Never to get lost is not to live, not to know how to get lost brings you to destruction.
Rebecca SolnitRead
Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Joy can empower and sustain movements for change and resistance against oppressive politics.
In this quote, Rebecca Solnit emphasizes the importance of joy as a powerful tool in activism. Rather than succumbing to fear and isolation that oppressive political systems may provoke, embracing joy can serve as a revolutionary act. It allows individuals to resist negativity and foster a sense of community, making it essential for sustaining long-term activism and inspiring others to participate in the movement for positive change.
Themes
JoyActivismResistancePoliticsInsurrection
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about community organizing, I quoted Solnit to inspire attendees to find joy in their work.
More from Rebecca Solnit
All quotes βI still think the revolution is to make the world safe for poetry, meandering, for the frail and vulnerable, the rare and obscure, the impractical and local and small.
Rebecca SolnitRead
We have a real role in how our own collective lives, our nation, and our world and society turn out. Seizing those opportunities is important, and disasters are sometimes one of those opportunities.
Rebecca SolnitRead
If sorrow and beauty are all tied up together, then perhaps maturity brings with it not what Nabhan calls abstraction, but an aesthetic sense that partially redeems the losses time brings and finds beauty in the faraway.
Rebecca SolnitRead
The object we call a book is not the real book, but its potential, like a musical score or seed. It exists fully only in the act of being read; and its real home is inside the head of the reader, where the symphony resounds, the seed germinates. A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another.
Rebecca SolnitRead
Cities have always offered anonymity, variety, and conjunction, qualities best basked in by walking: one does not have to go into the bakery or the fortune-teller's, only to know that one might. A city always contains more than any inhabitant can know, and a great city always makes the unknown and the possible spurs to the imagination.
Rebecca SolnitRead
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I do try to separate my personal activism - showing up at a demonstration or something - from what I write.
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While acting is what I do for a living, activism is what I do to stay alive.
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I'm grounded in joy; I'm not grounded in the trauma anymore.
Tarana BurkeRead