Refuse Refuse

I like to think of myself as an active, doing, person and as a teacher, I have to be. But as these Blogposts testify, I also enjoy roaming the landscape of the mind and thinking about (and then writing about) things. When it comes to action for social justice, I feel that the things I write about it are an action of sorts, posing questions and giving information that helps others consider points of view that help build a narrative that can deeply influence action. 

 

My wife, by contrast, is a doer. Her response to the political climate has been to write postcards with a group, work at a foodbank and recently, join a garbage clean-up group called Refuse Refuse. (That’s a verb followed by a noun.). Now she organizes clean-ups once every six weeks or so. I’ve gone to most of them and can report that they’re very satisfying and a good antidote to sitting around in weepy despair. Just get out and do something, even if it be as simple as picking up garbage.

 

Besides the social benefits of meeting your neighbors in a 4 or 5 block radius, I find it super-fun to pick things up with these grabbers. (See the person 6 people in from the left with her grabber.) Amazing how they are so fine-tuned as to easily pick up a tiny cigarette butt. And so I wandered my neighborhood streets, eyes peeled for every scrap of paper or plastic, grabbed it with the grabber and dropped it in the bag. Sometimes we’d pass people who thanked us for our work and that was nice, though unnecessary. No one was doing this looking for credit and praise. It just feels like an easy and satisfying way to be of use, with the benefit that the next day, the streets we walk will be more pleasant to walk through. 

 

So if you’re feeling hopeless and paralyzed with despair, get a group together, put on an orange vest, grab your grabber and go out to make the world a more beautiful place, one cigarette butt at a time.