Wow.

I'm up far far too late, but this day was just too rich to post nothing. We had our first convergence of the respective "Activism" and "Composition" groups tonight. After some discussion, we were given our assignment which we have two days to complete. We were assigned to groups of four, with each group containing two members from the "Activism" group, and two members from the "Composition" group. Our assignment is as follows:

Compose in social action and sound a perturbation towards a society we want.

These compositions are to be presented in ten minutes or less on Thursday evening. I am absolutely delighted with the members of my group. There is Dario (a wonderful man from Italy), Andrew (hailing from Urbana, Illinois), and Judy, a totally sweet woman who is here with her husband Ted. Instead of jumping straight into brainstorming, Andrew had the brilliant idea to have an "icebreaker" session first, and for each of us to share a little bit about what activism means to us and what our goals are in regard to it. It was so amazing to hear all three of them speak, and also to share my own thoughts. I have always had highly ambivalent feelings about "activism", more with how it is so often practiced than with the concept itself. In my view, activist groups all too often fall prey to the sort of rigid, black and white thinking that they are criticizing. They are usually quite zealous, but without knowing exactly why.

The kind of activism I have encountered here, however, has been so delightfully refreshing, as its distinctions are nuanced and its methods carefully composed. Tonight, Dario was sharing his ideas about imagining, creating, and storytelling being potential modes of activism, with the ultimate goal being to cultivate connections between and among apparently disparate ideas, practices, fields of study, etc. This was so exciting for me to hear. Finally a group of people with an elegant approach to activism that involves more than simply getting up on a soapbox and trying to cram "facts" down people's throats, or worse yet, simply complaining loudly. I feel that art, creativity, imagining, and storytelling offer a "back door" into these issues and are in a way a forms of non-violence. When you fight violence with violence, you simply breed more violence. When you fight violence with non-violence, you disempower the fundamental mechanism that violent action relies upon, and it destroys itself. It is the difference between two people standing face-to-face, pushing harder and harder and harder, thereby creating an impass, and one person simply stepping to the side, at which point the other falls flat on its face and destroys itself of its own agency. This is the kind of activism that excites and inspires me, and I can't wait to see what we come up with for our assignment. I am in an incredibly special place, and I am so blessed to be here.