The Activist and the Artist: A Lifelong Conflict (Re-Post)


I posted this originally March 26, 2004. I am still facing the same conflict. But the activism has long since taken a very different turn. I am no longer involved in IndyMedia. My activism has mostly centered around public safety issues, though I do keep a hand in media issues (still working on Democracy Now! in Rochester -- now trying to keep it afloat on the air at WROC).

And now, I am ready to write "the big book." Or actually the big two. And my photography -- well, I haven't written about my photo show, have I. Oh my, I do have so much to catch up with here!

I am pulled in so many different directions, but the most important conflict I have right now is between being an activist and being an "artist" (that is, someone who produces creative work).

I am pulled in so many different directions, but the most important conflict I have right now is between being an activist and being an "artist" (that is, someone who produces creative work). I love being involved with grassroots organizing, and as should be apparent from this weblog, my primary interest right now is media reform and peace issues. Just since Saturday I: 1) went to the Buffalo Global Day of Action rally and march; 2) covered that event for Rochester IndyMedia; 3) participated in RIMC's general meeting; and 4) participated in RIMC's editorial working group. Tomorrow I will participate in RIMC's finance working group -- we will be strategizing how to raise money. Sunday I will be covering a fundraising event (Jewish Family Services) featuring Al Franken for RIMC. And I have been thinking long and hard about establishing a media literacy project in the Rochester/Western New York area along the lines of the New Mexico Media Literacy Project. (BTW, if you are interested in supporting such a project, please contact me!)

Wednesday night I took a break from all that (while other RIMC folks went to hear Ralph Nader) and attended a "Master Class" at Writers & Books with novelist Leif Enger, author of the best-selling novel, Peace Like a River. Tonight I will be going to a reception with Enger and other Writers & Books members, and to his public reading. These events are all part of Writers & Books "If All of Rochester Read the Same Book" annual series. Wednesday night's event served to remind me of all the creative writing (as well as other creative work) that I am not doing while I am dashing about being a community activist and journalist.

This has been a lifelong conflict for me. Like everyone else I have only 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week. Unlike most other people, I have my energy and physical capabilities limited by my fibromyalgia, so that in fact I have fewer productive hours in any given day than a "normal" person. Writing (and other creative activities) requires one to retreat to solitude for extended periods of time. Every minute that I am involved in my activism, and every minute I devote to my journalism, is a precious minute taken away from my creative work, which is also one of my life's passions.

And yet, I know I would be a very different writer were it not for my community activism and my journalists' training and writing. There would be people I would never meet, books and articles I would never read, places I would never go, ideas I might never encounter, thoughts I might never think. Everything a writer does is grist for her mill. As I wrote in my brief poem responding to James' Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, titled "Dedalus" (quoted in part here):

The artist not
connected to a
community sees
the world
differently. And
misses the
point.

I cannot see myself ever giving up either one of these passions of mine. If I were to do that, I would be giving up half of myself. Somehow I will have to find the time and energy to do both.

Posted: Sun - August 26, 2007 at 09:24 AM          

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