized drag. Reading these books make me, I think, a better person.”

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Ragey reposts and (attempts at) online zingers are not going to save humanity. Sadly, because we all know, I love a ragey repost. So my challenge to myself — and to you, if you choose to accept it — is how can I do. How can I contribute to something bigger than myself for the betterment of the world. How can I learn from those actively doing the work and from those who have lived the work and spoken more eloquently about it than I ever will.

The opposite of war isn’t peace… it’s creation. — Jonathan Larson, Rent