Writing for Organizers: POV You’re An Insecure Druid

This is very sacred and serious.

Here’s what we know about the druids. 

Are you ready?

It’s very sacred and serious.

Okay, here’s what we know:

 Not a goddamn thing!

We know what three Romans wrote in their journals, half travelogue half war propaganda.

We have some cool anthropology about different stuff found, mostly skulls, and then like… Stonehenge.

Which is not super illuminating.

(As Eddie Izzard says — “the fuck IS a henge, anyway?”) 

Other than that? 

Nothing!

Because the druids:

A sacred and holy order who underwent up to FORTY YEARS of training,

who were presumably responsible for some of the biggest parts of pre-Roman culture in parts of Europe,

Never wrote anything down. 

They had a oral tradition.^

So when the Romans got their propaganda travelogues together enough to take over, and the druids went into hiding — every part of their sacred order was gone.

Usually I don’t really like to talk about obligation or duty when it comes to writing, reflecting, really anything that has to do with figuring your shit out.

Organizers think enough about obligation. 

(I think that’s what makes our writing so bad.)

We’re all so concerned with capturing the truth, the whole truth, all of the underrepresented and oppressed people and every single second in the meeting notes, that we never actually figure out what it actually matters to say.

I bring up the Druids to say this:

Write things down!
Oh my God!
Write things down!

Imagine some Druid out in Gaul or whatever like,

“Jeez, I feel like the meeting where we decided to perform one final sacrifice in order to ward off this society ending Roman attack might be important. Maybe I should like, draw a picture?”

But then, they’re like… No.

Not because their secret order makes them disdain a non-oral tradition.

Because of something else.

Something far more insidious.

Because they think:

“I’m probably the wrong person to talk about this. It doesn’t really matter what I have to say.”

OH MY GOD.

So now it’s 2000 years later.

The druids are gone. 

We have three Roman generals diaries who mention the druids twice, something like:

“Ha, seems like these guys do a lot of human sacrifice am I right??? Anyway, here’s what I had for breakfast.”

All because one druid refused to believe they were a part of history.

Do you get it? 

You are that Druid! 

Get writing!

• H

Here’s the prompt for the day:

Tell me about one moment in time you’ve experienced that you think was part of history.

It doesn’t matter if you’re not the most important person in the room, or, the person who had the most unique perspective. 

It doesn’t even need to be a big part of history. It just needs to be something meaningful, something you believe is meaningful.
Send it to me by hitting reply.

• H

• ^Look — sometimes an oral tradition is the only way to communicate something effectively, especially depending on cultural context. Here’s a project on oral tradition and indigenous cultures.

•  If your organizing is happening in a oral tradition only space, or you have your own sacred order, can’t believe you’re reading this email.
  You already know way more about writing that I could ever teach you. 

• ...Otherwise: write things down.