A nightmare woke me up in the wee hours.
My subconscious was once again doing the work of processing the daylight horrors of the world. But my barely-awake body was so full of fear hormones I knew the only way to dispel them was to literally physically get out of bed: move the body, complete the “wake the fuck up” cycle, and process my emotions in my conscious state, the one where I have some effective tools to manage my fears.
One of those tools was to re-read a post I’d written the prior day in response to a reader who’d just said nice things about one of my works but was still feeling some of that dominant narrative that says everything is pointless:
Prior Me did a good job of reminding Just Woke From Nightmare Me that these are the values I truly believe in and practice in the world. Writing hopeful climate fiction stories where people band together and cooperate in realistic settings to fight the fash and the climate crisis isn’t the only thing I do, but it is one of the main lanes in which I operate.
Picking a lane and sticking to it is key. Remembering why you’re there is also critical.
As a follow-up to the above post, I shared a tiktok from an indie bookseller that is hugely inspiring (I’ve watched it several times now) and really speaks to how people are absolutely seeking out new narratives, new understanding, new knowledge to deal with the assault on freedom, democracy, and the planet that’s being waged at many levels, but most pressingly right now by the Trump administration and their dismantling of America.
Please watch the video, then I want you to notice: she works all day in a bookstore, helping people buy books; she’s holding inclusive space; she’s talking about it on social media, increasing her reach; she’s empowering person after person after person in her Southern state to educate themselves and challenge the dominant narrative that fighting is hopeless, working together is hopeless, cooperation is hopeless.
She embodies hope in a literal, physical way.
These readers—and all of us who are paying attention, who care—are angry and scared, but we are also seeking knowledge and reaching out and forming community wherever we do that.
When we are fighting, we are embodying hope.
I find it amusing when people discover that the hopeful-story lady (me) is deeply angry about the world. And when I find a deep cynic/doomer who is nevertheless out there feeding the homeless and practicing mutual aid, I know I’ve found a crushed idealist who’s found their cope.
There are many ways to get there, which is good, because diversity is our strength. 
I understand different folks need different ways to access hope.
Maybe you need more angry fiction. Maybe you need the hopeful kind. Maybe unsparing non-fiction that bares the realities of the world is your access point. Maybe it’s The Serviceberry and its absolutely radical gifting economy ideas.
Cynicism and doomerism are emotional strategies to deal with the world. I can’t even say they’re bad strategies in the sense that they’re often just a kind of personality type or maybe an orientation for dealing with the world. Either you gotta gloss over some of the horribles in order to get through the day and do stuff or you gotta assume everything’s horrible all the time so you’ll never suffer the existential horror of disappointment in order to get through the day and do stuff.
It’s the DO STUFF part that is important.
If either of those methods of cope are stopping you from taking action then they are dysfunctional. If they’re just your personality type and method of cope to actually enable action, then carry on. 
So my metric with people isn’t “do you believe everything is terrible” or “do you believe there’s hope” but rather “what are you actually doing to enact change?” And if the answer is “nothing because I don’t need to/it’s pointless” then that is the problem. That’s where you need an intervention to move you to a place where you take action.
It’s the action that matters.
One way to understand this: the dominant narrative is almost entirely designed to stop you from taking action. Keep your head down, keep laboring for the machine, keep making content as a digital prole, and don’t agitate for change, don’t speak out, don’t protest, don’t write op-eds, don’t demand better, never demand better, be happy with your crumbs, or we will take those too (also: we are taking them anyway).
In Episode 24 of my podcast (Let’s Talk About the Doom Loop) I dig into some of the research about how stories help move people from inaction to action — and it’s widely varying! Because people are different! So if you need the angry stories to get riled to do stuff, great — there are lots of those (although fewer of the subversive ones, but still plenty; I recommend checking out Reckoning, the environmental justice magazine, or Haymarket books, which is subversive everything). If you need the hopeful stories to not be depressed, so you can do stuff, that’s where Bright Green Futures comes in — because there aren’t a lot of those stories, we need more, and that’s my lane (or my “ministry” as I’m hearing it called these days, which is a fascinating evolution of terminology).
There are so many battles in the fight for a better world: pick one (two at most).
The dominant societal narrative is one the establishment hopes is disabling — that there’s no point in trying because it’s all hopeless. I think that’s dominant because for most people that is most effective at disempowering them. Only a few of us will be like FUCK YOU I’M DOING IT ANYWAY when thoroughly convinced the battle is already lost and any effort is wasted.
I’m actually convinced the hopeful stories are the most effective (overall, for most people) in part because they are so actively diminished, suppressed, reviled — not just by corpos but by people for whom cynicism/doomerism is the cope that keeps them from having to take action.
They don’t have to fight because the fight is already lost. But what if it weren’t?
Then they might have to do stuff and that is scary as hell.
Scary, terrifying in fact, enraging, disorienting… but disempowering only if we allow it to be.
Sometimes I do shit out of sheer spite because the system doesn’t want me to (feels very punk to me):
Sometimes, I wake up in a cold sweat, full of fear hormones and terrified for myself and the ones I love. Sometimes, what I need is a random bookseller on the internet to tell me people are buying books by the wagonload. Because I know what books do. I know how ideas are the first step to change.
That’s why the bad guys ban them. That’s why they suppress women’s writing, ban queer books, scrub websites of extraordinary Black people, erase the disabled, try to legislate trans people out of existing in public.
Which is why you should 100% download a book by and/or about trans people today.
It’s why I’m working to launch the Bright Green Futures: 2024 anthology, including some fun zines and a new Solarpunk Starter Pack:
Maybe these stories will work for you, to process the fear hormones out of your body and move it into action. Maybe you’ll need darker stories, or funny ones, or light escapism for a simple break from reality. Maybe you need to get outside and plant some seeds or play a game with friends or simply cook a good meal for your family.
Whatever it is that keeps you going, do that shit, again and again. Repeat as necessary.
Be angry, be full of fire, be unwilling to give up. Reject anything and everything (including the nagging thoughts in your own head) that tell you inaction is the answer: you know better.
And you are not alone.