"Hope is a discipline"
Since graduating university last summer, I've been doing a lot more reading and I've especially enjoyed reading about solutions. We see so many problems in our systems, in capitalism, in our governments, and everywhere else and I've been using reading as a tool to fight my feelings of hopelessness. I know it's only small step. Intellect and learning are not enough. We also need to organize, advocate, and build relationships to affect change.
With that in mind, I know a lot of people feel hopeless and helpless right now. I don't think we can advocate for change when we don't have much hope for the future. Sometimes I really feel like there's only so much time in the day. I only have so much energy, how can I solve all these problems? How can I contribute? I've found comfort in remembering that so many people have come before me—especially marginalized people, Black women, Indigenous folks, trans folks and more—who've been doing the work to imagine better futures, better systems and better worlds.
Reading and learning is powerful because it inspires creativity and imagination. The two books I touch on below are both non-fiction, but they're both digestible and small, easy to throw into a tote bag and bring on the go. I brought Mariame Kaba's book to Toronto and read it on the bus, always with a small stack of sticky notes so I could keep track of hard-hitting quotes.
We Do This 'Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba
"Because in the world we live in, it's easy to feel a sense of hopelessness, that everything is all bad all the time, that nothing is going to change over, that people are evil and bad at the bottom. It feels sometimes that its being proven in various different ways, so I really get that. I understand why people feel that way. I just choose differently. I choose to think a different way, and I choose to act in a different way. I choose to trust people until they prove themselves untrustworthy."
My friend recommending this to me after I shared on Instagram about reading another abolitionist book Be A Revolution by Ijeoma Olou. I had to pause that read because Kaba's book came in from the library (I love you, Ottawa Public Library but my holds always come in when I have so many other books on the go), but I'm so glad to have access to this book and to have taken the time to read it.
The statement that "hope is a discipline" really resonates with me. If hope is a discipline, that also means hopelessness can be eradicated. We just need to build and work towards hope. I love that.
In my feelings of hopelessness, especially at the beginning of 2025, reading has been part of my "hope discipline." Kaba's writing taught me that abolition is deeper and broader than abolishing incarceration, although that is the core of the movement and the struggle. She taught me that it's also about showing up for community and about building relationships with your neighbours. It's about never calling the cops, and finding other, imaginative solutions for safety in your city. It's about dreaming of a better society and doing the work to get us there.
"Our [challenge] is to make imagining liberation under oppression completely thinkable, to really push ourselves to think beyond the normal in order for us to be able to address the root causes of people's suffering"
Alongside my non-fiction reading, I also love fiction and literature. I've been reading The Priory of the Orange Tree and I love the fantastical world, the relationships and the creativity. I think all reading helps us better relate to one another. Reading sparks imagination and we need that to imagine our way out of oppression, misogyny, homophobia and racism. Reading is political, even though some select BookTok creators disagree. (¬_¬)
The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer
Kimmerer connects the natural world, the role of the serviceberry, to our role as members of a community. She talks about the network of Free Little Libraries and Buy Nothing, Sell Nothing groups, and how they demonstrate a solution to our horrible, capitalist ecosystem (my words, not hers). We can find pockets of hope all around us and they inspire us to find new ways to demonstrate generosity and dismantle the individualism.
"[Regenerative economies] are the only path forward. To replenish the possibility of mutual flourishing, for birds and berries and people, we need an economy that shares the gifts of the Earth, following the lead of our oldest teachers, the plants. They invite us all into the circle to give our human gifts in return for all we are given. How will we answer?"
Thanks for reading! If you have any book recommendations along this lane, or otherwise, I'd love to hear about them.