Almost two decades ago, as an undergraduate history major at the University of Chicago, I went to see Howard Zinn speak about his relatively newer book at that time: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (1994). The central idea in that book has stayed with me: hope. I choose hope in my therapy work, in my social justice writing work, and in my art. Yet even today, I am having to learn over and over again that I do have choices, that I make choices every day, and that I am the one who will live with my choices. I am having to learn to be fierce and tender, strong and hopeful, with myself. How do you choose hope in a chaotic and oppressive world?
[image description one: A heart with a quizzical facial expression stands in the middle of four large piles of colored globs. Every single globule is labeled, "choice." Text reads: "Learning that I must to live with all of you."]
[image description two: A blank printed page that reads "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train" at the center and "To Anna, Howard Zinn" scrawled in handwriting across the whole page.]
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