How to thrive in the face of indifference
By JACKSON IVY — jjivy@ucdavis.edu
To be young in today’s world is to struggle. We struggle for calm, justice or some assurance that things are not as bad as they seem, yet so many things are stacked against us. Media reports are rarely good, and it’s too easy to reach a point where you dread the notion of even looking at your phone.
This is no accident — corporations want you to feel drained, hopeless and eventually apathetic. They want you to feel like there’s no point — that obstacles are insurmountable. That way, you’ll reach for your phone and numb yourself by scrolling. This does not make us bad or weak; all of us know that things ought to change, and every second they don’t is an injustice and a disservice to our generation. But it still feels impossible.
I believe this feeling is natural. When we look to history for inspiration on how to enact sweeping change, we see revolution, civil unrest, grassroots movement, mass mobilization — all things that feel out of place or “too far” in today’s world. But there’s one lingering question I always have: Where does resistance begin?
In the wake of a world designed to overwhelm, it’s natural to want to shut down or look the other direction. But this does not solve our discord with the problem, nor does it address the problem itself. Instead of shutting down and shutting out the chaos, I propose a strategy I’ve been practicing since I got to college. I like to think of it as a form of compartmentalization, where I can take steps toward effective and meaningful resistance that relieves the strain of inaction and helps me approach the issue, one step at a time.
This compartmentalization strategy starts with expanding the definition of “resistance.” Resistance, as a concept, doesn’t just include protesting the injustices of the world; it includes resisting the feeling that protesting injustice is pointless. It expands to include seeing every word, every step forward and every breath as a form of defiance.
Think about it: big corporations who contribute the most to climate change, for example, want you to feel hopeless. But if it were truly hopeless, why would we continue to see our friends, drink coffee, go to class or otherwise have fun? It’s not meaningless, and extracting meaning from a life in which you are made to feel that none exists is the very essence of defiance. Every day you thrive without the permission of power-hungry individuals is a day you win. Every time you laugh with your friends is a laugh at their expense. Every time you hug someone you love, that precious moment belongs to you forever. Choosing to thrive in spite of how many terrible things happen every day is a constant state of victory.
Once you can build a foundation of passive resistance, it becomes easier to face the bigger things. Once I started waking up and seeing that defining moment where I finally got out of bed as a step toward positive change, I started feeling like it was easier to think about protest — to write, to advocate, to boycott, to revolt. I believe this happened because I could recall all the times I resisted apathy by getting up anyway, resisted repression by reading a book or resisted consumerism by falling in love. I felt like I was getting the hang of resistance and started to think bigger.
All this abstract talk is really a means to an end — at the end of the day, tangible change is not caused by breathing without permission; rather, learning what resistance means to you, first and foremost, is what allows us to resist together.
Written by: Jackson Ivy— jjivy@ucdavis.edu
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