#4: Inspiration can be hard when work happens in one place, and results happen in another

That's part of the reason activism looks quite different now than it did in the '60s. 50 years ago (according to my father), you could shout, 'get out of vietnam' at a march, and everyone more or less knew what you meant. Today, 'Reach a fair, ambitious, and binding climate agreement to keep the global temperature raise below 2°' doesn't have quite the same ring. The capitalist system has become more complicated, and finding ways of changing it demands more information than it did in the past. 'Professional activism' has become a more technical, complicated terrain. 

I do a lot of reporting. I'm probably in a minority camp on this, but I generally enjoy it. It's a chance to tell a really good story. It's also inspiring to take a step back, and be reminded of why we're doing all of the workshops and daily grind work. I certainly don't want to be part of all the events that go on - I'm glad we have plenty of campaigners who enjoy and are good at those things. Many people get disillusioned when faced with the reality that most global level campaigning work means spending most of your time on emails, teleconferences, and in meetings. More often, though, the crisis comes by a disjuncture between where the work is done, and where the results are felt. This is usually an ambiguity you've learned to cope with, if you've chosen to work in advocacy instead of direct service. That doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't still get to you now and then. 

It's a bit like telling someone in California not to drive an SUV because of flooding in Bangladesh….on one hand, it's entirely true, but at the same time, not the way to change congestion on the LA freeway. It's hard for me to tell an honest story about campaigning results when I only live behind a computer. Similarly, it's hard for grassroots campaigners to get passionate about G20 discussions on the financial transaction tax when they work every day on local service provision. We may both get the theoretical connection, but after a point, it's not enough. An essential ingredient in building a strong coalition is finding a way of making everyone's experiences equally 'real' to everyone else. It's not something that happens easily. It needs continuous effort, reenforcement, and resourcing. I constantly struggled with ways of making organizational governance issues and national MDG outcomes equally 'real' to me, so I could get excited about going to work every day. I could often see the same frustration in colleagues, whose work was one piece of the puzzle. 

I'm not exactly sure what to conclude from this...except that everyone seems to find their own way of coping, whether it's through local service, making every upcoming meeting seem like the next world-changing event, doing lots of outreach....I bake sourdough and make soap.