Modern life is really fucking dull.

Office work. Social media. Traffic. Plane flights. Commuting. We are surrounded everyday by human-mediated creations, nearly all of them designed for profit and efficiency—not to excite or nurture the spirit.

Most people go through life seeking pre-packaged thrills. They get their excitement from video games, theme parks, and movies. Their experiences are controlled by guides, books, review sites. Every danger is mediated and controlled; every experience is a commodity for capitalism.

But life does not have to be this way.

If you don’t believe me, listen to a few of these experiences.

Resistance has taken me up heavy equipment, clambering hand over hand on hydraulic cables and struts, to lock my body to stop the machine 30 feet off the ground. It has taken me into crowds of 50,000 people, our feet pounding the streets, our chants for justice reverberating through the city. It has taken me into police custody and into clouds of tear gas.

Resistance has awoken my emotions. I have cried, pled, shouted, and stewed—and come out with a determination to keep fighting, no matter what, and an appreciation for the emotional complexity of our inner lives and the need to nurture both our gentle sides and our protective ones.

Resistance has taken me to remote stands of twisted, gnarled old-growth Juniper trees, and to remote rivers where the water is so pure you can cup your hands and drink it down without any fear just enjoyment of every last sweet drop. It has taken me onto small boats pitching about in 5-foot swells, hearts in our throats and terror forcing us to ditch on remote, unknown shores and hitch back to safety.

Resistance has brought me together with friends who are indigenous, African, Asian, Latina, lesbians, rioters, artists, poets, strategists, and whose hearts break at every injustice. It has surrounded me with the most beautiful and caring people I have ever met. It has brought me into contact with healers and elders and revolutionaries, and with my most well-loved friends.

Resistance has taken me to remote canyons filled with deer and elk and wild turkeys and not a single other human being. It has seen me surrounded by ropes and platforms, 100 feet up a tree, ready to fight like hell to make sure this miracle, this being that drinks in sunlight and rain drops and feeds the planet with its nourishing breath, this companion will not be cut down on my watch. It has taken me to conferences of the most brilliant people imaginable and frantic meetings and hurried strategy sessions lasting late into the night. It has taken me through horrible winter storms and twisting, muddy mountain roads and lighting storms and more.

Resistance has taken me to beautiful land-restoration projects where people fight like hell to bring back the life of the land and make sure, make damn sure, that nothing will threaten it again. As it should be.

Activism is not safe. It is not popular. It is not easy. It is not simple.

What it is, however, is beautiful, fulfilling, meaningful. It is what we were born to do, this generation living at what might be the end of all things. We have been given a gift: the chance to dedicate our lives to something that means everything. This is an invitation to those of you who are sitting on the sidelines. Take that chance. Take that risk. Step over the edge. Join us.

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To learn more about the work of Deep Green Resistance or to get involved, visit our main website: www.deepgreenresistance.org