Throughout Sara Ahmed’s analysis of the Feminist Killjoy, I have found ways to connect her calls to action to my personal pedagogy and habits. I am far more comfortable disrupting the social order of supposed happiness in my close circles when it is necessary, and I’ve developed methods of doing so that lead to productive discussion. It makes me feel like the misery I feel the more I learn about oppression and social identity worth it, because I’ve worked fighting against it into my life’s purpose.
For this reason, the portion of the survival kit talking about Life struck me the most, and reminded me of all the ways I’ve had to actively live life and seek out pleasure within life’s intrinsic beauty in order to mitigate the pain I feel living out the Killjoy manifesto. Particularly, the line: “Being a killjoy is too occupying, if it takes you away from the worlds you are in; the rise and fall of the sun, the way the trees are angled like that, the smile of a friend when you share a joke, the cold fresh water; the feel of the sea as immersion; the familiar smells of spices cooking.” All of this hit me more emotionally than anticipated. We are all vessels, and the way we treat our vessels has tangible bearing on the strength of our fight. And it will be a long fight. The priorities I’ve put in place for myself include consistent expressions of gratitude, presence of moment, and maintaining balance. Maybe I didn’t realize until I read this section from Ahmed how connected those priorities are to taking care of myself so that I can continue to fight with integrity. To not do so would be to let the exhaustion take over, to let the helplessness overpower the values I am driven by. It is very easy to consume and embody trauma in a world that is oversaturated by social media once you have been made aware of all the trauma that exists. But it is a completely new task to reinvigorate yourself within the fight when you may easily feel like nothing you do is enough. Yet, it is the most important element to sustaining the life we’ve chosen to live. So I will continue to do so.