Sane Revolution

[J.]

A wiser, more experienced aid worker colleague just shared this poem with me.

It's called "Sane Revolution", by D.H. Laurence.

Here it is:

If you make a revolution, make it for fun,
don't make it in ghastly seriousness,
don't do it in deadly earnest,
do it for fun.

Don't do it because you hate people,
do it just to spit in their eye.

Don't do it for the money,
do it and be damned to the money.

Don't do it for equality,
do it because we've got too much equality
and it would be fun to upset the apple-cart
and see which way the apples would go a-rolling.

Don't do it for the working classes.
Do it so that we can all of us be little aristocracies on our own
and kick our heels like jolly escaped asses.

Don't do it, anyhow, for international Labour.
Labour is the one thing a man has had too much of.
Let's abolish labour, let's have done with labouring!
Work can be fun, and men can enjoy it; then it's not labour.
Let's have it so! Let's make a revolution for fun!

It feels intuitively as if this should apply to aid work. I'm still working out exactly how...

[MakeTeaNotLove]

yeah i like this. the seriousness bit is key. i have always liked this quote from kurt vonnegut: "life is too important to be taken seriously." if you find you can no longer enjoy living life because of the stress and the never-ending problem-solving of aid work (in some places/situations more than others, certainly), then it's time for a break. i am lucky to have people around to warn me when i have reached the point of ghastly seriousness.