Activism?

Given the recent developments in Egypt I thought it would be fitting to rant a little bit about activism. I've noticed a large majority of friends/colleagues, begin to distrust activism and classify things as "passivism". Now, is any kind of activism bad? Just because people are doing it on their facebook profile pictures, or their twitter feed, is that more offensive to these "true activists" than doing nothing? Would "true activists" (is there a list of activities one must engage in to be part of this group?) prefer that, unless you're going to jump from your couches and take to the streets with placards, you do nothing? I can't say that I agree with the perpetuating of "passivism" (although I have fallen victim to it myself), but neither do I agree with a hierarchy of activism.
When I was fourteen I started taking out books on Lenin from the public library, I read everything I could get my hands on about the Russian Revolution. I read Marx for the first time when I was fifteen. Revolution was romantic to me, but yet I knew very little about the political world around me. I did not read the newspaper. But, I tried to get involved. I worked at the soup kitchen, I organized community events at my High School. I painted, I wrote, I tried to talk about what mattered. But, I would hardly have been called an activist, and I would not have called myself a revolutionary. Revolutionaries staged marches, they sacrificed their bodies to the cause. Revolutionaries do not serve soup, or clean ditches. And yet, I believe now that perhaps that is what activism should be about. Helping, making change through the modeling of compassionate behaviour. In the end, is activism not the attempt to make the world better?
That said, I look at the world now and I debate about the evolution of what we traditionally call activism. First, we marched with pitchforks, then we marched in the streets, and then we wrote letters to the editors, then we started writing blogs and then we started internet activism. I was convinced the days of taking to the streets were over. We had a new forum, and we could sit in our underwear and hack our way to freedom. The events of this week have changed my opinion. Bodies still matter, and can still compel change (whether or not we agree with the change they are fighting for).
So, perhaps my conclusion is that whatever kind of activism one does, it should move us toward the betterment of lives and the increasing of human compassion. So, if you do it in your underwear or with placards it matters little...as long as you're doing something.

Welcome to Blog Land, me.

Over the years I have had a number of blogs. I feel that I have grown and changed over that time, and so reverting to an old blog seemed like a step in the backwards (wrong) direction. So, here I go with an all-new, all amazing (doubtfully), hopefully engaging blog. Wish me luck!