Vikki Reynolds - 13 Nov 2019

Vikki Reynolds is amazing. We went to her house last night and she did what she does with us collectively and individually and I really appreciated it.

At one point she spoke of how her act of being present, with people on death row, with people who have committed violence, is in and of itself impactful: offering respect and dignity to the people she’s working with. In that sense, she pointed out, Brave itself is already having an impact: a bunch of outsiders who, ostensibly, have no skin in the game, choosing to try and do something about this issue – and in doing so offering respect and dignity... (without the heropreneurship, the savior complex, etc)

There are too many things that she said to document – although I wish I could – but I really appreciated her framework of solidarity (vs empathy) and points of connection through solidarity as a tension that drives creativity and innovation; worker fragility and equating suffering and oppression with exhaustion or stress; and of course her position on ‘community care’ above and over ‘self-care’.

I also appreciated being reminded of the framework of

what is the best use of me?

in a situation - she was emphasising that in many contexts of social justice there are huge gaps that cannot (or are extremely unlikely to) come from within the community: so it is necessary for people from outside to come in, in order to fill that gap.

And for some reason the following quote (Picasso or Renoir) keeps coming up in my head

when art critics get together they talk about content, style, trend and meaning, but that when painters get together they talk about where you can get the best turpentine.

(I heard about it in this twitter thread, where the author talks about how working at Stripe taught her to focus on the turpentine, not the theoretical... which kind of pairs well with David Epstein talking about focusing on the next thing - following your nose - in Range, vs having a grand plan for your life or thinking too long-term.)