Staring At An Onion

Decision Paralysis, Inspiration, and Patience in Activism

There's an onion growing in my kitchen. It sits just above my fridge on the shelf with some other, slowly fading vegetables. I think it’s beautiful, this still life— the onion slumps on its side and lets itself turn and rise upwards, seeking the seldom found sunlight of my apartment. Behind it is a yam starting to sprout too. The composition is nice. The reason it got there, not so much.

There are many things, many reasons that I could mention, excuses I could make as to why I let these veggies get to this point. The first and simplest is time. I don’t have much time to cook these days. Just as with the writing of this newsletter, finding choice moments to write, let alone want to share, has been just so difficult lately. I can blame work, my jobs and random assignments I’ve been getting from editors. I can blame bad time management and the distractible tendencies of my person, bouncing from thing to thing like a rubber ball on rough concrete.

I can blame a lack of imagination. I can blame that, for some reason, when I come home from a full and exhausting day the last thing I want to do is cook. I want to lie down in my bed, find some way to turn off my brain. I want to be enveloped by silence, by nothing. I want total quiet. I don’t want to cook something because I don’t know where to start. I am a good cook and love making dinner for myself, but there has been something, perhaps similar to the wall put in front of my mind when it comes to writing anything new lately, that I don’t know where the right place is to begin.

Maybe I should have just started with the onion itself, diced it up, let it cook, and have the smells lead me to the next decision. But instead, I let them sit in the basket.

I don’t have inspiration to cook, but instead a beautiful still life, an example of how frozen I have felt, returning home, unable to push myself to make a meal. I remember what my past self was really up to as the onion grew. I was working, was surfing, was resting. I was trying not to watch the news. I was trying to write a newsletter, pitch an essay, trying to see my friends. I was attempting to live his life somewhat normally. But when I went to cook, or to write, not much would move me.

I was, yes, mostly just lacking in imagination. Going online, basically anywhere, listening to the news on podcasts or the radio, reading peoples hot takes, the reality of this country has been settling into me. The horror of what this current administration is doing, what it portends for us domestically and the world at large as it co-signs even more fervently fascism across the world. Staring at all this, as a person that doesn’t have too much time to contribute to fighting back, is all so overwhelming. As a writer, I want to stay something, anything, that might in the slightest bit be helpful to anyone interested in reading this because, well, fascism is coming to America. That is no hyperbole.

But how do you fight it?

As someone deeply invested in learning about politics, but with little experience in activism, this is what has kept me, for the past thee or so months, locked in a state of stasis. I felt frozen, staring at the onions growing above my fridge.

I would go online, seeking ideas from people whose opinions I care about. I would try to find new ideas to inspire. But with each search, with each new idea found, it just became another addition to the din of the media; it was simply one more piece in the proverbial trash heap of shit political content, hot takes, and slop. In other words, it made me all the more muddled.

Still, I have no idea where to start—what it is that I can do, at least, in this very moment. I know I can write and so maybe my contribution will be in written form. Honestly, I do not know, because I am uncertain what my capacities are, and what will be the most useful way for me to push back.

So far, I have learned one thing through this frozen feeling, and that’s to listen. I’m not talking about listening to online political pundits, or the news: too much of either will leave you like me, staring at onions. To listen, I mean to keep an ear out in your community, the place where you live, and see what things there may be for you to do. To keep listening. If you are still uncertain what it is to do, I don’t think you should worry too much about it just yet. In time you’ll find your space, your capacity to contribute. Each of us has unique values, interests, and skills that are vital to political change. Finding the best way for you to use them, as we all must within these four years, is vital. But rushing yourself to take action immediately when you don’t know what that means may only leave you feeling even more uncertain, mayb deplete you before you’ve even begun.

The onion is still in the basket above my fridge, and I know I have to put it into the compost. Although I find it beautiful, it has to go, to leave room for an onion I will actually eat. So, once I write this piece, I will stand up, walk to the kitchen, bring the onion outside, with the rest of the compost, uncertain of what the next meal I cook may be, but all the more ready to receive whatever inspiration comes my way.

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If anyone has any practical tips for navigating some of these thoughts, please share below, or email me! Would really love to hear more from people more active than I am.