It’s gotta be less about recognition and more about conviction. A TED speaker said that of our political movements these days, fueled by a generation that demands result without aim, policy without practice.

Finding conviction doesn’t take the hell out of you quite like a patronizing boyfriend can, or an entitled Whole Foods customer, or the self-proclaimed “artivists” who’re dumb to their own participation in the gentrification narrative. It’s easy to get riled up by the little things.

No, conviction is the resilient and sometimes ruthless love we have for the things that are greater than ourselves: beliefs and values we don’t recognize have been cultivating deep within us until those little things bring them out. And then it’s like they keep coming out, they seem to be in everything you do, shouting at you to do something about them. And so you do something about them, only not just one something, but many somethings over lots of time, towards a goal that continues to expand the closer you come to achieving it.

The hardest part about writing is writing itself. Sitting down and doing it. Excusing your excuses. Forcing it to begin and then letting it take you where you need to go. It won’t get done if you don’t just do it.