Last Saturday at a local book festival I had the privilege of listening to the inspiring Sarah Corbett talking about her new book: The Craftivist Collective Handbook, and, her work as a gentle protester.
I stumbled across Sarah online last year, and have since been fascinated with her gentle campaigning, which uses craft projects combined with activism: ‘craftivism,’ to highlight local, national and world concerns with proof from her successes that they do actually work.
I, myself, lean more into this thoughtful, quieter concept of protesting, cowering away from the large, shouty demonstrations coupled with megaphones and placards, even though I might one hundred percent support the protesters’ views. This softer type of objection I feel I can get behind in a comfortable way, knowing from the experience Sarah has, that slowly it will work. And slow is the watch word here, the first tenent of the craftivist’s manifesto is ‘Be the tortoise,’ taking a thoughtful approach to mindful activism.
I wrote about Sarah in a previous post (read it here) where I explored the idea that creativeness can help people absorb important, difficult issues in an easier way. A softer, gentle approach is more likely to encourage empathy and help the opposition to see the other person’s point of view. I created a character in my debut novel to highlight climate change, showing that it’s not too late for us all to start doing something now, however small, giving a sense of hope rather than despair.
In the fast paced world we live in it is hard to take the slow route and believe that it will work. But it does, and better to have a slower, consistent, manageable output than a flurry of activity with an unsustainable work load, causing a crash and burn scenario, leaving the project abandoned and soon forgotten.
In my writing life too, I feel my own progress is slow and I sometimes feel frustrated by it. But I have to remind myself that I’m not only writing, I have a life too. Family commitments, (until recently and soon again) a job and many other things that take up my time. Yet I have written one novel, have started my second and write here every week. It maybe slow, but it is steady and each word I write is an improvement on the last. Like craftivism I am here for the long haul and less likely to burn out.
So maybe we should all take a look at our own lives and plan more for the long term goals. Small, achievable steps, tucked into the rest of our lives, little building blocks we can add to week by week, slowly and carefully, until we finally reach that day when we can stand back, and look at the magnificent achievement we have built for ourselves.
Thank you for reading.
Jane
Find out more about the Craftivist Collective and Sarah’s work here.
Are you a tortoise or a hare? If you could, would you switch?