all we can do
It’s been a year and a half since I started this newsletter. When I look at it as a whole, I see that it has become a record of progress in my writing, as well as of stagnation and missteps. The record shows improvement, but, crucially, that improvement is only possible through the repetition required to create that very record. It’s the same as, for example, playing soccer. Each time I make a sharp turn, something I’m not naturally good at, I can’t quite tell whether it was better than the last. I know for sure, though, that I’m better at turning now than I was two months ago. All I can do is repeat the move over time and trust that the record will show improvement.
This is all on my mind because we are again and continually living through an unspeakable horror, death and grief so enormous that no words are commensurate, and it can feel like there is nothing any of us can do. I think that feeling is correct — there is nothing any single one of us can do to change the course of history — and also wrong — there is plenty to be done, collectively.
I recently told a friend that I have hope, but on reflection I am not sure that’s exactly true. What’s true, or at least more true, is that I think all we can do is all we can do. Unionizing Starbucks baristas are doing all they can do, and unionizing Amazon workers are doing all they can do, and teachers going on strike are doing all they can do. The people that crowded Foley Square in Lower Manhattan the day after the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade was leaked were doing all they could do. I could keep going, but you get the point. We put one foot in front of the next and trust that we’re progressing even if we can’t quite tell. We (people fighting to win power for working people) will either win or we won’t, but that fate won’t be decided now, and it’s unlikely that it will be decided in one fell swoop. We’ve made a lot of progress in the last few years, but we sometimes forget that the other guys have for decades had an incredible lead. We keep going until we close the gap and then keep going again until we overcome them. It’s all we can do.