I devoured this — my heart feels full, and I feel better able to channel my strengths in a few, meaningful directions instead of becoming scattered from overwhelm, and my action being less impactful. Thank you <3
One thing that I struggle with mightily with regard to organizing etc. is the emotional responses from people to whatever Big Thing is relevant at the moment. Online I can filter most of that away, but in person, not so much. The amount of emotional processing of others' responses is not only extremely exhausting in itself, it often even ends up suffocating whatever we're there to do in a miasma of trying to be the most outraged, sad, bleak etc.
It feels just so... performative and pointless. I really feel that we can safely assume that people showing up for a Cause give a damn about it, and acknowledge it and get to the point. This may be my evil autism speaking, not having a huge emotional response to events but far more of a response to the emotional response of others, but as dirty as the word feels with all its connotations, I can't not be annoyed at how unproductive it all is. The focus ought to be on doing something with those feelings, not one up each other about how Emotion we are about it.
I could not agree MORE as an evil Autism haver. Stop trying to persuade everyone in the room to give a shit / perform the emotional displays that will convince you that they give a shit and let's just get to work!! I know the reality is more complex than that, propaganda is necessary and emotional processing is too, but it's very hard for me to sit through those spaces because those are the exact opposites of my needs.
This post is a friggin treasure trove. I don't have the words at the moment to accurately express how helpful, encouraging, practical, and just... rich and meaty this is, but I want to make sure I thank you for it!!!
Thank you, this piece was really validating and helpful! I have been feeling guilty for not socializing or reaching out to friends because I’ve been so focused on activism for Palestine. I just don’t have the mental space or energy for much of anything except trying to stop this genocide.
Great point about giving meetings agendas and structure. It helps me to understand why something is the way it is so I'm going to share what I know. Most of the times when meetings are random discussions it's because whoever is "in charge" has a bunch of other stuff going on, is often overworked and overwhelmed, and then some number of people say something about not knowing what's going on or needing more information. Or they realise that things need to be coordinated. That's when a meeting gets set up. But because of the workload or other pressures, they don't have time or capacity before the meeting so they just show up. It relies on crowdsourcing the most important topics in the meeting to make sure the key things get covered.
Summing up: meetings are badly organised not because the person responsible for them thinks that's good but because they don't have the ability to do it better.
What works to fix that the best can be asking, but what's more reliable is coming in with the solution. Even in very large and very hierarchical organisations, it's often easy to suggest a meeting structure and get that followed. If setting up times for people to speak and getting speakers to nominate themselves ahead of time is what's needed, then suggesting an agenda can make that happen.
Here's a script for that: "Hey, I noticed that there is a meeting next week to [topic]. It's my understanding that the main goal of that meeting is [main goal]. I want to help us get the most out of the meeting. [optional sharing of historical example where there had to be a follow-up meeting or some information got missed]. I put together an agenda for the meeting that should cover all the topics and give everyone a chance to participate. I want to share it with you as something that could be helpful. I know that I get overwhelmed in meetings and can't speak up. Something like this would help me be able to participate fully. [I'm willing to do this for upcoming meetings that I attend/this would work as a template for future meetings/we can rotate who creates the agenda for the next meeting].
Then be prepared for them to make changes to that agenda. If they reject the idea of an agenda at all then that's a separate problem and goes back to the notes in the post about picking an organisation that is going to match up well.
This is an INCREDIBLY helpful tip and astute observation, thank you RD. I work for a school that often has meandering, draining meetings for exactly the reasons you are describing, and I know that when someone does take the time to gather materials in advance and put together a solid agenda it brings so much relief to all involved, including leadership.
I love the ideas you’ve presented here! Even though I feel relatively comfortable doing political work such as canvassing, phone banking, etc. I’d like to get involved in other ways.
Had to comment to share deeply felt thanks... the person I was and the situations I was in around 10-20 years ago would have benefited hugely from this - I was one of the ones masking my way through countless meetings with one or two grandstanding egos. I like to think that to find (and make) better spaces, it starts with knowing what they might look like and believing that they are possible. Thanks for sharing that you have that in your life, it's great to have real world examples!
Have you put up the linked article about why you don’t identify as an activist anymore on substack or is it just on medium for now? Medium is so finicky. Yesterday it let me read it. Not today.
I was looking for the paragraph with the links to David Graeber talking about (not) being an activist and some other interesting looking links.
Thank you!! I find whenever I try to join organizing or any collaborative group effort, I’m very overwhelmed by the group texts and long email threads with so much information in them - I can’t keep up with them and the constant expectation to respond to them in order to remain within the group or be active in it is very difficult for me. Do folks have any recommendations or practices that have worked for them?
I devoured this — my heart feels full, and I feel better able to channel my strengths in a few, meaningful directions instead of becoming scattered from overwhelm, and my action being less impactful. Thank you <3
One thing that I struggle with mightily with regard to organizing etc. is the emotional responses from people to whatever Big Thing is relevant at the moment. Online I can filter most of that away, but in person, not so much. The amount of emotional processing of others' responses is not only extremely exhausting in itself, it often even ends up suffocating whatever we're there to do in a miasma of trying to be the most outraged, sad, bleak etc.
It feels just so... performative and pointless. I really feel that we can safely assume that people showing up for a Cause give a damn about it, and acknowledge it and get to the point. This may be my evil autism speaking, not having a huge emotional response to events but far more of a response to the emotional response of others, but as dirty as the word feels with all its connotations, I can't not be annoyed at how unproductive it all is. The focus ought to be on doing something with those feelings, not one up each other about how Emotion we are about it.
I could not agree MORE as an evil Autism haver. Stop trying to persuade everyone in the room to give a shit / perform the emotional displays that will convince you that they give a shit and let's just get to work!! I know the reality is more complex than that, propaganda is necessary and emotional processing is too, but it's very hard for me to sit through those spaces because those are the exact opposites of my needs.
Exactly.
This post is a friggin treasure trove. I don't have the words at the moment to accurately express how helpful, encouraging, practical, and just... rich and meaty this is, but I want to make sure I thank you for it!!!
Thank you, this piece was really validating and helpful! I have been feeling guilty for not socializing or reaching out to friends because I’ve been so focused on activism for Palestine. I just don’t have the mental space or energy for much of anything except trying to stop this genocide.
Great point about giving meetings agendas and structure. It helps me to understand why something is the way it is so I'm going to share what I know. Most of the times when meetings are random discussions it's because whoever is "in charge" has a bunch of other stuff going on, is often overworked and overwhelmed, and then some number of people say something about not knowing what's going on or needing more information. Or they realise that things need to be coordinated. That's when a meeting gets set up. But because of the workload or other pressures, they don't have time or capacity before the meeting so they just show up. It relies on crowdsourcing the most important topics in the meeting to make sure the key things get covered.
Summing up: meetings are badly organised not because the person responsible for them thinks that's good but because they don't have the ability to do it better.
What works to fix that the best can be asking, but what's more reliable is coming in with the solution. Even in very large and very hierarchical organisations, it's often easy to suggest a meeting structure and get that followed. If setting up times for people to speak and getting speakers to nominate themselves ahead of time is what's needed, then suggesting an agenda can make that happen.
Here's a script for that: "Hey, I noticed that there is a meeting next week to [topic]. It's my understanding that the main goal of that meeting is [main goal]. I want to help us get the most out of the meeting. [optional sharing of historical example where there had to be a follow-up meeting or some information got missed]. I put together an agenda for the meeting that should cover all the topics and give everyone a chance to participate. I want to share it with you as something that could be helpful. I know that I get overwhelmed in meetings and can't speak up. Something like this would help me be able to participate fully. [I'm willing to do this for upcoming meetings that I attend/this would work as a template for future meetings/we can rotate who creates the agenda for the next meeting].
Then be prepared for them to make changes to that agenda. If they reject the idea of an agenda at all then that's a separate problem and goes back to the notes in the post about picking an organisation that is going to match up well.
This is an INCREDIBLY helpful tip and astute observation, thank you RD. I work for a school that often has meandering, draining meetings for exactly the reasons you are describing, and I know that when someone does take the time to gather materials in advance and put together a solid agenda it brings so much relief to all involved, including leadership.
I needed to read this...so badly.
I love the ideas you’ve presented here! Even though I feel relatively comfortable doing political work such as canvassing, phone banking, etc. I’d like to get involved in other ways.
Had to comment to share deeply felt thanks... the person I was and the situations I was in around 10-20 years ago would have benefited hugely from this - I was one of the ones masking my way through countless meetings with one or two grandstanding egos. I like to think that to find (and make) better spaces, it starts with knowing what they might look like and believing that they are possible. Thanks for sharing that you have that in your life, it's great to have real world examples!
Thank you so much!
Super useful. Thank you. I appreciate that you reached out to so many folks, so the experiences represented and suggestions offered were varied.
Have you put up the linked article about why you don’t identify as an activist anymore on substack or is it just on medium for now? Medium is so finicky. Yesterday it let me read it. Not today.
I was looking for the paragraph with the links to David Graeber talking about (not) being an activist and some other interesting looking links.
❤️🌻
Thank you!! I find whenever I try to join organizing or any collaborative group effort, I’m very overwhelmed by the group texts and long email threads with so much information in them - I can’t keep up with them and the constant expectation to respond to them in order to remain within the group or be active in it is very difficult for me. Do folks have any recommendations or practices that have worked for them?