What
motivates and inspires you? How do you avoid burnout?
Dee from Reclaim
the Streets
mp->> So, how do you keep at it? What
keeps you going and inspires you so you don't burn out?
Dee->> One thing I wanted to say is that I have
doubts about months and months of stressful build-up, and all
your energy put into a thing that is going to be a one-day event.
I do have doubts about that, particularly as people who've been
involved stressfully for months on end tend to feel burnt out
afterwards. I feel burnt out now. I just don't really want to
do anything that's very demanding. I don't mind doing a banner.
But I don't want to do a really demanding stressful action for
a while. Then again, I have to contradict myself, and say that
it wasn't a one-day event. Because all the work we put into it
in the months beforehand came out in a succession of leaflets,
little videos, things on the Internet, networking. And all of
that was extremely valuable. That is a thing that is inspiring.
When you hear about other people linking up with you from other
places in the world, when you hear of completely different organizations,
who are not taking it on from you, but who are linking from somewhere
else with you, such as the Zapatistas and Movimiento Sem Terra, and you hear what they've been
doing, as just small groups of peasants, what they've actually
managed to achieve. That's inspiring. That's stunning, some of
the things they've managed to do. And then it is inspiring to
hear of people who have actually taken off, using us as their
inspiration. They heard about us on the Internet. That is an
inspiration, too, to realize that people can pick up from such
a little seed and then draw something out of themselves to do
something wonderful. Where I was moving towards is how I keep
going.
Now, I'm getting quite old. I'm 54. So, my energy levels are
going down, to some extent, and there are some physical things
that I can't cope with so well as I could. Although I'm not too
bad, still. But I'm finding that, more and more, it's important
to me to be doing practical things. I suppose you could call
it "earthing yourself," although I'm not going to get
into big Earth Mother theorizing. There are a couple of things
that I think I can coast along being more or less useful doing:
banner-making, which I know how to do now. I may not be brilliant
at it, but I can more or less do it. So I can show other people
how to do it. And when there's an action, there's very often
a call for a banner or something similar. So that's something
I can do, that doesn't take too much out of me, except when I've
got too many to do. Which I usually have. It's a craft that you
can just chug along doing without necessarily too much stress.
And it's useful. Another thing that I find good is the climbing
skills that I've learned. Because now when I've got time, I very
often give climbing workshops. Although there's a bit less call
for it, and every now and then I think, "Oh, well, you know,
climbing's past. We're not going to go up in the trees anymore,
that's just a primitive phase we went through." It just
keeps cropping up again. People say, "We need some people
to climb up that building." Or "We need some abseilers
to hang that banner." It crops up. It's useful to be able
to monkey about the place. And it's also lots of fun. So, for
instance, I'm very happy that I can go to the Earth First! gathering,
which is a week-long series of workshops, coming up next month.
And that I'll spend quite a long time in the trees, showing beginners
how to climb, how to do knots and a bit of technical stuff. Also,
enabling people to have fun in the trees. That's nice, people
need a bit of fun.
And then, a more and more important thing to me is gardening,
which is very difficult to explain to anyone who hasn't been
much involved in gardening. I don't know if you have much? It
calms you down. It somehow "earths" you, makes you
feel in contact with the natural world and it makes you feel
you're doing just a normal useful animal thing. Which is very
calming and incredibly good for your head. I know so many people
who've said this, and it really is true. I have a friend who
gets so stressed out he just can't bear things, just can't bear
it. And he's had to pull out of a lot of actions because he gets
too stressed out. But he's always saying that he wouldn't be
sane if it wasn't for gardening. He just squats bits of land,
here and there, and takes them over as another little plot to
garden. And it means you can have organic vegetables, which most
of us can't afford to buy because they're so expensive. So it
does have that practical purpose. And, well, it gives birds a
place to be and the worms a place to worm around. And it really
is very good for your head. So, I'd recommend gardening to anyone
who's feeling stressed out. It's very hard work! It's no good
having this sort of airy-fairy hippie approach to it that some
people have, especially some people who've been on permaculture
courses have a totally unrealistic approach. They just do not
know what is involved, which is a lot of commitment and hard
work, actually, or you're just going to end up with just a patch
of weeds, which is a bit depressing. Well, some weeds are good.
You want some weeds. Nice flowers.
- Zapatistas
Rebel guerrilla
organization in Mexico focussed upon (re)claiming land &
freedom for the indigenous & poor peoples of Mexico. First
came to world attention on January 1st, 1994 when over 100,000
people marched on Mexico City shouting "First World Ha,
Ha, Ha!" One of the first grassroots organizations to utilize
the Internet as a powerful & effective tool for media exposure
& rallying international support.
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- Movimiento Sem Terra
Brazilian Landless
Movement - Brazil's largest and most radical social movement.
Since 1984, tens of thousands of landless families in Brazil
have taken direct action to sieze the land they need to live
in safety, to build homes, to grow food, and to survive. In 1997,
50,000 families were squatting 244 areas of unused land. As of
February 1998, 150,000 families had won legal title to the lands
they had appropriated. In addition to land-squats, the MST has
hijacked truck loads of food and other goods and re-distributed
these necessities to the poor and landless. The MST has been
the target of violence by landowners, the police, and the military.
Since 1984, over 1,600 peasants have been killed, but only two
of the murderers have been convicted. In April 1997, a massive
march from Sao Paulo to Brasilia gained limited governmental
response to the MST demands for land re-distribution, despite
campaign promises of significant land reform by the president.
Despite harsh opposition, the MST is going strong (as of 1999),
with 50 new land occupations per month.
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