Rabbits

There are times when it is hard not to be overwhelmed by the sheer awfulness of the world, and the size of the things that we have to fight.
John Marsden's The Rabbits is one of the most heart-breaking and beautiful picture books I have ever read, but it overwhelmed me in exactly that way.

I'm not going to talk much about it, becaue I think you should just go read it (get it out of the library, read in the bookshop, give it to the next person you are obliged to get a gift for and read it first, beg, borrow, or steal - it's that good).

But I wanted to write about the feeling of despair mostly to fight it in myself, because I think that the difference between someone who worries about what's going on and an activist is hope. That hope can come from all different places, but it's very hard to maintain long-term. While there are lots of other reasons people drop-out of political activity, I think losing hope is often a big factor. I try and nuture my hope through history, through what people have been able to achieve in the past, but I don't think I've been doing it enough - because otherwise I wouldn't have had that level of despair.