Five suggestions for wannabe-activists

[pseudomonas]

1) Pick a cause you care about, and focus on it, get knowledgeable, be prepared to become expert.

2) Approach things in ways that suit you, your temperament, your skills, your contacts, your knowledge. There are lots of strategies.

3) Don't do it alone — either find a group doing it already, or find a friend/partner/teammate so you can encourage each other.

4) Celebrate even small victories, and never beat yourself up when you can't save the world single-handed

5) Take time out if you need it; get enough food and sleep and socialising and alone-time^†. Self-care is a prerequisite to activism, not an optional add-on!


^†and tea!

Comments

[pseudomonas]

Examples of 2: I'm trying to advertise the fact that I can do data-rearranging easily; it's a good use of my skills and often means that I can do something in an hour or two that would take a week for someone to do manually.

hutchingsmusic is a composer and is turning that to support pro-refugee efforts.

Friends in the Rabbinate are using that position to help organise within the Jewish community (on issues that also affect wider society); similarly friends who are involved or employed within the Church.

It's not as fun, but if you have a highly-paid job you might well be better working a few hours overtime and just donating the money to a relevant cause, than spending those hours doing general work for the cause directly.

[cosmolinguist]

These are all good points, thank you.

[liv]

I am really not convinced by the EA argument that people should work overtime and donate the money. Basically everybody I know who is "highly paid" either has a salary, not an hourly wage, or they freelance and are already doing as many hours as they can get clients for. I'm totally fine with the idea of preferring to donate money to experts rather than trying to rush in as a clueless amateur, but I'm pretty sure that for most people who remotely can do that, that means taking money from discretionary spending, not magicking up more money by working more hours.

[pseudomonas]

Yeah, that's a fair point. I guess the case that would apply is "not taking unpaid leave to do activism stuff". But I concede this point in general.

[kht]

<3