Thursday, May 17, 2012

Tumblr Love

Thanks to STFU Conservatives, and all of the 300+ tumblrites who either liked or re-blogged this quote from my piece 'Activists, Know Thyself'. Extra special thanks to Bridget McKinney, for getting the ball rolling in the first place.

I have been too busy lately to generate very much new writing, so it feels good to get some mileage out of something I wrote back in February:


"There are no saints in this world, and I am glad for it. It takes a certain kind of humility to admit that we have various—and sometimes sordid—motives for the things we do. ‘Every saint should be held guilty until proven innocent’, said George Orwell. ‘If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him’, said Lin Chi. It takes great self-awareness to interact meaningfully with this world, and no person who is adequately self-aware will ever mistake themselves—or the movements they belong to—as absolutely pure of intention. Throughout history, all movements of ‘pure intention’ have led to concentration camps, gulags, killing fields, mass graves, and performance art (all of which are terrible, terrible things).
If we’re going to be effective in achieving our goals, we don’t need saints and messiahs. We don’t need cults of personality. We need real, flawed, self-aware people muddling through the best they can, with an appropriate dose of fear and trembling to keep them honest."


Oh, and by the way, if you're on Tumblr, check out the Drop Inn Center's official Tumblr page. I'm proud to be a part of that organization, and if you're interested in helping us out, consider donating; A donation of 10 dollars feeds 10 residents for 10 days. If there's a better return out there to be had from a 10 dollar investment, I can't think of one.

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