I'm at a crossroads again. Desperately needing a more creative outlet in my life.
I went to burning man again this year. It was lovely, as it tends to be. And yes, after a while, it ended up changing me and giving me more of a perspective on life. That perspective is that I'm adrift at sea without something to focus my energies on.
This year I helped start East Bay Forward. We're a collective of housing and transit activists in the East Bay. We mostly cover Oakland and Berkeley, and do get the occasional activist from Alameda, Orinda, Walnut Creek, and the like. By no yardstick are we a small, quiet organization. We get active. We get up. We get people to move their feet and Change The World.
Organizing this is stressful. It takes a lot of emotional and physical energy to move the needle in California politics. The Golden Republic too is rudderless.
In the end, we're moving the needle. Progress gets made.
But yet, it isn't enough for me. The same arguments come up ad disjicio. Progress is slow and incremental. We truly do need a Marshall Plan for housing. Something to wipe the slate clean and make progress with fresh vigor.
The problem is biger than me. So much bigger. Impossible to do by one person, as evidenced by the depth and breadth of the East Bay Forward political apparatus we've created; the fostering of which is something I am deeply proud to be part of.
But yet, polite discourse and open minds go to politics to wither on the vine and die. Mine is one such mind as of late. It tires me; I carry on.
East Bay Forward is not the problem. There is no problem at all, in fact. My creativity is the solution in desperate need of a problem to solve. So I now I return to focus on building The Out of Band. Another creative sink into which I can pour myself while my relationship with East Bay Forward transforms into one of mutual support. Its time to kick off the training wheels and set it to run free for a little bit, while I ride alongside.
This isn't to say that I'm quitting, stepping back, or breaking up. This is to say that I need to remind myself: I can't define myself in terms of East Bay Forward.