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Ady Barkan
Welcome back, Shit Givers.
And welcome to the 820 new readers who’ve joined us since last week.
Last Wednesday, the world lost one of its great activists — Ady Barkan. Ady fought for a healthier, more just world despite — and because — of his tragic A.L.S. diagnosis. The founder of Be A Hero, Ady was just 39 and is survived by his wife Rachael and children, Carl and Willow, and his parents, among others.
I briefly memorialize Ady here because he was such an inspiration to me, because I have lost loved ones to A.L.S., and because Ady used what little time he had to fight for as many people as he possibly could. He refused to go quietly.
It’s my birthday tomorrow, and I’ll be 41 — two years older than Ady ever got to be. I’m now three years older than my beloved cousin who died of A.L.S. got to be, twelve years older than my brother-from-another-mother who died of cancer, and five years older than my dear college teammate who succumbed to addiction. I’m quickly catching up to my uncle, father to three of my most wonderful cousins, who died of A.L.S. at just 50.
None of this makes me special — we’ve all been through the ringer these past few years.
But as I (quickly) get older, I think a lot about time, and what my children might say, now or later, when they describe my work, and how I spent my time here on earth, with them, and away from them. Ady’s own young son once said, “He helps to make sure it’s not too expensive for people to go to the doctor.”
It can be that simple, however heroic the struggle.
You can read more about Ady and contribute to Be A Hero in the links below.
In honor of his efforts and life, I’m re-running one of our most popular essays. Have a wonderful weekend, and of course, thanks to all of our veterans on Veteran’s Day.
— Quinn
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Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.
Originally published March 2023
Many words and gallons of figurative blood have been spilled in the long war over how most effectively to take on the world’s biggest problems and opportunities.
The lines or “how you can help” are often and obnoxiously drawn between the factions of “individual actions” and “systemic change”. The gatekeepers of each side often spend as much energy telling newcomers how they’re doing it wrong as they do fighting the good fight.
But it’s important to have a little empathy and understand why these captains of progress are forced to clarify our most prudent way forward, again and again. The forces aligned against them -- and us -- have sought since the 1950’s to confuse you, to misinform you, to create chaos among the ranks of the well-intentioned, to make this your fault.
And the onslaught of greenwashing and environmental original sin continues to this day.
This, is a moment when we need all hands on deck. Every gender, every race, every dollar, every effort.
And not just because this ticking clock is a measure of the Anthropocene — in itself a war of attrition involving every hand on deck — but because the systems built so far, without incorporating every gender and race, have failed for every demographic save one, white men.
To be clear: Those same stakeholders have spent enormous sums to convince you that you, your person, your habits and choices, are the problem. And that, in turn, only you and the very personal choices you make — to buy low tar cigarettes, to use fewer plastic straws, wear a mask — can reverse these very unfortunate circumstances we find ourselves in.
Tick, tock. Make better choices, Gary.
These stakeholders — profiteers, poisoners of mind and body, Wormtongues but with Twitter accounts and trillions in subsidies — seek to divide us, to extinguish our brightest flames before they can be lit. That’s bullshit, man.
They are everywhere, as designed: leading international conglomerates to incredible profits, and failing to lead countries, including and especially this one. They have abandoned taking care of you, but will never stop extorting and misleading you.
So to defeat them does in fact require systemic change. That is the nature of being alive after our ancestors fought for so much progress, being alive as the clock is almost up, and when so much opportunity lies before us.
Incrementalism — fewer plastic straws over time — ignores how far we’ve come. Objectively, historically, this world is incredible. But also it ignores that so much damage is already done, and it also ignores that things can be so radically better — for everyone, this time.
Incrementalism ignores what we’re capable of.
Turning back those who come to our efforts asking “How can I help?” is how we lose, and how we fail to enact systemic change.
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