Having fun is revolutionary too

I finished Luke Cage last night, I had started watching when it first came out, but then got distracted by various things and only got back to it when I was sick. It is the best of the Netflix Marvel series and that isn't a low bar to clear, without going into spoilers you should watch it if you:

1. Care about racial justice and support minorities in media.
2. Care about the intersection of political power and race.
3. Want to watch some damn fine actors telling a good story.

Any one of those reasons will do, and there are more I am sure. The more I think about it though, the more I feel bad for Shades, I mean sure he's a mean man and a criminal, but there he is just trying to be the best criminal he can be and his bosses just keep being insane and taking things personal. His arc was somewhat satisfying to me.

But  didn't come here to talk to you about that, I came to talk about our impending demise at the hands of the Goldshirts.

With all that has been going on lately I have been seeing a lot of people talk about how they don't feel like they can enjoy things, either because they are too stressed, or because they feel there is too much to do and they don't deserve it. There are also people who get mad at those who do something to have fun or to relax, feeling they are not supporting the cause appropriately or some shit.

This is misguided at best, here's the thing, any government, especially fascist ones like what we have forming up, but surely not limited to them, isn't a fan of dissent in any form, doesn't matter what they say, those in power do not want to hear truth spoken to them. Suppression comes in many forms, some overt, and others not so much, they are built into the system not as a law, but as a perception, much like institutional racism or sexism, they aren't explicit anywhere in our recorded rules(mostly, anymore), but they support the system and silence dissent more surely for all that.

The image I am talking about here is our perception of protesters, dissidents, or revolutionaries as larger than life, more than human figures who live for the cause, their every waking moment devoted to figuring out how to advance whatever their particular cause or ideology is. While I am sure some are and where like that, I suspect that this is largely untrue and indeed I think if you allow a movement to be run by people like that you tend to end up with things like Communist Russia.

Leaving that aside for now though, look at Martin Luther King Jr. off the top of your head, do you know anything about him that isn't related to the Civil Rights movement or his work as a minister? No of course not, that isn't what he is famous for, he worked so hard, accomplished so much as a figurehead of the movement, that even thinking about trying to emulate him is exhausting. You'd think he would have had to spend every moment of his time working on his cause, there would be no time for things like fun or whatever. This belief is only to the advantage of those in power, the idea that if you can't be like Dr. King you shouldn't even be trying helps only those who would be threatened by your movement.
Lest we forget, Dr. King was married and had children, so the cause couldn't prevent from (hopefully) finding love, I imagine he had the occasional night with friends and family, listening to music, having a drink, or whatever, probably caught a movie once in a while too.

Humans work better when they are in balance, the system works better the more those who live under it are not, when they feel they must choose between enjoying themselves, and fighting for something with their increasingly limited free time, most will choose enjoying themselves, and they are not wrong to do so.

To a point.

Exhaustion does set in doesn't it? After a shift at my job I know I don't want to drive over and join a protest, and I don't even work all that much compared to some, but it's easy to play video games, so that is the trap I fall into, it is necessary to have fun, but it's also a great way to fall into a pattern of behavior that helps no one, if what you are doing for enjoyment helps you have the energy so that you can do something at the appropriate time then it is for the best, if it doesn't, then it's an addiction of sorts.

On a more grim note, people concerned about our current events who want to fight it should consider what kind of revolution they want. There is a chance, maybe a slim one, but I think perhaps larger than it has been in quite some time, that it comes down to outright revolt. If that does happen I personally want to be surrounded by people who are not just fighting against something, but for something, and that something includes the ability to laugh, to listen to and make music, play games, or make good food, I think when we forget that those are necessary parts of human existence, even in the absolute worst of situations, such as the trenches of WWI or on the slave plantations in the pre Civil War south, when we forget those, we become something that is actually as bad as what we are fighting against, we can topple a regime sure, but how do we replace it when the revolution treats everyone who didn't devote every waking moment to the fight as an enemy? Tsarist Russia was bad, a ridiculous collection of wealth at the top, near abject poverty at the bottom, it took a populist uprising to topple it, and once it took control, well, Stalin probably killed more people than Hitler did, and he did so in the name of the party.

I realize my historical references are simplistic, and that I am boiling down incredibly complicated people and events in order to support my ideas here, but I don't really think I am entirely wrong for all that, at least as applies to today.

The point is, having fun, and experiencing joy, are good and necessary parts of human nature, and the "revolution" if you can feel joy, or hope, or anything other than despair and rage, you aren't beaten, they haven't won.

And if you can't feel anything other than despair and rage, I'm sorry, you deserve help and should seek it out however you can, if you have friends or family who notice then that help will hopefully come to you, but until then allow others to feel what they can.