What does it mean to practice nonviolence in a violent world?
Can we make space for resistance AND hope? 👁️🫦👁️
One question I’ve asked myself many times over the last five years:
What does it mean
To be a writer
In this world
At this time?
Three truths in a world that rarely makes sense:
- Neutrality can cause harm
- Everything ends up in someone else’s trash or garage sale
- The only moment is now
And while I'm not sure if this is the worst (I'm not a big fan of absolutes), there's a lot of truth in this statement:
“The worst thing a writer can do is let life paralyze you into inaction. Yes, people are being locked up for fun and you are short on funds and anxiety is tearing you apart. But your words mean something and only you can write them.”
— Maurice Carlos Ruffin
As someone who believes no war is good war, I'm often left wondering why we are forced to live within a system that operates as part of an intertwined endless war machine. One where “violence” is defined differently across cultures, with some more offended by words or images — even those inspired by or toned down from real-life, played on a screen they can turn off — than the bullets and tear gas tearing the fabric of our schools, churches, and nation as recently as this month, January 2026.
The system we operate within is one where class war is most prevalent yet most silent and excused. Just as it has been since its founding. The invention of race, the excuses of misogyny, and the horrors to follow all in effort to support the capitalist’s machine is the proof, is it not?
The greedy boss as a stereotype is the proof, right?
Corporations supposedly “drive efficiency” in executive-speak, yet their people report feeling as unheard and disorganized as ever. Employees are on food stamps while the ownership class gets space-wings. And when those same employees find it in themselves to organize, bosses suddenly can no longer conceive of people-first as a viable business strategy.
“If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence.”
— Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
One of the most powerful things about art in my view: the ability to put negative emotion into the work instead of harmful or violent actions. To transform pain into power.
Artists work to make acceptance default. Weird cool. Art gives words, pictures, sounds to each chapter of life someone is in, building community and solidarity. Art adds paint, apparel, and decor to the core memory. Art documents what’s actually happening, so we can believe our own eyes and ears instead of second- or third-hand reports.
Art captures our view of the situation in our way.
But to other folks, those very same works of art may appear “violent.”
“Dark.”
“Confusing.”
To a kid like me, that sounds like life.
No one should be abandoned by family during formative years.
For some it’s just a fact of life.
No country should be abandoned by its President.
Is that possible when he never cared for many of its people in the first place?
Last year I saw the metal band Converge play live for the first time. If you haven't heard of them (reasonable), they bring a particularly punishing type of metal to the scene. Lead singer Jacob Bannon introduced a song saying, paraphrased:
This is where I put negativity. When I’m having a bad day, I release those negative feelings through this song.
The power in that: The way he said it and went on to scream his heart out to hundreds of fans enjoying his particular artform. His healing. His story and part of ours.
Everyone?
No.
The right ones?
Hell yes!
After the set, an ad for To Write Love on Her Arms played on the screen, "Heal out loud, we almost lost you in the silence."
That moment made me think of my friend Carra (almost a year later, Creative Taxi Radio's co-host! the universe listens 💫) who has designed for them in the past. I've always admired the bravery and boldness in her work, and that was just one of many moments along the way that signaled... keep going. To be co-creating the future of Creative Taxi with people like her gives me hope.
Ever since, I've been using my own voice more and more, even when it's scary. I treated LinkedIn like Slack in '25 and went from 500 connections to 3,100 (and got overwhelmed in the process, yeah).
There's a reasonable fear, especially today, that keeps many of us from sharing more authentically. I get it.
Many have grown up critiqued, shamed, harassed, or worse for the very things that the current political administration seeks to label as criminal.
And I'm seeing more and more how many of us have overperformed in environments built on perfectionism — and still somehow manage to shoulder more than our share of the feeling of failure when it doesn’t work out.
Demonizing autistic people or trans people or Black people or immigrants or Palestinians or Jewish people or women is not a viable strategy — so many of us know that, without question.
And yet, the war machine spins on, throwing attacks each direction to distract the people from the real issues.
“[H]e believed with increasing strength that American society needed a radical redistribution of wealth and economic power to achieve even a rough form of social justice.”
'66 Speech to his staff:
“Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.”
'67 Report to SCLC Staff:
“We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power… this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.”
'67 Address to End the War in Vietnam:
“I come to participate in this significant demonstration today because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this mobilization because I cannot be a silent onlooker while evil rages. I am here because I agree with Dante, that: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." In these days of emotional tension, when the problems of the world are gigantic in extent and chaotic in detail, there is no greater need than for sober thinking, mature judgment, and creative dissent.”
He also once said: “The bombs in Vietnam explode at home—they destroy the dream and possibility for a decent America.”
What is that if not violent?
Does it not disturb the comfortable, as great art and powerful writing should?
In "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" Dr. King wrote,
I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.
…
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.
…
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
…
We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”
Does “nonviolence” not end conversation prematurely if words can be held with the same “violence” as bullets?
Capitalism has tricked us into thinking there is dignity in that, too.
Words can harm. Emotional and mental harm that can impact others for life. We can and should channel these emotions and words into art, physical activity, and the spaces where it will be received as intended.
Yet we cannot seek to live a harmless life; human acts required for basic survival are destructive at times. To get to a place of creation, you must let go of the past; some consider that a type of destruction. The perfect white canvas ruined with color?
The purpose should be to build something better, stronger, smarter. To return the benefits to the people who created it, integrate the lessons before us, so those after us truly travel along an easier path.
When did success come to mean exploiting the existing system to funnel the profits from another's labor?
When health care is linked to employment and 6-in-10 Americans live paycheck to paycheck, that sounds like slavery by another name.
Sometimes in life, you may need to remove trees for safety or following a storm. You can replace them with new native plants and a composting practice. The impact can still be a net-positive.
Still, those actions are violent to the wildlife.
That’s not to compare any two moments specifically, but to highlight perspective is everything.
I have to wonder, how can one seek to live that harmless life when our basic rights — including freedom of speech and assembly — are no longer a given, according to the authoritarian regime in the White House? Ben Burgis wrote:
“This is, at the very least, a directive for surveillance and tracking of clearly constitutionally protected speech. Targets would fall under suspicion for simply holding any one of a list of standard left-wing beliefs, subjectively rebranded as extremism, supposedly predisposing them to violence.”
He added:
“This is almost cartoonishly authoritarian.”
I haven't even mentioned Minneapolis. This was last year.
There are a lot of people intent on creating destruction right now; a great antidote I can think of? Good people creating more good trouble.
🚕 9 quotes to move your ideas forward in '26 🫧
№. 1
“Words should not seek to please, to hide the wounds in our bodies, or the shameful moments in our lives. They may hurt, give us pain, but they can also provoke us to question what we have accepted for thousands of years.”
— Nawal El Saadawi
№. 2
“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in every sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
№. 3
“The values we care about the deepest, and the movements within society that support those values, command our love. When those things that we care about so deeply become endangered, we become enraged. And what a healthy thing that is! Without it, we would never stand up and speak out for what we believe.”
— Fred Rogers
№. 4
“Democracy is not just freedom to criticize the government or head of state, or to hold parliamentary elections. True democracy obtains only when the people - women, men, young people, children - have the ability to change the system of industrial capitalism that has oppressed them since the earliest days of slavery: a system based on class division, patriarchy, and military might, a hierarchical system that subjugates people merely because they are born poor, or female, or dark-skinned.”
— Nawal El Saadawi
№. 5
“I am trying to place myself in history. I have been looking all my life for history and have yet to find it.”
— Joan Didion
№. 6
“We don’t see people as they are. We see people as we are.”
— Anaïs Nin
№. 7
“What I hope for you: That you combine that edgy mixture of self-confidence and self-doubt. Enough self-confidence to try new things. Enough self-doubt to question them.”
— Red Burns
№. 8
“To be creative means to connect. It's to abolish the gap between the body, the mind and the soul, between science and art, between fiction and nonfiction.
— Nawal El Saadawi
№. 9
“We can make America what America must become.”
— James Baldwin
🏁 Protect Your Spark: Rest, Resist + Reinvent ✨
Mental fitness for creatives means more of what you love. Take care:
- Stop feeling burnt out and be more creative. Here’s how.
- 6 ways to stay creative under pressure
- A creative person’s guide to feeling healthy
- 15 brilliant resources to support your mental health at work
- You can never be universally inclusive
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