While a member of my family announces his burnout activism on social media, my mother’s words come to mind: “The world is not okay. The world is tired. I heard someone say on the radio that they were going to call this time in humanity “The Great Fatigue”. »
Extreme fatigue… My first reaction is to put myself on the defensive: “Frankly, it’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it? » Then I take a moment to look at the people around me and I change my mind. The radio is right. People are indeed tired.
Humans have never had access to so much information so quickly, so easily, and constantly. At the same time, faced with the loss of confidence in traditional media – exacerbated by the pandemic and the surge in fake news —, we observe that more and more people who read the news on social networks are convinced that “the government is so corrupt that we can now only get our news through real people”.
Oh yes ? Because “real people” can’t be wrong either, right?
“Call your MPs to denounce the strike on Gaza. »
“Another non-binary person gets their X marker denied.”
“Child slaves in Congo make your iPhones. »
It is heavy. I understand why we’re talking about it, but it’s heavy. We all have someone around us who shares seventy-five stories Instagram at the minute, which is splitting over backwards to try to save the world by repatriating little bits here, little bits there, by signing petitions, by leaving messages on probably abandoned voicemail boxes, by shouting (virtually) from the rooftops (meaning: on all the news feeds) that it has to stop.
I understand, it’s difficult to feel helpless in the face of everything that’s happening in the international sphere. It’s difficult to feel that, despite our cries, despite our efforts, our voice is only a whisper in the ears of those who have the power to really change things.
It’s beautiful to want to save others, to give oneself body and soul (and cell) in the hope of helping. But it’s heavy. It is an immense weight to carry on one’s shoulders to proclaim oneself the savior of the world.
The truth is that it is not so much the world that is going wrong as it is the human being, the individual. The great fatigue is the weight of virtual activism. The greatest fatigue is waking up in the morning “logged” to your cell phone and being bombarded (a bad choice of words, I agree) with bad news from the first to the last minute of the day.
The great fatigue is struggling to try to save a people in the Amazon, forgetting that behind this desire there is also a human being in their own right. A human who lives, breathes and exists in Quebec. And who, too, needs help.
The journey of a lifetime is a great journey and, like on an airplane, you must first put on your own oxygen mask before helping others to put on theirs. The great fatigue is wanting to save the world without first saving yourself. Great fatigue means letting yourself slowly die while trying to extinguish the sun with your tears.