This post is part of my 3DR newsletter where I share what I’m (un)learning to build just futures. It centres around my 3DR approach to equity: Decolonize. Disrupt. Dismantle. Rebuild. If you approach the world with curiosity and you’re looking for courageous and compassionate conversations around social justice and collective liberation, subscribe to my newsletter.
I wrote at the beginning of January with a message of hope and optimism rooted in my personal experiences of the past year. A lot happens in a month and every day since then has been a relentless barrage of news headlines about whose humanity is up for debate and whose rights are about to be denied – all while those in power find more ways to accumulate unfathomable levels of wealth. I would be lying to you if I said I have not felt the weight of despair in the face of all this chaos.
This might sound dramatic (or perfectly accurate), but the mood these days is really giving ✨societal collapse.✨ I’ve been finding it difficult to do anything over the last few weeks. When I scroll through my social feeds or read the headlines, there is just no end to the bad news and I’ve been paralyzed over what I should and can do.
I’m slowly trying to crawl out of that endless loop because I know that all of this chaotic destruction is a deliberate tactic and distraction from what I know in my bones should be our course of action. I know that to give in to the despair would be to give in to systems of oppression and that’s just not what we’re about here.
For the last year, I’ve been studying the work and words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and I came across his address before the First Annual Institute on Non-Violence and Social Change in 1956 called Facing the Challenge of a New Age. I share it with you here:
“But far from representing retrogression and tragic meaninglessness, the present tensions represent the necessary pains that accompany the birth of anything new. Long ago the Greek philosopher Heraclitus argued that justice emerges from the strife of opposites, and Hegel, in modern philosophy, preached a doctrine of growth through struggle. It is both historically and biologically true that there can be no birth and growth without birth and growing pains. Whenever there is the emergence of the new, we confront the recalcitrance of the old. So the tensions we witness in the world today are indicative of the fact that a new world order is being born and an old order is passing away.”
He was, of course, speaking during the time of the Civil Rights Movement, which brought an end to segregation and ushered in a new era of integration and equality. While I might simply be wishcasting here, I’m taking his words as relevant to today’s current events – as an indication of a new world order on the horizon.
Dr. King goes on to say: “Let nobody fool you, all of the loud noises that you hear today…are merely death groans from a dying system.”
And wow, are those death groans loud and unbelievably obnoxious, or what?!
Learning From Fractals
Every day I remind myself of what I’ve shared previously – that our work lies in the small scale, in our daily lives with those closest to us. I shared with you the lessons I learned from adrienne maree brown about fractals – that is, a pattern, a thing, a process that, regardless of how zoomed in, or zoomed out you are, looks very similar to the larger whole. It is the lesson and the fact that how we are on the small scale is how we are on the large scale.
Our actions and behaviours on the small, interpersonal scale ripple out into and ultimately become our larger systems. We see this example in the natural world around us in abundance. Look at snowflakes, broccoli, trees – the infinite repetition of details or patterns occurs at progressively smaller scales.
5 “Small” Steps = 5 Large Steps
In the face of the death groans of this dying system, I am choosing to focus my energy on generative work. I’m focusing on expanding my imagination and exercising the creativity it takes to build caring communities. I’m focusing on birthing our new world from the ground up, from the local and community level.
In case it’s helpful, I’m sharing just 5 “small” steps I’m taking to reorient myself at this moment:
Find your people.
With fascism on the rise, we need to rely on each other. We need to build trust, we need to care for each other. Gwendolyn Brooks said it so much more beautifully, so let’s hear it from her:
we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.
So find your people. Gather offline and have real conversations outside of the platforms riddled with algorithms and surveillance. Support your local mom-and-pop shops, food banks, shelters, and community hubs. Join or build networks of care in your community.
Over the last few years, I’ve been involved with different mutual aid networks – that is, networks of voluntary reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit. If you are based in so-called “Canada”, check out Mutual Aid Canada. If you are based in the USA, search mutualaidhub.org for your local network.
In the face of government failures to provide for some of our most vulnerable populations, we can care for and share with each other at the most basic level.
Need a primer on mutual aid? Read this newsletter I wrote about radical care in our communities.
Connect to joy.
I recently finished adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism (yes, I am an avid follower of her work), which is all about finding and luxuriating in the big and small pleasures of life as part of the struggle for social justice. She shares her politics of “healing and happiness that explodes the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work.” I mean, yes, changing the world is work. It is hard and sometimes even painful work. But it’s hard work as in learning how to play the guitar, not like burnout. It is hard work that is joyful and pleasurable, not exploitative. And just like playing the guitar, it requires consistency, practice, and curiosity.
We will not survive this time (or any time, really) without joy, without pleasure, without delight. That is no way to live.
And so I’m trying really hard to lean into that truth and practice it in my daily life. My partner and I recently joined a Lindy Hop class. We’ve started to create rituals to honour the lunar cycle and the natural patterns of our earth. I’ve been playing the guitar again. I’ve been writing more for myself, and not just for public consumption.
How will you connect to your joy? Invite curiosity, play, and creativity into the cracks of your day and I promise you, it will grow!
Expand and grow your community.
Meet your neighbours! You already know how connecting with my neighbours through Davenport for Palestine has profoundly transformed my life over the last year. I often find my neighbours in conversation about the news, consoling each other and lifting each other up, sharing different ways to get involved, offering to bring soup or hot chocolate to our next action. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but organizing with my neighbours in this way has felt deeply spiritual. And our bonds have only grown deeper and more intertwined as we continue to get to know each other.
So what can you do in your local community? Get in touch with and volunteer with your local food bank or shelter. Organize donations for a community fridge. Support your unhoused neighbours. Join a tool library or repair cafe. Real change grows from the ground up!
Spend according to your values.
We know how destructive and extractive our capitalist system is. The relentless pursuit of profit comes at the devastating cost of destroying natural resources, exploiting people, and displacing communities. This destruction of land and lives is a tragedy and a crime, and our spending and consumption are wildly intertwined with all of it. As I learn more about the ravages of capitalism, I know that I can no longer pay the price of complicity.
While this is one of the most powerful actions at our disposal, I also recognize that it’s one of the hardest to take on. I know it is for me. So baby steps! We do what we can, where we can, and when we can.
Get a library card or support independent bookstores. Shop local markets and secondhand. Buy only what you need. Eat at your local restaurant. Join Buy Nothing groups. Borrow. Again – connect with your neighbours and share your resources! Every dollar we spend is a vote for the world we want to live in.
Share what you know.
The revolution starts at home, right? So share what you’re learning with your family and friends. Our collective knowledge is power! No one has all the answers, but every conversation, resource, and story passed along strengthens the movement.
Create a plan to integrate these steps into your daily lives together. Carve out time for curious and courageous conversations about what kind of futures you want to build!
I say these are “small” steps, but I think you and I know that there really is no such thing. Just think of what tiny little grains of sand can do in the wheels of a machine. Just think of mosquitos and what the havoc they are capable of wreaking. Just think about the butterfly effect and how small changes can lead to big consequences over time.
“Small” = seismic!!
And so I’ll end this newsletter just as I began – with some wisdom from Dr. King:
“The hour is late; the clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now.”
Let’s get to it.