Finding worthy challenges

Staying focused on "the work" is also about fighting boredom and bullshit

Sirus Bouchat

Sirus Bouchat

— 3 min read
Finding worthy challenges
Photo by NEOM / Unsplash

I'm tired of internet drama. But in fairness, there are a lot of things I'm tired of that I don't have any control over.

I have vague memories of some general idea that, one explanation for how much Leftist infighting exists is because there's so much pent up anger and frustration that can't foment revolution, that Leftists turn that energy inward among themselves. That might be true. It's also true that the internet is full of half-informed bloviators, shallow-minded try-hards, and vitriolic ideologues of every possible political orientation.

This week they've all crash-landed in some mess I can barely parse with a lot of reactive takes tying together Israel and Iran, JK Rowling and the latest Harry Potterverse release, IOC transvestigation cloaked in science justification, and bad faith arguments on all sides about the No Kings protests. There's so much loud nonsense it's hard to keep track. It's like that xkcd comic of yore...

Stick figure sits typing at a desk, saying it can't come to bed because people are wrong on the internet
XKCD 386

It would be really easy to fritter away hours of my life intervening in any or all of these topics for the benefit of some underspecified audience. And it's really easy to be baited into those kinds of interactions...

As you'll see if you click through the comments, this post was designed as an absolute precision strike on the moral indignation of Leftists who repudiate the No Kings concept and execution. Feeling compelled to respond is both a function of the fact that these claims are made in a public forum with an audience that might choose to believe them, and also a function of the kinds of shame and fear of being "wrong" that live very near the surface for some people. You'd think that being accused of doing Leftism wrong was a fate worse than death.

But beyond that, it's worth considering how much time, energy, and attention goes into some tasks versus others in the battle for political change, and how much those tasks play to our strengths versus preying on our weaknesses.

If you're spending all of your time fending off the misconceptions of people who don't agree with you, never will, and have no desire to do any political or intellectual work—where will that get you? If you weren't spending your time on that, where else could you spend it?

It's one thing to get swept up in bullshit because it seems like "everyone is talking about xyz" and you feel compelled to weigh in for the sake of shifting public discourse. But even without the bullshit component, there's also the boredom. It's hard enough not feeling politically effectual or being able to make headway in stopping wars or genocides or economic exploitation; it's further deeply depressing (and profoundly uninteresting, to some degree) to get caught up in trying to fight with others to care. What if, instead of pouring emotion and energy into tasks, organizations, or people who are resistant to them, you built with people who showed curiosity, engaged earnestly, and already perceived value? What if you intentionally sought out people and circumstances that pushed you beyond your comfort zone, rather than simply reaching back (or down) to try to wrest people who you think aren't where you are yet by the arm to pull them up the ladder?

None of this is a prescription, but a series of "what if" questions for you (and me) to assess where your energies are going, and where they might be leaking. It's a thought experiment into how to avoid the quicksand of the politics that are, in order to seek out the politics that could be. What would it look like to find worthy challenges?

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