Q: Two years ago I started a community campaign to save a local amenity from closure. Initially we managed to distribute the work between a number of activists, but now – with the service under threat again after a brief reprieve – it seems like only me and one other person are doing all the work. It’s exhausting. If I drop out then I’m letting my community down but if I carry on, I feel like I’ll burn out and never be able to engage in activism again. What should I do?
A: The trouble with socialism, Oscar Wilde once said, is that it takes up too many evenings. It’s a good quip, encapsulating an utterly serious and accurate point. If you can submit yourself to the way things are, feel content with the status quo, then you’ll have plenty of time in life for sitting idly, staring at your screen. (This is how the Agony Uncle wastes his evenings.) But if you want to change things, play some small role in reversing the depressing direction of our social and political affairs, that will require meetings, organizing, managing – in short, work.
