“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
― Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Yhank you Casey for this post. I just got back from the DNC and feel a bit off from 4,000 miles plus of driving, 130 miles of walking and jogging from WashingtonDC to Philadelphia., 4 Convention days and nites, 6 dsys of protest at Edison Research, visiting places if life changing significance. Burying the Constitution symbolicalky in front of IndependenceHall, The WhiteHouse, and at the Libertybell at Kent State University. Strange that the frenzy did not sink in till your post.