reluctant enthusiast, part-time crusader

There is a particular exhaustion that comes with caring. Not the kind of tired you get from chopping wood or running a marathon, but the kind that seeps into the marrow, makes your bones feel like lead, and turns everything—even joy—into something you file under "to-do."

Advocacy, resistance, whatever name you slap on it, is a slow-motion tug-of-war between a vision of the world as it could be and the bureaucratic, power-clutching machinery that would rather you just shut up and watch reality TV.

Edward Abbey, a man who understood the necessity of both righteous anger and a well-timed nap, gave us this nugget of wisdom: “be a reluctant enthusiast, a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic.” Translation? Don’t let the work consume you. Save half of yourself for something reckless and beautiful. Save half of yourself for something useless but joyous.

It’s good advice. Because otherwise, you become the thing you are fighting against: a brittle, lifeless cog in an uncaring machine. And what a waste of human potential that would be. The ones who burn too hot, too fast, are the ones who turn to ash before they’ve done their best work. And work, the right kind of work, needs endurance. Not the grinding, break-your-spirit endurance that corporate overlords love to brand as "hustle," but the kind of endurance that lets you pause, breathe, and remind yourself why you started in the first place.

Lets avoid the performative rituals we mistake for progress. The land acknowledgments read before meetings that change nothing. The hashtags, the corporate-sponsored activism, the endless online posturing where people clap themselves on the back for "awareness" while the actual work of change is left undone. Social media has convinced us that if we declare something loudly enough, it will materialize into action. But posting is not protesting. And acknowledgment without commitment is just a new kind of branding.

We need to optimize for action. Instead of flinging words into the abyss, we need to move meaningfully. Less posturing, more pressure. Less empty ritual, more real work. Because real work isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t trend. It doesn’t always feel good. It looks like showing up when no one’s watching. It looks like getting out of your own way, putting your hands in the dirt, and pushing the world forward an inch at a time. And it means understanding that change is not a moment—it’s a lifetime of moments, small and uncelebrated, that build into something greater.

Here we are, surrounded by the whirring promise of AI. It can summarize Supreme Court decisions, compose symphonies, and diagnose rare diseases before your doctor even gets their morning coffee. It can out-calculate, out-analyze, and out-memorize any of us. We must direct it! Let it know what it means to fight for something and then, lets harness its power to go out and create real change.

The key is to make AI an ally, not a replacement. It can filter the noise, automate the tedious, and give us the space to focus on what truly matters. AI can help us identify patterns in policy, optimize funding applications, and sharpen our strategies. It can streamline activism by analyzing data faster than any human could, allowing us to make informed decisions about where and how to act. It can be the tool that lifts the burden, letting us engage in the fight without burning out before the real victories are won.

If we don't take the time to revel in this messy, complicated, ridiculous, beautiful life, then what exactly are we fighting for?