Activism Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning

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Marching in a large protest is like dancing at a rave or feeling a god descend onto an ecstatic ritual: you transcend your ordinary self.

You get a feel for collective energy — your mood syncs up with the crowd’s, shifting together, sometimes literally second by second. Decisions are made without you choosing to make them (and the crowd’s choices only sometimes align with the organizers attempting to direct things. I’ve been in marches that spontaneously changed direction and ended up halfway across the city from the intended destination as the initial leaders pleaded on their megaphones, getting desperate, begging us to stay on course). You lose yourself — but giving yourself up means becoming something larger. How did the first bacterium feel to join into a multicellular, complex organism?

And when the police are there, the ecstasy mixes with a feeling of power. You’re submerged in anger and exultation, chanting and chanting and chanting and raising your fist. You look at your friends and you silently promise that you won’t scream or run or lose your head when the gas canisters and flashbang grenades start to land. It’s no wonder both leftists and soldiers call each other “comrades.” Police seem to get a thrill, a warrior feeling, out of confronting and containing protests. But the protesters themselves are floating on the same high. Even the…