Joy is an Act of Resistance

Things are dark out there. It’s not that things were great a couple months ago, however with Trump taking power again, it’s become almost impossible to keep track of the ways that things are getting worse every day. Pretending everything is fine, normalizing what is happening or minimizing it by telling people they’re overreacting is irresponsible.

We’ve blown straight through a constitutional crisis and we’re not even through the first month of this administration. We have an unelected tech billionaire tearing through any government system he can get his hands on and stopping congressional directed funding for vital work based on nothing more than his own whims, while the man that was elected to the White House is shredding our international reputation.

Keeping up with the chaos is overwhelming.

Most mornings, I don’t even want to get out of bed. I would rather pull the covers over my head and hide from the world because getting up and facing the world inevitably leads to doom scrolling; waiting for the next news alert with dread.

The ongoing onslaught of executive orders and blatantly unconstitutional executive actions is all intentional. The strategy has been called shock and awe, or flooding the zone, and was a tactic that this administration campaigned on. As much as its purpose is to shove an agenda through so quickly that any opposition will be unable to stop it, it’s also meant to overwhelm all of us; to make us feel helpless and force our compliance. 

That is why it is important to get out of bed, and face the world. Stay informed and find ways to fight back. Simply surviving can be a powerful act of defiance.

Consider what you value in the world and find ways to fight for that. Even the smallest actions can build to something much more powerful, especially to those immediately around you. Even if the problems are global in scale, the solutions to those problems start locally.

The most foundational thing that we can do is take care of ourselves. Yes it’s important to stay informed, but it’s also understandable that you might need to disconnect from time to time. Building a strong community means supporting those around you as well as being able to ask for help from those around you.

Above all else, it means finding joy in the world.

The world is dark and our would-be rulers are trying to advance an agenda that leaves us joyless and broken. They want us powerless to fight back as they deny rights to our LGBTQ+ friends and family, too demoralized to resist their efforts to dismantle our social safety nets to further enrich themselves, too unorganized to resist their assaults on the rights laborers have shed blood to secure. 

When faced with all that, every bit of joy we can bring into the world is an act of resistance.

Some of you may recognize the title of this as a title shared with an Idles album, which seems especially relevant to our current moment. Listening to it, or even better, seeing the songs performed live by the band with thousands of others who are in the fight with you creates the kind of joy that is necessary to sustain us as we fight.

Joy as an Act of Resistance features songs celebrating immigrants (“Danny Nedelko”) and fighting back against fascism(“Rottweiler”), but also songs examining masculinity (“Samaritans”) and being your best and loving yourself (“I’m Scum”, “Television”). 

It’s exactly the kind of music that I like to put on when I need a little something to kickstart my day. It’s the kind of music that reminds me that not only do I need to go out and fight, but I need to fight with joy in my heart.

Looking back, that album has inspired a lot of how I approach the world, and how I seek to fight to make the world a little bit better than it was before. Which includes starting this newsletter. 

My goal here is to help you stay in the fight, and to help you keep sight of what you’re fighting for. You won’t find me trying to convince you that you’re wrong for thinking things are bad, or telling you that you’re wrong for feeling dread, or hopelessness, or any of the other terrible things so many of us are feeling. Instead, I want to remind you that no matter how bad things are, that there’s still something worth fighting for.