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forestofgloryAt WisCon this year I'm going to be on a panel about Hopepunk. So I was looking through my notes to see if I'd written anything helpful. And I found this unfinished essay I wrote last fall during the Camp Fire. I think its well written but it just kind of trails off. I don't think I can get back into the headspace I was in when I wrote it to finish it -- and honestly I'm not sure that I want to it was rather bleak state. But since the topic is coming up I thought I'd post this fragment anyways.
This morning I woke up early. The bay area is still covered in smoke from the Camp Fire in the north. Though daylight savings time has started it was still dark. I turned on as few lights as possible and sat on the couch trying not worry about breathing and finished reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful book Braiding Sweetgrass about learning and teaching indigenous wisdom and science. The book made me cry in places for the beauty of the world that has been destroyed or is at risk of destruction.
Then still thinking about Braiding Sweetgrass I got out my phone and looked at twitter, where I found a link to “One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives” by Alexandra Rowland and essay about Hopepunk and what it means in today’s world.
It’s an angry essay that says hope in the dark demands that we are angry and that we fight. In it Rowland asks how do you do a series of nearly impossible tasks. One of these tasks is lighting a fire with two sticks. Rowland’s answer is through sheer bloody mindedness. But Kimmerer has an essay in her book about learning to light a fire and how now she can light a fire with one match without thought, so is learning to use a fire bow – to light a fire with two sticks. And Kimmerer’s answer is very different than Roweland’s. Kimmerer says we you need to be patient and calm even when the fire is urgently needed. That she was taught to light a fire by her father and by the plants she uses. So lighting a fire with two sticks isn’t something that she does by herself out of anger but it’s something that she does in community, with her human teachers and her plant teachers too.
So I thought about the other tasks on Roweland’s list. Counting the stars, building the library of Alexandria, walking to the north pole, leaving a loved one to do something that has to be done. All of these required a certain amount of bloody mindedness yes, but they also require patience, and community, skills that you don’t just sprout overnight but that you learn, that others teach you.
I’ve been struggling with having hope in these dark times. On days like today when the world is filled with smoke. One days when mass shootings make the headlines. When I go to work and study the housing crisis and think about how many people are in need. When I look at my child an wonder what kind of future we’ve made for them. When I read about climate change and how little time we have left to mitigate the worst effects.
I think anger is a necessary response to what’s going on in the world, but so is connection, so is talking care of each other. We have to take care of each other. Bake cookies, take each other to the doctor, and hold each other’s hands. We have to fight yes, but we have to have community too.
I don’t know. I’m trying to find my way. When I read essays like Roweland’s I feel terribly guilty for not fighting hard enough not being angry enough. I believe in community, in connection, in creating connesious, that taking care of people is valuable. But maybe I’m wrong. I know I could do more, fight harder, call my reps, go to more protests...
This morning I woke up early. The bay area is still covered in smoke from the Camp Fire in the north. Though daylight savings time has started it was still dark. I turned on as few lights as possible and sat on the couch trying not worry about breathing and finished reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful book Braiding Sweetgrass about learning and teaching indigenous wisdom and science. The book made me cry in places for the beauty of the world that has been destroyed or is at risk of destruction.
Then still thinking about Braiding Sweetgrass I got out my phone and looked at twitter, where I found a link to “One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives” by Alexandra Rowland and essay about Hopepunk and what it means in today’s world.
It’s an angry essay that says hope in the dark demands that we are angry and that we fight. In it Rowland asks how do you do a series of nearly impossible tasks. One of these tasks is lighting a fire with two sticks. Rowland’s answer is through sheer bloody mindedness. But Kimmerer has an essay in her book about learning to light a fire and how now she can light a fire with one match without thought, so is learning to use a fire bow – to light a fire with two sticks. And Kimmerer’s answer is very different than Roweland’s. Kimmerer says we you need to be patient and calm even when the fire is urgently needed. That she was taught to light a fire by her father and by the plants she uses. So lighting a fire with two sticks isn’t something that she does by herself out of anger but it’s something that she does in community, with her human teachers and her plant teachers too.
So I thought about the other tasks on Roweland’s list. Counting the stars, building the library of Alexandria, walking to the north pole, leaving a loved one to do something that has to be done. All of these required a certain amount of bloody mindedness yes, but they also require patience, and community, skills that you don’t just sprout overnight but that you learn, that others teach you.
I’ve been struggling with having hope in these dark times. On days like today when the world is filled with smoke. One days when mass shootings make the headlines. When I go to work and study the housing crisis and think about how many people are in need. When I look at my child an wonder what kind of future we’ve made for them. When I read about climate change and how little time we have left to mitigate the worst effects.
I think anger is a necessary response to what’s going on in the world, but so is connection, so is talking care of each other. We have to take care of each other. Bake cookies, take each other to the doctor, and hold each other’s hands. We have to fight yes, but we have to have community too.
I don’t know. I’m trying to find my way. When I read essays like Roweland’s I feel terribly guilty for not fighting hard enough not being angry enough. I believe in community, in connection, in creating connesious, that taking care of people is valuable. But maybe I’m wrong. I know I could do more, fight harder, call my reps, go to more protests...
hopepunk
Date: 2019-05-02 08:34 pm (UTC)Just a bit of background: although I published it just before the election, Alex turned in the first draft just as the news was breaking about seperating kids from parents at the border. I don't know if it would have had exactly the same tone is it were written at a different moment, but I think it's sharper edges serve as a valuable counter to the tendency to look at hopepunk as just escapism. The Vox explainer on Hopepunk really helped a lot of people discover it, but it really leaned in to the softer side. I like to think of hope and punk as being in productive tension.
I've heard cool things about Wiscon, I'm glad there will be a panel on hopepunk there! I put together a blog post linking to interesting things discourse about hopepunk, which I'm sharing in case it helps with your panel preparation: https://festive.ninja/2019/03/26/hopepunk-articles-resources-and-recordings/
Re: hopepunk
Date: 2019-05-03 04:50 pm (UTC)