I can see the fear in my students eyes sometimes, as if it was written in cartoon bubbles. A sense of desperation stemming from a deep-seated fear that maybe there is no other way. That maybe the enormously unsatisfied pit in their stomach is un-healable. That selfishness, greed, and injustice are inevitable.
It tumbles out of them in the form of cynicism. Their language dismisses "fluff" and deems "unrealistic" the very world they long for.
I know this fear. It is a fear that if we abandon ourselves to the hope of a transformed existence, of a better way of being in the world, that we will be disappointed, and worse, embarrassed in front of those to whom we insisted a better way was possible.
We have internalized the apparent naturalness of the status quo. We have accepted the illusions of isolated self-interest, accepting a tale that dignity, kindness, humility, and integrity must be hoarded and meted out only when necessary for individual preservation.
This fear makes us demand to see an example of the future world we long for before we commit ourselves to the work of its co-creation. We dress up cynicism in the clothes of pragmatism, and smugly espouse our grounded approach.
We seem only willing to consume the world of our dreams, but not to build it.
And for many of us, we hide our fear behind the safety of analytical critique, comfortable with a deconstruction that never requires the risk of creation. We espouse the values and apply them as a framework for judgement, but don't have any earthly clue how to marry them to our daily lives.
For others of us, we use the high aspirations of social justice as an excuse for mindless activism. Unwilling to look in the mirror, defending ourselves by the mantra "at least I'm actually doing something about it!"
Building our better world requires the risk of public failure, the risk of ridicule, the risk of embarrassment - things worth fearing because of their very real consequences.
But when that fear paralyzes and takes up residence in our hearts and minds we lose track of the wonder for which we work. And distracted by the fear, we become animated by the cynicism and cruelty of the world we want to leave.
There is a cost to social transformation. A losing and a learning. There is no cheap way to it. It is hard and long and slow.
But it is also wonderful. When a moment of solidarity arises, or a mutual hosting of one another's full humanity - it is as life giving a thing as there is. And the risks are understood to be worth it.