ThisOTYCD post originally appeared in July 2018. 

Save this Twitter thread and read it when things seem grim.

I’m just going to get right to it. This thread was tweeted on June 27, 2018 by @burnlittlelight. You need to read it and save it for when you need to read it again.

We are not fucked. We are not doomed. What we are is at war. So get in on the war effort. Join up, support the troops, all of those old cliches. I Want You. This is a paradigm-breaking time that will define the world for generations. We don’t give up. We fight for all our lives.

Yes, we are in the jaws of the wolf now. It is useless to pretend otherwise and everyone going about business as usual is being deeply foolish. But it isn’t over. It isn’t done. It is not done until every one of us is cold in the ground and not even then. We fight, loves.

Some of you are new at long odds and unfair fights. Some of you are new at losing. Some of you are new at life as you know it going fundamentally off the rails. Listen to those of us who have lost and failed and died and survived: it isn’t over for as long as you insist it isn’t.

Sometimes you lose a battle. Sometimes it looks really ugly ahead and all the choices involve steep prices and deep losses. But you fight anyway. You make some room for grief and anger and despair and then you get back up and you do whatever it takes until it’s not so bad.

I know it’s scary. I know it’s bad. There is no longer a way through this that doesn’t cost us, that doesn’t involve more losses, that doesn’t mean trauma. But there are ways through this nonetheless. Nothing is over until we let it be over. We need you. We need everyone in this.

Genocide is already in progress. Thousands of lives have already been harmed. We fight now to prevent it from getting exponentially worse. From inside and outside, we fight to stop a runaway global superpower from exerting fascism around the world. No use pretending otherwise.

My family survived pogroms and the Bataan Death March and occupation after occupation and I will be goddamned if we call it quits because we’ve lost some battles. We do not get to quit. No cowardice, no appeasement, no surrender. Because the hope is in us and what we do now.

Take a moment to feel it. Make room for the fear so it doesn’t surprise you, stop you, at the wrong time. And then recognize that this ends when we make it end, change your assumptions about your life, and get in the fight with whatever skills, resources, and gifts you have.

Don’t you dare declare defeat before it’s over. Some roads have closed and some battles have been lost and no, it’s not a fair fight, and no, none of this will be easy. So it’s time to be more than we have ever been before. It’s time to grow and to rise. We’re at war. So fight.

We are the spark. And hope survives while we survive, and the fight goes on while we fight it. Keep breathing. Look after your neighbor. Get fed, get free, and help each other to be brave, in this world that requires so much courage. Time to grab on and bend the arc of history.

Follow that writer on Twitter:

@burnlittlelight

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