By Patrick Metzger

We’re all still processing the world that we live in. Over the past few weeks as my mind has grappled with the work ahead, the obstacles we face, and the strange attitudes of our fellow humans across the country, I’ve been reminding myself of the beautiful art and media that encourages my brain to focus on the right questions instead of trying to find the one answer that will solve it all.

There is a great deal of work to do, and in the off-hours, it’s important to cultivate our steadfastness, muster up our courage, and nurture our hearts.

Here are some things that have been guiding me forward for the past few weeks. I’ll be keeping this up to date as a kind of running list, so please comment with other suggestions for films, books, YouTube videos, podcasts, nonviolent resistance training, etc that inspires you to action.

Learning

• Noam Chomsky sums up why nonviolent resistance is a more powerful tool for revolution than violent resistance
• Martin Luther King, Jr. on nonviolent resistance
• Resistance Manual (new guide from Stay Woke, especially worth checking out the Essential Readings section)
• Edward Snowden discusses the importance of whistleblowing, dissent, and privacy
• Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War (Ken Burns)
• 13th (Ava Duvernay)
• Inequality for All (Robert Reich)
• Years of Living Dangerously
• Flow: For Love of Water
• Century of the Self (Adam Curtis) – how Freud’s nephew jump-started an era of social control through advertising and public relations
• Requiem for the American Dream (Noam Chomsky)
• The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (Slavoj Žižek)
• The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (Slavoj Žižek)
• Victor Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning (a surprisingly hopeful message from a psychologist who founded logotherapy after surviving a concentration camp)

Processing & Inspiration

• Maya Angelou – “And Still I Rise”
• Woody Guthrie – “All You Fascists Are Bound to Lose” (also check out the Wilco rendition)
• Arlo Guthrie: “When times are good, it’s hard to make a big difference, but when times are hard, it’s really easy.”
• Bob Dylan (been listening to tons, but this is a relevant sampling)
  • It’s a Hard Rain’s a’Gonna Fall
  • The Times They Are A-Changin’
  • With God On Our Side
• Fred Rogers testifies before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications
• Pete Seeger testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee
• Lord of the Rings – Gandalf speaks to Frodo about Gollum in Moria
• The Harry Potter Series, especially The Deathly Hallows (the film adaptations actually do a great job of depicting resistance to an authoritarian regime)
• Bertrand Russell‘s Advice for Future Generations

Strange Bedfellows

• This American Life – Will I Know Anyone At This Party?
• The Guardian – Why the poorest county in West Virginia has faith in Trump
• NPR – We Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here’s What We Learned
• TIME – Meet the Voters Who Helped Put Donald Trump in the White House

Perspective

• Planet Earth (BBC/David Attenborough)
• Planet Earth II (BBC/David Attenborough)
• Cosmos (Carl Sagan)
• Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (Neil deGrasse Tyson)
• Alan Watts (all the Alan Watts)
  • The Dream of Life (3 min. excerpt from “Out of Your Mind”)
  • You’re It (5 min. excerpt from “Zen Bones and Tales”)
  • The Game of Good and Evil (3 min. excerpt)
  • Out of Your Mind (2 hours & 7 min)