This started out as a story with some good analogies and parallels to popular media that I spent quite a bit of time researching – specifically the popular series Andor, and it’s catchcry: Rebellions are built on hope. And then I lost energy – and started typing.
We talk a lot about hope, having hope, building on hope and so on and so forth. Which is great! However, hope is nothing without the work. We can hope all we like, until the heat death of the universe, and we will still be hoping.
Revolutions are built on doing the work.
So what is the revolution? If we’re hoping for some kind of guns blazing insurrection where we can finally legitimately use the AR-15 and stockpile of NATO rounds we’ve been accumulating for the dramatic apocalypse, prepare for disappointment. If we’re after a Gil Scott Heron soundtrack and an uprising in the streets, we might get close to that. In fact those are happening all around us.
What this story, and website is about, is much quieter. Much more boring. Much more important. It is every. Single. Day. Everywhere we go, in everything we do.
The work of revolution is men doing the dishes.
It is speaking up, acting up, in the smallest and most important ways. It is voting, and caring, and giving. It is helping people, reaching out, connecting. It is about repair, refurbishment, rebuilding. Its about walking if we can to places we used to drive. It is riding bikes to work. It is taking public transit.
I apologise, my world is rooted in physical capability, I can only imagine what the work looks like to people who can’t move so well in the world. The work is about trying to understand this. What is it like for people who are not me? It is gardening in our yard if we have one. It is giving unconditionally when we can. It is expecting nothing in return for help. It is saying no. It is hearing no. It is being respectful to, and in the world we walk through.
The work of revolution is, insanely in 2025, still men doing the dishes.
Speaking as a cishet man, and in this paragraph to my cohort of cishet men – our families need us at home, changing nappies, cleaning toilets, taking out the garbage. It is honestly surprising that this, in 2025, is the work of revolution. It is building connections with our kids, being around for them, holding limits, hearing them. Undoing intergenerational trauma as best we can. The manosphere, the alphablahblah, is just more of the fucking colony. it is boring. It is beyond 10 000 years old of boring. It is so recent and new and wrong and weird. And wrong.
The work of revolution is tearing down colonialism wherever it exists. Being a white cishet man is not a prerequisite to being a patriarchal colonialist, although we are statistically the most common purveyors of colonial patriarchy.
Now, to the rest of whatever audience I have left. What does this even mean? The work of revolution is also understanding the work. It is listening and accepting over talking and rejection. If we are right now thinking “Not all men” / “I didn’t” / “I’m not…”, then we have work to do. It is going to the mountains with an open heart and soul and mind. It is about being conquered by this place we live in. It is about living as best we can in service to our planet and its life. It is about being open to changing ourselves and how we do things.
Revolutions are built on doing the work.
Doesn’t hope drive us to do the work? How else are we motivated? What role does hope play? Hope is about wanting something to be true. So yes, if we want things to change it’s a fine tool. Unfortunately it is like buying a shovel and expecting a garden to appear.
So one more time: Revolutions are built on doing the work.
Building connections, reaching out, taking risks, seeking to understand, being open. Being antagonistic to the fear and isolation encouraged by regressive governments and media. Voting and acting through the lens of “how are we looking after our least well off?”. Using the tools of 2025 and whatever privilege we have to speak out about war crimes in Gaza; a fascist takeover of the United States; unmitigated ecocide in Australia; a global insanity on increasing war and genocides and consumption in a time when we really needed to have changed course long ago; and the second best time to change course is right now!
The work is uncomfortable. We can’t revolution without discomfort. It is awkward, we don’t know how or what to do most of the time, there’s little certainty, we don’t know what is going to come tomorrow. We have to be OK with that, and move through it. We don’t have to do it alone. Trust me – as a long time outdoor adventurer – being uncomfortable together is a superb source of joy!
Here’s a question I like to ask myself and cannot often answer well, because like many – I am busy surviving:
What work did we do today?
Personally, I’m not doing so well at this. I hope some words on this website can be some kind of inspiration / effort multiplier. In this website I own and can write whatever I like on to try and provide a small spark. In real life I try to break the intergenerational trauma chain in raising my own sons.
The work of revolution is both incredibly difficult and incredibly easy! It often feels like losing. I can’t think of a day when it feels like I’ve parented well. Or done enough. Or been enough. I also do the dishes, clean, raise voices who are better at this than I am when I can. It’s not about me being a thought leader or whatever, this is such an old story and I am just the messenger.
It is about you, doing your own work, the best way you can.
If you’re reading this thinking well, it’s just more stuff I have to do! It is all too hard! Don’t worry. Happiness, joy, peace, rest, fun, discovery, awe, adventure – these are also the work of revolution. An ongoing work – one might argue these things are the entire work.
Importantly – the work of revolution isn’t about being perfect. It is about doing the work, in the best way we can, however we can right now. We don’t all have enough privilege to be figureheads. We can all wash dishes…
