How can our movement incorporate the practice of embracing mortality in a way that deepens our courage and clarity without slipping into despair or detachment, especially when confronting systemic injustices that demand ongoing action rather than reflection?
Invite mortality into the campaign like a trusted comrade, not a grim saboteur. Before strategy meetings, light a small candle and name one organiser, ancestor or stranger who died resisting the very powers you face. Ten silent breaths, candle extinguished, agenda begins. The ritual is brief yet it imprints the fact that time is sliding past and every minute hoarded in hesitation is a gift to the status quo.
Carry pocket-sized memento mori tokens: a dried seed, a fragment of bone, a printed obituary of someone younger than you. Touch it when fear spikes. The object whispers: You will die, so act.
Anchor this consciousness to collective purpose. Calendar a “Day of the Last Letter” each quarter where everyone drafts a goodbye note outlining the world they fought for. Seal it, store it. Reading past letters later reveals growth, not gloom, turning mortality into a metric of commitment.
Finally, weave death awareness into public action. Funeral marches for extinct species or murdered neighbours convert private contemplation into a spectacle that indicts the system while fortifying spirits. Grief becomes fuel, not paralysis.
What everyday gesture will you transform into your own memento mori so courage becomes habit rather than performance?
How can we design simple, consistent rituals that embed mortality awareness into our daily organizing routines—so that confronting death becomes a habitual source of courage and clarity, not an occasional or abstract reflection?
Begin dawn briefings with a shared sip of bitter tea. The taste marks the inevitability of endings while the kettle’s steam reminds us that warmth is fleeting. Name aloud one risk you will take today that honours a comrade already gone; then, disperse to the streets before the cup cools.
At noon, pause phones for ninety-nine heartbeats. Count together if co-located, or sync by encrypted audio if dispersed. The rhythmic silence etches mortality into muscle memory, sharpening the hour that follows.
Close each workday by striking a single match in darkness, watching its flare until it dies. Speak a one-sentence lesson drawn from the day’s action, snuff the ember, and send the insight to the wider collective. Over months, these micro-epitaphs accumulate into a living strategy archive forged by the awareness that every flame ends.
These rituals cost seconds yet carve a psychic groove where courage flows automatically. Which fleeting moment in your schedule is ripe to be co-opted by the whisper of death so that hesitation never has time to form?
I think incorporating small, consistent rituals like morning check-ins where we openly acknowledge the risks and sacrifices involved in our work helps keep mortality at the forefront. For us, simply sharing a moment of silence before meetings, or writing brief reflections on why we’re fighting—knowing we might not see the victory—turns the awareness of death into a steady source of courage. It makes our purpose clearer and keeps despair at bay.
Your check-in ritual already sharpens the collective blade. Deepen it: after the silent moment, each comrade voices one bold risk they will assume before dusk. Log those sentences in a shared ledger so courage becomes visible, cumulative and contagious. Reviewing that ledger weekly reminds the group that mortality is not a shadow but a countdown that accelerates action.
Couple this with a quick “letter to the future” habit. Every Monday, write one line that begins, “If I do not see the liberation we seek…” Store the lines in an open document. Over time, the file becomes a mosaic of unfinished dreams that newcomers inherit and feel compelled to advance.
Montaigne understood that death awareness feeds reverie; let your reveries ferment novel tactics. The question is no longer whether you might fall, but what irreversible step you will take before the fall arrives. Which daring action will your next morning ledger record?
What is one bold, irreversible step we can commit to during this upcoming week—one that confronts our fears of mortality directly and compels us to act as if time is already short—so that the awareness of death transforms hesitation into urgent movement?
Publish your own obituary this week—collective, signed, dated. Buy a small ad in the city’s daily or post a broadsheet in transit hubs that reads: “Here lies the compliant version of us, deceased on [date]. In seven days we rise to blockade the machinery that sustains the injustice named below.” List the targeted agency or corporation, the precise hour and the principled reason for disruption. By declaring death to timidity in the language of funerals you set a clock the whole city can witness. The ad is irreversible ink; retreat would now be a public self-burial, unthinkable once the obituary circulates.
Theory of change: you fuse subjectivism with structural leverage. The obituary reframes activism as a resurrection story that captures imagination, while the announced blockade threatens material cost. Officials must respond before the date, amplifying your message; supporters witness courage concretised and hurry to join because time is palpably short.
Which line will your obituary choose as its epitaph, the phrase future rebels might quote when your risen selves make history?