Wishing everyone else would step up to the plate
Yes Yes Advice Column
Things of note :
🪟 We recorded the Visioning Session of Flexible Office yesterday and it is now available to watch! Thank you to everyone for such a beautiful session. If you’re wanting to jump in and join us still you are welcome to. We get to work on Tuesday.
🪞 In a few weeks I am teaching Crafting Hidden Marketing Gems In Your Newsletters : Live class Tue Nov 21 at 1pm EST - I would love for you to join me. It’s a fun spin off of my Skillshare class and we go deeper into the email marketing side of newsletter creation
Welcome to Yes Yes - my advice column tucked into the Monday Monday newsletter. The leaves are mostly off the trees now and the wind whips as I write to you.
This is a vulnerable time for artists, cultural workers, and writers looking to take action and maintain their work. As we speak out about what matters to us we take a risk, we place ourselves as willing to lose something. Money, friends, power, resources, jobs, opportunities.
And for many - grief is too much to rise above to state clearly what kind of world we want to see. There is a drowning that happens in the unknown and the fear of saying something wrong. Many are swimming in that. Whether it is from navigating their personal lives, trauma that stops them in their tracks, not having enough information. The list goes on.
Today’s question is my attempt at finding harmony when your peers and community aren’t showing up in the way you hoped they would, and how to find peace in this. How to be a good steward of brave action, and to release expectations and right size hope.
I am not a therapist and I have no training in advice giving. I do not identify as an activist or an organizer. I am an artist, a writer, and a teacher of creative practice with a devotion to how we live. These are my opinions, my best shot at hope, and what I know from 35 years on the planet. As always, may you hold a gentle spirit while reading, take what you like, and leave the rest. Let’s dive in!
Dearest Mar,
I'm hoping you'll have some insight into this question in the wake of all of the trauma and destruction and loss of life that is currently happening in Palestine, which has deeply impacted me and radicalized me further than I ever have been. I am wondering how you navigate relationships with the silent folks–those who don't speak out at all, those who post brunch photos and parties and seem to completely ignore the genocide, perhaps in favor of "self-love" or in an effort to avoid ruffling any feathers. I am feeling so deeply entrenched in a sinewy, nervous system-activating judgment of these people right now, including some dear friends! It's like I'm seeing their politics more clearly now, and I'm not sure I can forget that they acted like this—but should I try to find some empathy? If so, how? Love, From the River to the Sea
Dearest gentle reader!
I would dare say that nothing like Palestinian liberation and navigating an understanding of the Israel occupation on Palestine has divided the left, the liberals, the weirdos, the freaks - more in my lifetime. I have never seen something that so clearly makes it painful for us to stand together. There are so many intricacies to understand, so many puzzles of history to piece together, so many voices chiming in and also opting out.
When we stand against anti trans bills, when we say Black Lives Matter, when we demand abolition now, and so much more - there seems to be this ease, this feeling of - of course I want liberation and freedom and will stand in solidarity with these movements. They hardly feel like radical positions as much as a clear and simple stance of justice and liberation for all. This is what we call for.
And yet, not everyone is feeling called to this moment, or available to speak up. The brunch photos emerge. The seemingly apolitical notions run wild. Silence is loud. What I have to say about this might surprise you but here goes.