I had a shit week. Work is weighing me down, keeping my home together and my kids are weighing me down, I'm fucking broke, I've been gaining weight, my fucking skin has decided to embrace dermatitis as a way of life, I need a haircut I can't afford the time or money for, I rarely feel loved or appreciated regardless of whether I actually am, it's dark when I go to work and dark when I get home, I'm struggling with sleep and energy and am overcompensating with caffeine, it's cold, all the beautiful leaves are gone, my kitchen is a mess, and there is just no place that I want to be because it is all exhausting.
Saturday morning comes around and I go to my organization's monthly meeting. There's been a lot going on lately and we end up having back-to-back meetings with our chapter followed by a joint meeting with another chapter immediately after and this turns into 3 fucking hours of organizing meetings that passes through lunch without any breaks or food. It's all important stuff, but it's also very boring. I'm struggling to pay attention, I didn't sleep enough last night, and I'm hungry.
These meetings were like an extra day of work. I'm tired, but instead of feeling worn down, I feel invigorated! These meetings that would have been a blight upon my day had they happened at work instead turned out to be the highlight of my day. I feel encouraged, I feel appreciated, I feel loved, and I feel self actualized. All of this positivity is coming after I had to make a disappointing report: that we had not met our organizing goals and have a lot more work to do.
On its face, yesterday should have been just another shit day in what has felt like a constant stream of shit days for the last few months, but it wasn't. The responses to my bad news were focused on the future: how do we move forward, what must be done to improve, and celebrating the successes that we did have. Revolutionary optimism was with us! Yesterday was a good day and I attribute that feeling solely to my comrades, the community we've built within our organization, and the work we do within our wider community. We don't always agree on everything, but we share common goals, common values, mutual respect. We build each other up.
I just wanted to share this moment of brightness with you because life is hard and only feels like it is getting harder. It's easy to feel discouraged, particularly while organizing. It's hard and unglamorous work, but I think there is nothing better to lift us out of that darkness than the support of our communities.
Comrades, I hope some of the light that lifted me up this week shines on you soon too. Socialism is the way forward! Community is the way forward!
If you aren't involved with an organization where you live and you have the means to get involved, I encourage you to reach out and join one, even if it's not a perfect fit. Get involved! Build your community! It won't be easy, but it may just be the best thing you ever do for yourself.
Thank you for taking the time to write that. Luckily, I received a response and am waiting for the next steps. Ofc, I am not waiting for complete alignment, itself is a denial of the Marxist-Leninism way of organising. As Lenin said, when recognising the mistakes of R.Luxembourg and Bebel, while acknowledging they were great communists. ' It happens that eagles descend lower than chickens, but the latter never rise as the former.'
That said, I would be violating myself if engaging in anything that resembles the so-called Eurocommunism. Social-democrat parties today* are... well, liberals in essence. Not happening, more harm than good.
*I am talking about the reality of my country, one that has nothing that resembles Marxism-Leninism formally represented. To give context, if you look at European reality, for instance, you still see Marxist views in the Portuguese parliament, and they are bashed by the press, defamed. The Russian response to the psyop in Ucraine, when Brussels raffled ukrainian lives, using the tactics we marxist-leninists are very aware to, and the Portuguese Communist Party pointed that out... it got even worse, yet, they stand still. So, if anyone from the PCP is reading this, I know some will, you got my deep respect.