2024 #38 Rest is Resistance (Hersey)

 

Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is necessary to take Hersey at her word that this is a manifesto. That can help clear out the discomfort of the lack of structure and repetition--at least a bit. The message is crucial and important, but a how-to book it is not. And that feels a bit frustrating at times. We know what we need more of: love, care, therapy, dreams, DreamSpace, naps, etc (from the list on p. 124). She gives us examples of what "resting can look like": meditation, slow dancing with yourself, not immediately responding to texts and emails". She suggests we begin by detoxing from social media, work on our trauma-informed boundaries, listen more...All of that seems do-able, but does NOT seem to be the ultimate goal of the manifesto. Resistance against and liberation from white capitalist grind culture is crucial, we understand. She clearly says "The time is up for any shallow wellness work that doesn't speak about dismantling the systems that are making us unwell. We must blame and interrogate the systems. They are the problem." (133) That message is repeated over and over again with passion and drive.

What's missing is how our choosing to stand for rest will perhaps impact those who are not empowered or are without agency to do the same. As a privileged white woman, I read her words carefully and thought about how grind culture disproportionately impacts Black women. I thought about how I might be upholding capitalism's reliance upon white supremacist models. But I am forced to wonder what happens when I say NO. Perhaps it is my role to say NO differently, or to different things, than the Black women who are reading the book. But what about the collateral damage? I'm not talking about losing my job--I'm talking about labor. Is it not an act of (white) privilege to decide to "rest" when there is so much work to be done to dismantle the very systems she cites? It is hard to believe that my "no" won't create labor for someone else--possibly someone already disenfranchised by capitalist systems.

Hersey extolls the value of sacred community. And certainly it echoes the proverb "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." But when she said "Individualism is leading us to the path of exhaustion and death," even though I know what she meant, I wanted more discussion of what "individualism" means there. Creativity, which she honors, could be argued to be very much tied to a concept of "individual." And I'm not looking to parse every word. I want to "stand in the gaps for each other" (189) and "be relentless in [my] support and witness" (189) and I didn't come away from reading the book with the strongest sense of how best to do that. I believe that rest will come in to play, yes, but I was struggling with how to reconcile that with activism.

This is an important message, and despite my struggles with the delivery, it is sitting with me. I'm looking for the best way to "spiritually disconnect from the shenanigans of grind culture while physically still living in it" (136). I think it is incumbent upon those of us with privilege to hear her message and think about how we strengthen and support "rest as a reimagined way of life" (136).

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