If I Speak - 55: Joy is an act of resistance… right?

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Moya and Ash discuss the uses and abuses of self-care culture and its roots in Black feminism. Plus: how to get over homesickness. Send us your dilemmas: [e-mail] Music by Matt Huxley.

Hello! Is anyone out there? Hello! Hello! I'm hearing something. Who's that? Who's that speaking? It is an incredibly tired Ash Sarker. I'm so knackered in the marrow of my bones and all I want to do is sleep. And you know that kind of sleep where you might be dead for those eight hours? That's what I want and that's what I need and yet I cannot have it. How are you? Instead of sleep we haven't we've hauled you back into the recording studio to do If I Speak. So that's what you get. Yeah I woke up this morning somewhere shaking me go wake up bitch. You've got content down the mines down the content mines. I'm actually so well but as I as every week lots are going on but this week even more is going on so I have no

time. You can't see it but Moira is literally glowing like you look so healthy and so well that when we kind of got in the studio, Chal, our producer was like, did you go on a very good date last night? And then I said, no fucking way, because I haven't been on, I haven't been near a man or even the concept of romance since October. And in October, the concept was hinge. So that wasn't, that's not really even romance.

That's like the simulacrum of dating. I have, I've maybe the wellness is coming from other stuff, which we might get into some of it and we might not. Who knows? This is just self-actualization baby. This is Ash. This year is going to be a W year. I think I've said it before on here. I've said it elsewhere. I can feel this year is the year to back ourselves. I recently asked listeners about this. I was like, do you guys back yourselves? And so many people said no.

And I realized I don't back myself. Like nowhere near enough. I'm always doing stuff in tandem with other people, which is great and amazing. And I think it's very important, but I never think that my sort of talents can stand alone. And in recent months, due to various things I've been doing, I'm just like, I'm really good at some stuff.

And I should rep that a lot more. That's such a good feeling. And I think that like, especially when it's, I'm really good at this and it's come from effort and come from trying, there is nothing better. Like it's such a, I don't know, it's like you can suddenly start hearing like the guitar riff from like Who's That Lady playing in your head and you're like, oh, okay, wow. Wait, you do like that one, like the Oily Brothers. Yay. Great song. I fucking love the O.O.I.E. Brothers so much.

Did you pick that guitar off because it's sampled in Kendrick Lamar's I, which is I love myself. Maybe, maybe Dinked Down. I do also love the like, fine lady, who's that lady? So good, both great songs, both great songs.

Yeah, great use of sampling, great use of original. You've got questions. I do, so in the grand tradition of Condé Nast, 73 questions, we are, as ever, pushed for time. So you get three. Question one, because when this episode comes out, it will officially be spring, what is your favorite springtime nature thing?

Oh. It's difficult because it's also the general conception of sunshine lasting more than four hours a day. That's a big one. Yeah, pretty good. Didn't realize how much that was impacting me until I walked outside the other day and my mood was lifted. Love crocuses.

Big crocus person. I love crocuses too, croci. I was thinking, are they crocuses. Big crocus person. I love crocuses too. Cro-kai. Cro-kai. I was thinking are they crocuses or they cro-kai? Big crocus person. There's a lot of, crocuses are very evocative of my childhood and my mum pointing them out and also obviously the coming of spring. But I used to love purple. POC. People of cro-kai. People of cro-kai. I used to love purple as well. In fact, to the degree that my uncle still to this day calls me Miss Purple, even though, even though I've jettisoned purple as a color in my wardrobe long ago, because it doesn't suit me, but because crocuses are so purple,

I think it reminds me of an even more innocent time. So maybe croci, crocuses. I think that that might be my favorite as well. A little shirt there might be. Oh my God, we are meant to be. All right, question two, and this is selfish, because I'll share it with you. I think it might be. My God, we are meant to be. All right, question two, and this is selfish because I need your advice, which is,

when you feel exhausted or physically depleted, how do you recover? I do think you have to lie in bed for a bit. I think you have to just give yourself a full day of veg. And this is difficult, because obviously there's so much pressure to go out and use your time productively. But one thing I have got really good at,

I say this and then every week I come in, I'm like, I'm burnt out, I'm burnt out. So maybe I'm not that good. But one thing I think I've got good at is recognizing the difference between when I need a day off that involves going to, say, a gallery, a restaurant, feeding myself in that way, and when I need a day off, which is literally, I'm going to lie in bed,

and then if the mood takes me, I will raise myself up, go for a short walk, and make some food at home with ingredients I have proc go for a short walk, and make some food at home with ingredients I have procured on that short walk. There is a huge difference between those two activities. And I think sometimes you need just a full vegging out day and to take it with no shame. Yeah, I would love a full vegging out day.

I might be able to have one on Sunday. You have to snatch it. You have to carve it out. Actually, you can't just be like, it's gonna happen. You have to be like, one thing I do feel bad about a lot is saying to people around me, I'm really sorry. I can't because I've got to work and then I've got to just relax

because I know other people don't see my schedule. So they just think that I'm a flake. And do you know what actually, probably I am a flake and probably I am elusive, but my priority is clearly work health right now. And you just have to carve that out, but you've been working so hard. I don't think anyone would judge you

if you say I need, I need veg day. I'm also working really hard, but no one gets to see it. No one gets to see it. I just, you know, I just need some time to play Civ 7 and not, not wear real clothes and not put on shoes one day without putting on shoes. Okay. Final question. If you could teleport yourself to anywhere in the world right now, where would it be? now, where would it be? Oh, no, my first thought was Turkey. I love Turkey. I really love Turkey. Where would it be right now? Probably, let's be practical. Probably the Bahamas or somewhere that currently is experiencing 27 to 32 degrees of heat. I think that is the most practical thing.

But the joy of teleportation is, can I bring my bags when I'm teleporting, or do I just have to go as I am? I mean, look, I suppose in my head, this was like, is there a specific spot in the world, not just what's the holiday I would like to be on right now. No, I want, I need some. But if you've attempted it as holiday, that's fine. I need the specific spot.

Oh, if I could teleport myself to anywhere in the world right now, it's obviously London, but it's Petty Two in Peckham, the cafe. I'd be there drinking a coffee, but I can do that all the time and literally was in London two days ago. So that's not as glamorous. Why would I use my termination for that? A very Gallic shrug that you just did. Like, eh, buff, eh, eh. I'm also wearing a Gallic top, so maybe that's bad.

You are, you are very Gallic. I just need you to put your beret on and then it can be full Bonjour energy. Bonjour, au revoir, à bientôt, shall we move, I can't remember what move on is to our mystery question. La question. Le question, Mr. Rue. Oh my god, like GCSE French is fighting for its life right now.

Mine is so bad. Anyway, we have... Lunettes. Lunettes. We've got the sunglasses on. Biscines. We're in the pool. Bibliothèque.

And it's time to talk Mystery Question. The thing with the Mystery Question is it actually involves quite a lot of production because you have to take your phone off all the high grade pentacon level sort of silences. We're ready. Oh, I love the like trepidation. We're ready. Ooh. I love the like trepidation. Joy is an act of resistance. True or false?

Ooh. What a great question. I have a one word answer. But maybe I don't. I think my answer is mostly no. Sometimes yes. Okay, explain what's going through your head. All right.

So my mostly no is that I think that this is a way of talking and thinking about resistance which has popped up in this neoliberal self-obsessed era where you know yes the personal is political but it's become you, the personal is the main site or like the main focus of the political. And I think that, you know, in so many ways, and I talk about this all the time, like there are good ideas which then get inflated and assume too much importance.

And so there's a whole like self-care is warfare. And it's like, well, that's become a slogan for indulgence in some ways rather than, actually, this is something I'm gonna take responsibility for so I can participate to the best of my ability in a movement. And so with the like joy is resistance thing, sometimes it's just, I'm doing something I like or that feels creatively fulfilling and like,

dot, dot, dot, question mark, question mark, question mark, that's going to have some kind of political impact. And, you know, I'm not saying that you have to be miserable to be politically effective. I'm just saying that I don't necessarily think it's always politically useful. So for me, it's a mostly no. But the way in which I'm like, but sometimes yes, is I think that when you see, you know, when you see videos that have come out of Gaza of like Palestinians dancing Dabka on the rubble, and that's a way of saying you cannot kill our culture. Our

culture is still alive and our culture is not just one of misery and mourning and being crushed by this genocidal settler state called Israel. That's where I think that those forms of expression are a kind of resistance, but I don't think that's the same as like, running a sip and paint for women of color. Do you know what's really funny, right? So I've been trying to think of joy

as an extra resistance. I've been trying to understand where that comes from in the five minutes we've been on air. So I did some Googling, some Googling. And I think it's called research, actually, not Googling. It's called research. So research, I feel like research has got deeper. So the term is attributed, and I'm sure this is not where it originates from, but it was calcified and attributed to one person from 2008, and that is the poet Toy Derricotte, who's a Black American poet.

And it's really funny, because there's this sub stack that I'm looking at, which is Joyous Resistance, and the first line opens the poet Toye Derricotte revolutionized black feminism with one line in a poem, Joy is an act of resistance. That was written in 2021. I don't feel like 2008 to 2021 there was actually the revolution that they speak of. I think maybe this revolution of black feminism might have happened more in rhetorical terms in the way that people started talking about, the way you pointed to,

but I'm not sure whether the actual material revolution took place. And that's what I find interesting about that opening line of that sub stack, which is all about this joy is an act of resistance kind of vibe, which is that that line really has been picked up on and just saying it is meant to signify meaning, is meant to signify that there is a reality

of resistance happening just by me saying that joy is an act of resistance. And so many publishers have picked up on that as well, like specifically in relation to black communities, you know, you have like black joy all the time, you hear that phrase over and over again, and it's been commodified almost out of any sort of material relevance,

because it's like, it will attach it to any sort of campaign. Black joy, black joy, black joy. And it's like, okay, what about, you know, black equality? What about black maternal, maternity mortality rates going down? What about black financial futures being on parity with that of other ethnic groups? And I don't wanna get into that sort of binary

is like you can either have, you can have one or the other. Like you can have black joy or you can have black racial parity across the board because obviously there is room for joy in all sorts of movements. But this idea that it's resistance is so rhetorical, but doesn't seem to have that much actual bearing on liberation politics, I don't think people say it does. So you have to believe it. And then people argue to they're

like, No, it's so important. This idea of joy is resistance, joy is resistance. But I'm not sure it actually does hold that much weight today. And I totally agree that that is because of the conditions in which we've been made to realize what joy is, which is like buying stuff or just going to a party or just being like, well, I'm happy, so that's resistance. I feel like it has to come with a package with other things. I mean, there's two things which I think

are super duper important, which come out of what you've just said. And I think we're in danger of agreeing too much. So we're going to have to find a bit of grit in the oyster, Moira, because that's what makes the pod. But like, first is that I think that there has been an emphasis on self-expression, bringing your whole self into political spaces, which again, like, you know, is a useful corrective to something which is just about, you know, discipline and strategy and, you know, assumes that everybody is coming from the same place. But I think

that that emphasis has become maybe a bit overinflated. And I heard the story from a very left-wing, very wise black journalist who shall remain nameless, but I think people can guess who they are because I just, I love their work so much. And I think that they're one of the best being in the US around the time of the murder of Trayvon Martin, and that it was such a moral outrage. I mean, like moral outrage is also not strong enough term for the murder of a child by a white man who profiled him and then the state effectively saying that that's fine. And so, you know, he wanted to, you know, be a part of the movement, which was coming out, coming out against that. And so he went to a meeting and everyone's

in a circle and he was just like, what's going on? One, everyone's talking about their feelings. And then two, someone was like, do you mind if I just go over, there's a piano in the corner, so do you mind if I just go play the piano because I find it really self-soothing? Like it's something I really need. And he was just like, what the fuck?

Like this thing has happened to somebody else. Like there is a family that is traumatized and grieving and we've all just sort of disappeared into ourselves and our feelings. And he found himself kind of frustrated by that, like frustrated by this emphasis on a subjective emotional experience. And that the idea that this space, which could have been for political organizing was instead for self soothing, rather than for for political purpose. And he, you know And I remember him talking to me about it. And he was just like, maybe I'm old, maybe I'm old.

And this pisses me off because I'm an old man now. But I think that speaks to like a bit of a shift. And the second thing is that, I think if we agree that joy for the most part isn't an act of resistance, though I do wonder what you think about the Dabka thing, right, I think, you know, when there is a people, when there is a culture that is being subject

to genocide and ethnic cleansing, where, you know, the aim is for that culture to no longer exist, for there to be joyful expressions of that culture, I think there is something in that. But rather than is joy an act of resistance, it's can resistance bring you joy? And I think for me, the answer is yes. There are all sorts of examples of this throughout history,

whether it's the Black Panthers and the breakfast programs or the crossing guards that they organized or the history of, you know, radical bookshops and publishers in the UK, like the Walter Rodney Bookshop or, you know, Bogle Overture, is that these brought people into contact with one another. And one of the products of that would be things like the sharing of meals. And political resistance was also a way of fostering social connection, deepening social bonds, in a way that I think there is an element of self-actualization in that through being brought into contact with other people.

I also said like so many protests I go to there's so much joy at the protests and that's an act of resistance even though the maybe the the act of protest now is has been so strangled by the state to be utterly toothless but even then there's still a small act of resistance. And I see so much joy there, like so much, especially collective expressions of- What's an example of joy that you can think of? I'm about to give one, I'm about to give one Ash. Collective expressions of sort of like singing,

dancing, the drums, the music, people just smiling. Like there's an endorphin rush that you get the drums, the music, people just smiling. Like there's an endorphin rush that you get from standing alongside hundreds of thousands of other people saying, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. That's the most recent examples I can think of. And being community with other people, that does bring you joy.

I'm just really interested why joy is an act of resistance is so, at least in my head, and I think culturally, is so entangled specifically with black liberation now. I don't know, again, I'm sure someone will get in touch and school us on the history of how that has been used throughout black liberation. But I'm thinking about how people are like, not just brands, but also some organizing groups.

I'm not saying this is a slight, I'm saying this is an observation. We'll be like, we're gonna have a huge party and this is black joy and therefore it's resistance, right? But then when you look at the similar, if someone, when Palestine, when the genocide in Palestine started, then or rather ramped up a massive notch

on October, after October 7th, then something very fascinating happened which was people initially were like we're gonna throw a rave and we're gonna donate the profits to Palestine and huge arguments broke out where people were saying that is so offensive like how can you be having a how can you be dancing at this time how can you be having a, how can you be dancing at this time? How can you be having a rave? Like this expression of what you're calling joy and resistance is not appropriate. Whereas for some reason with black liberation, there's often this idea that it is appropriate. Why is it appropriate for one group or not another? And I'm not, I don't have any sort of like idea about what's appropriate and

what's not when it comes to this resistance. It's more like why are those connotations automatically assigned that this is not appropriate for this situation, but it is appropriate for other. And I wonder as well, it's sort of, you know, with black liberation politics, there's been a weird fetishization of it in mainstream media when you look at all the books

and the profits that's been made from black liberation thinking and then not very little of that has gone into actually changing the material reality of those demographics identified as black and I think now there's probably shift now this idea of like resistance is joy feels hollow because it hasn't come with that those actual changes that were promised. But it is fascinating to me how, you know, people just stick a label on be like, we're doing a big party for black people in South London. And that means that we're doing good and it's resistance for so long. And then actually, none of that resistance has materialized that was promised. I don't know, there's some there's something, I don't know if I'm being coherent.

So as you were talking, it reminded me of something that Emma Dabury wrote in What White People Can Do Next, which is such an incredible book and it's such a bait and switch because you think it's going to be a like, check your privilege book, but it's actually like super hardcore. This is two successive episodes we've just cited, what white people do next. Oh, is it? I keep talking about it because I think it is great. And so I think that she's not writing about things

like, you know, black joy, but I think that it's relevant, which is, you know, this whole thing about like, privilege discourse where, you know, it's kind of foggy and vague. And so it's like, well, then what do you do if you've got privileges? Oh, you're supposed to like call out racism, take a pay cut, only support diverse brands. And what she says is that each of these actions

that people are being called on to do, it's interpersonal, Instagrammable, and all neatly contained within a neoliberal framework. And I think that there is something that has happened. I mean, I think that one, if you look at the history of, you know, black radical movements, they were so attacked and undermined and surveilled and infiltrated when they were anti-capitalist. That's what happened. And I think that there were very, very deliberate efforts by security services to strip out the anti-capitalism from black radical politics specifically.

And this is something which is, you know, you can read a book like Black Against Revolution to learn about that history. So these were very, very, very deliberately targeted. And the aim was to separate the anti-capitalism from anti-racism, particularly with the Black Radical Movement. So it doesn't surprise me, and especially then when you think about the moment at which Black Lives Matter emerged and what the political context of that was, where you don't have really, really strong anti-capitalist movements, it then means that that's going to find expressions which are more neoliberal than they are anti-capitalist. And that's not, you know, I don't want to throw the baby out of the bathwater.

You know, I think that joyful or convivial spaces are important, and they're also important for building up one's capacity for resilience and resistance. I think that's an important thing. But they're not necessarily in themselves radical, but it's a lot more inflected by neoliberalism to throw a big party with great branding than it is to form a community union, for instance. I mean, I'm living proof of that, aren't I? I am too.

Like I absolutely am too in a different way, which is that, you know, we are drawn towards these exercises in branding rather than exercises in what you might call base building. Well, I mean, I literally throw a massive party. Every month, I'm being literal. Like I throw a club night, like which is now ramped up to sort of every month slash every other month.

And when I started my club night, I thought very, I think I did think very carefully actually. Yeah, I'll give myself that. I thought very carefully about how I was going to brand it in terms of its aims and purposes. And I definitely could have gone down the route of this is sort of like a radical space, it's community building, et cetera, et cetera,

which other parties do and I'm not knocking them. I need to say there are parties out there who are doing that and really have created spaces where people say, this is radical. Even if it's not radical in like the most literal political sense, it feels like this radical thing that was happening. Not Fold though, not Fold.

But there's other parties that do that. But I- It's just skinny people. Fold is just skinny people dancing in a sad little line. Oh, it's just London Burghine. Like let's be fucking for real. Um, but like I could have, I could have very easily lent into this idea of like, this is a radical venture, especially with the people who I'd attract and who

are coming, but I was like, I can't do that because I can't back that up. I can't back that up with actual sort of like concrete things. This is actually just a space to dance. And if some amazing connections come out of that and if some, you know, you have a time that makes you feel absolutely for it and like life is worth living, then great.

That is, that is, you know, that is, That is maybe political in itself, but the party is not explicitly political. The party is just come and there are songs with words. We will always play songs with words. And that's fine, that's okay. I didn't even explicitly say like, this is a space for X, Y, Z group, because for my particular thing,

I was like, the people I hang out with are so merged and from so many disparate identities, I didn't want to limit it. I was like it will form itself, the group will form itself and there's definitely sort of like undertones of who might be more drawn to this and who wouldn't but I didn't say this is specifically a queer party, this is specifically a party for like straights or this is just a party. I say sometimes we play black heritage music because we do like we're playing Afro beats dance or grime like it's black heritage music. That's the best way of putting it but when

people say, what kind of stuff do you do? It's like, it's just fun. It's just a fun place to be. I mean, I think I think I think it, the more I think about it, the more I think that this is a product of not enough, I guess, base building political activity, by which I mean, and I should probably explain the term base building a bit. So base building, it's a form of political activity where the outcomes are you're building up working class power, you're building up a cadre of leadership, experienced organizers, experienced activists, experienced

leaders and you are developing class consciousness. There's also a sort of like work of political education and ideological stiffening, shall we say, like through these activities. And comparing say, you know, the idea of let's put on a rave for Palestine, which I agree feels icky, feels really, really icky. I mean, it's sort of like, you know, rave as a response to genocide is like, there's something about that

which feels, you know, like not everything should be used as an excuse for hedonism. And I say this as someone who really enjoys hedonism, like it shouldn't be, like it shouldn't be. But joy and dancing and music and food, these can be an outcome from base building activities. And the example in my head is, I don't know, I don't know how much experience you've had with unions like IWGB or United Voices of the World, you do a lot of organizing with migrant cleaners in particular, and many of them are from Latin America. And there are all sorts of events and fundraisers which involve dancing and food and an awful lot of fun.

I mean, if you go to where United Voices of the World's offices are, like there's just always like some Latin American people having a barbecue and you're like, what? But that's not the primary purpose of it. Like they're doing serious organizing, you know, fighting for things like union recognition and often very, very, very hostile workplaces. So the joy is a product of their political activities. It's an outgrowth of it, but it's not the primary purpose. And I think that that's the difference.

And I think that there is something, and I think this is a deeper question, which is what happens when political movements are dominated by a certain class of people. And class can become, you know, we often emphasize things like, you know, gender, sexuality, and race, and then that's sort of supposed to do the marginality storytelling for you. And the bit which is like, okay, well, how many of us went to university? You know, how many of us have, you know, professional or white collar or, you know, freelancy, laptopy jobs? Like these things matter. You know, what happens when political movements are dominated by people like us and in what ways do they reflect our interests? You know, one of those interests might be,

well, loads of our clubs have closed down. So we always want an excuse to put on a great party because, you know, our experience of nightlife has been diminished. And that's an expression of one of our interests, but that's not, that shouldn't be the cause. I agree with everything you said, and even the class bits until the last bit where you're like, oh, people want an excuse because their clubs are closed down, which I think is sadly, Ash, a reach,

and I think quite ungenerous. And I'm not saying that because of my nightclub experience. Like, I don't see myself as like some radical organizer. I'm literally just a random journalist who yaps a lot. But I think from the people I've met, you are ascribing maybe more nefarious motives and more selfish motives when actually I would agree the base building stuff and it's more that people have not grown up soaked in the sort of like community organising in the days of y'all. It's that people are atomised and they're trying to work out how to do this,

brick by brick. And it was like coming from somewhere like Galdon, for example, which was a DIY magazine that had to learn how to do stuff, day by day. And the end product was amazing, but also, you know, I've got my critiques. I've, I don't feel like it's need to bring them all up,

but I've got my critiques. And like, there was a lot of stuff there that was, you know, you're learning as you go. And there's you're going to be very influenced by the neoliberal world around you, even as you're claiming radical politics, and the neoliberal world you've been socialized in. And I don't think it's just people are saying, Oh, well, I miss a club night. So let's put a club night. I think it's because sometimes that's the only thing people know route to do. And they don't have, it's not just club nights. It's like, you know, a brunch or night over a brunch, like a, that people just put on food and get in a hall, but they don't know how to do the nittier, thornier

work of say, organizing like you UVW, because that's not the background they have. So I would push back on this and I totally agree with the class stuff, totally agree, like that also plays into it. But I do think there is a danger of ascribing the same sort of like, inter-pol and nefariousness to some groups that you have been criticizing so much. Well, I suppose, I suppose where I'm coming from with the Club Notes thing is that I'm just interested in how our life worlds, right? And this is a term that comes from, it's either Bordio or Badio, one of the two, one of the two, I had this one, one of them Frenchies, one of them French philosophers. one of them Frenches, one of them French philosophers. And it's sort of about this,

all of the really fine grained habits and textures and impulses that come from your socioeconomic conditions. And I'm really interested in how those shape your sense of what is a priority, what's a good use of time, what you think of as being political and a good use of political time. And so it's not me trying to ascribe nefarious motives, it's me going, well, hang on, this has been a big part of, you know, what it's like to be young, living in a big city, you know, part of the, you know, socially, downwardly, mobile,

graduate class, this loss of nightlife spaces, this loss of third spaces. And so I do wonder if that's in there. That's not me trying to say, oh, it's nefarious. It's me trying to say oh it's nefarious it's me trying to go well why is it you know the creation of nightlife spaces you know why does that feel political as opposed to other kinds of things i agree with you that the the the lack of of base building experience is in there like i i but i also wonder if it's an expression of of one of our interests it's probably an expression of interest but i think i think you're right about the third space thing, basically. It's the thing that still feels attainable.

And it's also immediate. You can put on a club night immediately, whereas trying to, I don't know, help people organize even the proto-union at work, that is a long, slow, difficult process, it takes so much negotiating, very hard. Anyone who's ever tried to sort of sort of work dispute in any way shape or form or know that it is grinding stuff, like I've left many jobs because of it. Am I joking? But a club night is just immediate, it feels attainable and

people know how to just ring someone up and say, can I rent your building for this evening, please? That's the simple answer. I suppose like maybe moving the conversation on a bit is what expectations of joy, fulfillment, self-actualization do you think people should have of political activism or political movements? What do you think is my question? Because I don't know because I'm a deeply contradictory person.

Sometimes I'm just like, comrade, you must develop resilience and the ability to handle AK-47. And other times I do think about, you know, these forms of self-actualization and empowerment, and it's a form of empowerment which has individual ramifications, but is an individualist. You know, it comes from being brought into contact with other people. And I don't know how much that should be a focus. I mean, I suppose when I think about like, what healthy political cultures are like,

I think they should be empathetic. I think that they should be strong enough for people to look at mistakes and failures without feeling super threatened by it because that's how anything gets better, is learning from mistakes. I think that they should be friendly rather than suspicious and hostile. But I think that the purpose and the cause kind of needs to be front and center. So all of these things about how do we want people to feel, it's in service of achieving this thing. And it means that you don't get obsessed with, you know, policing all the most micro details of interpersonal interactions. Because I think that actually takes you away

from a more trusting, more collective, more solidaristic political culture. Yeah, I think the main thing that's often split parts of the left and not the whole of the left, if we're talking about the left, is this sort of amorphous broader goal, like with the left and we just need to do left politics. Whereas when you look at like the bits of the left that are fully focused on organizing around specific targets, say, ending pregnant women in prison, like ending the detention of pregnant women in prison,

which level up and led by Janey Starling is doing so much work around, or fighting the abortion rights UK, fighting to make sure that we don't have abortion rights rolled back in the UK, fighting for the decriminalization of abortion, or any of the renters unions like ACORN, LRU, the individual chapters elsewhere. That specific goal means that they can overcome a lot of beef, a lot of interpersonal dislike,

because you're going to dislike loads of people around. The problem with when you get into the spaces where there's not really this one specific goal and it's either just like a discourse space or it's something where this goal is really amorphous and it's just sort of like, well, we're gonna, we're gonna stop this. Then there's lots of fighting. Like I heard of, there's so much into activism, beef in London specifically. And I'm sure in Glasgow too, but I don't want to talk about that because I'll get hung, drawn and quartered.

It's not my right. Um, but in, in London, like recently I heard of a massive fight that happened around some tactics used for a particular like set of actions. And that's because the goal was really amorphous. And then everyone started beefing about how they were gonna achieve it, rather than just being like, this is the set goal. Has it been achieved?

Yes. Okay. Review. Let's do this. But instead there was, they kind of failed at what they were trying to do. And then there was a huge beef roundup. But I think, I think that this is, that's a really important point because it's applicable to so many different kinds of organization or group, which is when there is a sense of purpose

and you all know what it is and there is a north star and you're all heading towards it, you can actually prioritize really, really well. And you can go, all right, this feels like an important conflict to resolve and to get into, and this one doesn't. And people, I think, can internalize a sense of what's a priority and what's not. People are facing front, they're going in the same direction. Yes, there'll be bumps in the road,

but you can deal with it. It's when there isn't that sense of clarity and like, okay, we're going for this thing, that people turn inwards. And you know, inwards is an infinite source of problems. And in fact, for any of the business babes, sorry to get capitalist, who've managed to make it this far through the politics chat, that is totally applicable as Ash is hinting at to businesses. That is totally applicable to literally

any working organization I've been in. When there has been a set specific goal, and we've known what our individual objectives and group objectives add up to become, then the discontent within the organization is much less. When that goal is constantly, the goal position is constantly shifting or it's moving or we're sort of like, well, this is the broad thing,

which is just sort of like grow, grow, then that's when you get lots of discontent, endless discussion that goes round and round and round and never gets a resolution. And you just end up frustrated and people get worn down. This is, I'm talking to the businesses as well as organizations now, like any organization, the clues in the name is you're organized together.

And I think that plagues us so much. And also even any narrative can be boiled down to a fractal level. I've talked about this before, it's the three-act structure. And then when you think about, so the three-act structure in a story, you have a beginning, middle, end. And then you think of a scene, which make up the story, beginning, middle, end. And then you think of the moments that make up the scenes, beginning, middle, end of a moment. So when you apply that to yourself, you can apply any narrative structure

to a wide thing and break it down. Same with this, like when you think of yourself, what are the specific goals you have? What are the specific goals? What are your specific objectives, both within the business and personally? This honestly has changed my life. Like I haven't even realized

I've been adding this all up over the last year. But thinking like that has really changed my life. And when I was in my dark depression in December, I didn't realize I'd been adding this all up over the last year. But thinking like that has really changed my life. And when I was in my dark depression in December, I didn't realize that even though I was sticking to my sort of like goals, blah, blah, blah, and I got a bit lost and I was like, what am I doing? Soon as I worked it out again, now that I have my specific objectives with different sort of individual deadlines, but also a broader, OK, this is where I need to be. This is where I want to be.

This is how I'm going to do it. Look, look at the face. It says everything, you can't see listeners. I'm glowing. That's my advice to you. It's not just the backing yourself, it's the sort your brain out into your objectives and goals and that sounds really like productivity stuff,

but it will fucking change your life. You know something, I always say this, like you and my partner are very similar in certain ways and it's like disconcerting sometimes. I'm like, oh, maybe I do just surround myself with like a certain kind of person because I often find it difficult to do this for myself. Like I often find it really, really difficult.

But when, because it's sort of not in my nature, like it comes very naturally to certain people, it comes very, very naturally to my partner. But when I do take that advice and I'm like, okay, right, it's time to like hone in and make decisions. And like, sometimes it's this or this. And like, cause I'll kill myself trying to do both and then do end up doing neither.

Is that like, when you're like, okay, well, like, what's my priority and why is that? It's good, it's good. And, you know, it's that thing of like, what are the principles for bringing people into contact with one another in a useful way that also have individually beneficial impacts? Like that's one of them.

Before we move on to if I'm big trouble, this is a middle. If I'm big trouble. If I'm big trouble. Trouble. If I'm big trouble. I'm big trouble. I've got a middle thing to bring to you that I forgot to say earlier, which is I've got a middle sort of no man's land segment vibe to bring to you, which I forgot to say earlier, which is so my friend, my friend,

she's this concept and she said, are you a maximalist decision maker, which means you go over every single possible outcome way of configuring things for her. When she's writing, it means that she writes out a scene like 60 different times or are you a minimalist decision maker? Ooh, why didn't you answer first? Minimalist. Because I don't have any time to think.

I'm such a minimalist. I've had to learn it, but like that's the reason that the thing I was talking to you about earlier is so far along. That's why I just did a clear out of clothes and I was with one of my friends who I think is a maximalist as a Jamaica. And she was like, no, but you look so good in that.

And I was like, it doesn't matter if I look good. It matters if I wear it. Boom, boom, boom. That's how you get rid of things. I would say mostly minimalist. I would say mostly minimalist, occasionally maximalist. So mostly minimalist, like, you know, with the example of a clothes clear out,

like actually that's where my partner is a maximalist and he obsesses where I'm just like, no, yes, no, yes. Whereas he's just like, oh, but I have so many memories attached to this thing, which I haven't looked at for five years. Like he's, you know, he's like that. When it's come to like navigating certain like difficult emotional things, I think that I tend towards maximalism

when I'm anxious and I'm minimalist when I'm confident. Yeah. When I ask that now, because I think it links so, rather than saving it for 17 questions, because I think it links so well as a coder to what we just discussed. And I want not to be like one's better than the other, but I want our listeners to maybe take a bit

of minimalism with them and think about when they make minimalist decisions. Just a little pinch. Just a little pinch. You know, the world is unknowable. You're not going to be able to comprehend it all. Yes, and it will stall you too long if you try and do that. Now shall we make some minimalist decisions about the problems that our listeners have?

This is I'm in Big Trouble where we solve your dilemmas or rather give you boundary advice as some nice listeners put it. If you would like to send us a dilemma or maybe some feedback or maybe some praise, we'll take anything. Then email- I love praise. Email too, ifispeakatnevaramedia.com.

Ash, do you wanna read the first dilemma? I do wanna read this one because I think that you are very well placed to respond to it. Okay here goes. Dear Ash and Moira, I love the pod and your company has been so valuable to me especially since I've been living alone abroad and herein lies my question. What advice do you have for someone living abroad or far away from home? How do you deal with homesickness? do you have for someone living abroad or far away from home? How do you deal with homesickness? At the start of the school year I moved to study abroad, a requirement of my degree, which I love and find really interesting and care a lot about, but the move itself in living so far

away has been really hard. I didn't have any friends and have struggled to make them over the past few months and really miss my life and friends at home. I have lots of motivation and I know that being abroad is the right thing for me right now, but that doesn't necessarily make it any easier. I have found it overwhelmingly anxiety provoking, isolating and exhausting, as much as I have been learning at the same time. I am worried about not making the most of the opportunity I have and wasting my time here. I am also very homesick very often and I know I'm not the only one. I wonder what advice you have for living so far away from home and friends, adapting to new cultures and routines,

learning a new language and the subsequent exhaustion slash isolation, although this might be a bit more niche, as well as just living on your own slash struggling to make friends in such a new context. Even if people aren't living in the exact same thing, I thought this dilemma would be ripe for discussion because learning to adapt and move around is a very common experience for many, and I know it's not easy, but love to hear your thoughts. P.S. I had drafted a dilemma a month or two ago and was finding things much harder, but I never sent it. I debated whether to send in this dilemma now because I'm thankfully doing a lot better. A mix of travel, family,

visiting, rest and probably just time. But I would still be keen to hear your thoughts as I think homesickness is a really common experience that we don't talk about enough. I will doubtless feel it again soon, so almost preemptively writing in for when that time comes. I'm the worst person to talk to about this because I've never lived outside London which is where all my family and friends are. I've never lived by myself and while I have spent time working in different countries that would be like for a week at a time every month. And I even sometimes for those really short periods of time would feel homesick because I'm such a home bird.

But you've done a lot of moving. I haven't done that much. I moved when I was 18. You've done quite a lot of moving. No, not compared to people I know who've literally moved like city to city every few years. I've moved, I moved when I was 18 to London. And then I moved obviously to Glasgow when I was 28 for like, no 28. What the fuck am I talking about? 29 long for six

months. Showbiz age. My showbiz age. Several people the other day have asked me like from Uber drivers to students who are like, Oh, do you study here? And I guess they have mature students, but I'm a bit like, God, the baby face is the glow, baby, no, this is the youthful dew. Some of this wasn't when I was youthful during, um, I think I just have a baby face. Anyway, I'm also not very good to talk about homesickness because I've given into mine.

Dun, da, da, dun. I've given in to mine. Homesickness is an interesting one because you have to sort of accept it. You have to accept the sadness. Fighting against it and trying to also maintain, trying to get back to the feelings that you had when you were totally comfortable, surrounded by everyone that you know

and familiar environments is not gonna happen. You're not gonna feel the same in a completely new place. You're not gonna feel probably as happy, as settled for a long time, because you spent a whole life or several years building up what you had elsewhere. And you said you were abroad for a year, right? You said you're abroad studying.

First thing is this will come to an end. You can go home, you're not exiled. This too shall pass. This too shall pass, you're not being exiled. You're away. I kept saying to people, oh, I know it's important for me right now. And now I've made a decision

on when I will be returning to London, which I will be doing. Then I'm even more convinced it was the right decision to move away for so many different reasons. One, I realized how hard life can get. No, I really, no, no, no. No, there's so many reasons,

and I'm sure we'll do something more on this in future, but there's so many reasons it was good for me, like you say, to move away, even though it didn't feel good a lot of times. One is you do eventually settle down a bit and get more comfortable. And you said you wrote this dilemma when you were finding it really hard and now you're finding it a bit less hard. That kind of only just increases. And again, it's the idea that this too shall pass. The time will march on whatever whatever you're doing. The time will pass. Another reason it was really good for me to move away

is it did shock me out of sort of the position I was in when I was in London, which was, you know, definitely very lucky, like able to make a living, all of that kind of stuff, but still kind of like, damn, downtrodden, little bit downtrodden, millennial. And now I'm somewhere else, so I'm like, God almighty, I'm an, damn, downtrodden, little bit downtrodden and millennial. And now I'm somewhere else. So I'm like, God almighty, I'm an English elite. This is, it's really, I was swimming something the other day

and we were like, this has really woken me up to the realities of what it means to be part of a massive majority that treads all over other countries and how those countries feel when you then go there and try and hang out. And sure, I'm going to flee back to the safe confines of my soul city eventually, but it's a very useful lesson in position and how that changes. And we talk a lot about context and how you change in different contexts so much,

but when you're actually enacting that and feeling that, that is a really fucking useful lesson to learn. As far as like friends go and living alone, not as good there because honestly, if I lived alone, it would probably be even easier because then I could just full-hermit and just put my head down and get on with stuff. And that sometimes to me is the mode that feels best

when I'm sad, just accepting this is how it's gonna be, and then slowly coming back to life on my own terms rather than having to feel like I have to perform for people around me, which maybe isn't healthy. Like some of my friends, they're like, I have to be outside, I have to see people, otherwise the hermit mode is really bad. But for me, sometimes it's like, the hermit mode is actually a survival mechanism and gets me closer to what I want to do, the goals I want to achieve. I would just remember that it will pass. Just keep, stop holding yourself to these high standards of you have to be the same person you were in the place that you left. Because

you don't. You can, your life doesn't have to be this amazing shiny thing right now. It is what it is. You're going there for a specific goal. You're going there to learn. You're working on this language, etc, etc. You might never attain the heights that you have in the city that you've just been in, but you're coming back to that city and you'll come back with all this knowledge refreshed, a newly packaged person, and you will think, yeah, I don't have 60 billion friends from Marseille or wherever the fuck you are. But it doesn't matter because you have something you have something. All of these things are something. They just don't always look like the brochure

that was sold. I think I think that all sounds incredibly wise. And I was just thinking to myself as you were talking, that while I haven't had an experience of moving to a new place because I don't want to leave the postcode, preferably never leave my house, but I think that lots of people can identify with the idea of having taken a big swing and going this doesn't feel good when I'm doing it. It might be the right thing but it's actually emotionally, very taxing for whatever reason. So for you, it's feelings of homesickness and isolation and not being close to the people

that you love. For other people, it might be the sort of new burdens that come with a new job or deciding to take a career break and go back to studying or something. a career break and go back to studying or something. And not everything is going to result in you feeling great. Not everything is going to be an emotionally joyful choice, but it will be a period of time which you learn a lot about yourself, as you just said, Moira, like you will learn something about yourself and who you are and what it is you need

to be happy through doing it. So for me, the question isn't how do you get rid of homesickness or like, how do you, you know, make loads of friends? Because you probably know best what your context is. But think about how you can make the best of this time. Are there things that you want to achieve for yourself? Are there things that you want to get good at? Are there skills that you want to pick up?

It might not be that this is the most joyful and connected time that you ever have in your life. But what is it you can do when you've got this time by yourself and you can do certain things a bit more on your own terms? You know, I've got a sibling who spent some time in China and I think he thought that it was going to be amazing and he actually just felt very, very isolated and homesick and kind of, you know, alienated. But just because it didn't make him feel great when he was there doesn't mean

it wasn't valuable in some way in hindsight. And life is full of these things. Life is full of these things. So make the best out of it. That doesn't mean it's going to feel good, but it doesn't, you know, it won't have been a waste of time. I just want to add as well, growth often doesn't feel great when it's happening. Oh, yeah, it sucks. 99% of the time when I've been really growing, it's felt really hard. And I don't wanna make a virtue out of suffering,

but the things that I have learned in the last six months about myself have suddenly kicked in. They're kicking in now and I can, I feel they're, they're gonna, it's gonna magnify. And I've suddenly feel great. I feel really fucking good. Cause I've unlocked this new level of understanding

about my faults, my strengths, where I thrive, where I want to belong. I've got this new direction that didn't feel possible even like two months ago. And when you were going through that sort of transition and that struggle, yeah, it really sucks. Like whether that's homesickness, whether that's a breakup, whether that's, you know, changing jobs

and having to acclimatize. We also forget when you have a big change, you have to acclimatize. It takes so much longer than you think, like at least six months before you're even sort of to grips with something, especially if you've left somewhere that you've been in for all your life, or even in my case, 11 years. You forget how much that place has shaped you. I lived in London for all of my adult life until last year. That's pretty significant. And I'm kind of like, yeah,

there was a reason I was there so long. And maybe I don't know, Ash, maybe you'll shoot me down when I say this, but I'm pretty sure I'm a Londoner. Like, I'm kind of- I think that, you know, what it means to be a Londoner, you don't have to have been born here, but you have to embrace the regional beef. Oh, I can't do that. That's it. I refuse.

Like, no, you've got to, you've got it. You've got it. Like, you know, when, when you're up in Manchester, you've got to be like, why are your buses yellow? I like the yellow. I do like the yellow. Anyway, whatever. Traitor. I do like the Bee Network, but I don't like Manchester. I don't like Manchester. Does that count? Yeah. Okay. Like love Liverpool. Love Liverpool. Love Leeds. Lovely. Got beef. Got beef with the entire city of Manchester for really stupid reasons. Yeah, same. Maybe I'm a Londoner. Anyway, the point is, this growth, and I'm sure even now when you're listening to this, having written this letter whenever it came in, you will already be feeling it. But you're

going to come out this year and you're going to think, I think also when we go into these things we think they might be, there's something in the back of my head which is like, maybe this is a new forever thing. I was very tactical when I told everyone I was going, I was like, I might be back within a year. Always have your back stopped so you're not totally embarrassed.

But there's some things where you're like, okay, maybe I will be back. Maybe I will be back. Or you're like, but maybe I will, this is the new place I'm gonna be. But it's fucking fine if it's not it's okay if it's not this is me it's okay for things not to work out do you know what I mean like it's it's it's so okay for things not to work out and like I don't know I think that sometimes we expect life to play out the way in which we've scripted it in our heads.

And that doesn't happen. And you have to accept that and not view it as a mark of personal failure in some way. Also, those words work out. What is not working out about it? Like, you're there, you're doing the things that you're meant to be doing, you're learning, you're studying, like it's working out. There're meant to be doing, you're learning, you're studying.

Like, it's working out. It's just, it's difficult at the same time. So like we were talking about earlier, goals, not script. Maybe you should learn jujitsu. And you should like come back like fucking having like been trained in the dojo and you're like, you know, okay, sure. I didn't make many new friends. But I can now, you know, do do tiger clawing face move. I would actually just advise going on lots of long walks. And when you're on those walks, a friend told me this ages ago, and I love this advice,

start attaching specific emotions to bits of the walk. So you say when I walk past this tree, and on this stretch, I'm going to be really happy. And every time you do it, you think that. And then when you go, it pushes you into this point of like, I'm really happy. I don't know why. And then another place you're like, I'm gonna think about something specific here. So it's like a weird psychography trick that he taught me.

Shark Jackson. I think that sounds great. I think you can also learn to use nunchucks. Okay, no more nunchucks. Shall we nunchuck ourselves off the face of this earth? Oh, that is such a tacky pun and I'm proud of you for making it. Thank you. Thank you so much. I love bad puns. I love bad puns.

Me too. I really love bad puns. I was trying to think of another one, but just nothing was punning to mind. Oh, okay. Right. Time to go. I've been moiling in McLean. Okay, right, time to go. I've been more than McLean. I quit. I quit this podcast. I can't do this anymore. This has been If I Speak. Thank you for staying with us. Goodbye. Bye. Thanks for watching!