Compliance, defiance, resilience

Living as we think we should

Mar 08, 2025

Before we begin

When you think of times you were faced with a situation that invited or demanded your compliance with something that felt wrong, or at least not quite right, how did you handle it? How might you handle it now?

Department of Gratitude

Thank you to Jean S. and Lael J. who have just signed on as paid subscribers. What a boost! Thank you to both of you and thank you to everyone who has shown their support for what we’re doing here. It means the world.

Women. Resilience. Defiance.

These are the words competing for my attention as I put together this issue of Spark. It’s International Women’s Day today and there are a number of lists out there that have been specially curated for those who want to observe this event and Women’s History Month by reading a book by or about women. The book I most want to read, however, was not on any of the lists I scanned: Defy: The Power of No in a World that Demands Yes by Dr. Sunita Sah.

After listening to this discussion with her on the Hidden Brain podcast, I purchased the book because I knew that I would need to mark it up. It made me think of the times — and there have been many — when I have felt what she calls “insinuation anxiety” — or the anxiety I feel when I know someone is asking me to do or agree to something that feels wrong in a context when saying no feels difficult. It makes me think of how I feel right now as I consider what the times ahead will ask of me. I will be reading this book and sharing these stories and fears and her proposals for how to counter them in a future issue. In the meantime, I’m thinking two take-aways from the Hidden Brain discussion itself:

No matter how much a person wants or believes they will do the right thing, they may comply with what is asked of them inch by inch until they no longer know where to draw the line
It is possible to prepare the mind to refuse to comply. As Sah puts it, “…surprise disables defiance; anticipation enables defiance.”
We can look to those who have done the right thing for inspiration.

Which brings me to three women, two from a March post of a couple of years ago and one pulled from Texas Monthly courtesy of The 19th. None of them are famous. Each has offered me a way to go forward when confronted with a harsh circumstance. They are showing that, as Howard Zinn put it, “… to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Bianca Sicich: “Because it needs to get done.”

Bianca Sicich was loving her new job with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She was based at the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge, charged with helping to preserve this threatened species. Her response began with feeling devastated but it didn’t end there. She returned to her job as a volunteer so that the important work the refuge was doing could continue.

“That day, her devastated coworkers called her to say they were going to miss her. “I told them, ‘Y’all ain’t going to miss me, because I’m going to still be there volunteering. You ain’t seen the last of me, okay?’ ” …
…In the last two weeks, Sicich says she’s never been busier: researching her rights as a probationary employee, updating her résumé, and working with the new wildlife biologist to get him up to speed on the systems she developed. “Why?” I asked. “Because it needs to get done,” she said.” - Texas Monthly, “After Elon Musk Fired Her She Kept Showing Up for Work —- For Free”

Tania: “I realized that this war can continue longer, so I should learn to live in this new situation.”

A few years ago, I wrote to a friend who is Ukrainian and lives in Denmark with her partner, his children and, until recently, her sister, her niece, and nephew who fled to them from Ukraine. Her parents and brother-in-law and others remained in their village not far from Kharkiv. I wrote with some trepidation. Our last correspondence had been both reassuring and frightening: “everyone is still alive” she wrote. She had thrown herself into volunteering and fundraising for Ukraine citizens and the military. I had not heard from her since.

I reached out, kept it short, told her we thought of her and her loved ones every night when he watched the news. Then I signed off with this:

“I continue to write and am happy to do it but sometimes I look up at the world around me and see the news and wonder how important this book can possibly be in the bigger scheme of things.”

She wrote back immediately with the welcome news that “Everybody is healthy and alive.” She shared news of herself and her family both in Ukraine and in Denmark. She wrote of being torn between the urgency of the war and the needs of the civilians and the military and the needs of her and those she loves. She wrote: “I realized that this war can continue longer, so I should learn how to live in this new situation.” Then she wrote something that brought me to tears.

“Betsy, about the book you are writing. I don’t think you should doubt its relevance in the mirror of this changing world. It’s always wonderful to read about relationships, about real life. Terror, disasters, wars, all those nightmares, which are mostly created by us humans, they should not take over a real life, a good life. A good book can make you feel calm and safe. You can think about it afterwards when walking in the park or suggest it to friends.”

Update: in a recent note, Tania shared photos of her baby daughter and said, “she brings my life together and gives me strength to build our future.”

Didem Tali: a belief in the journalism that can help “fix the world”

I met Didem Tali, now based in her native Istanbul, long before the recent earthquakes leveled entire cities in Turkey and Syria. She was in Cambodia. I was in San Diego. We were meeting on Skype to talk about a novel she was writing. Her draft was a wonderful read and very well written but it was her own story that fascinated me.

She was in Cambodia as a freelancer. She’d been all over the world in search of stories that she sold to Public Radio International, BBC, The Washington Post, The Guardian, VICE, and other outlets. No one had asked her to go to Cambodia or to Myanmar, Mongolia, or rural Uganda. She found her way there and found her way into stories that, more times than not, focused on the efforts of individual people or small groups who found a way to create something good in the face of much that is not.

In Myanmar she interviewed young women sold to sex traffickers by their own parents but she also interviewed a group of women who had founded a puppet theater that traveled from village to village telling stories that revealed the dangers of traffickers, using theater to educate. She reported on a man who returned home to Mongolia after earning money for years as a construction worker in South Korea and, when he saw children playing in a rubbish-filled ditch, built a park with his own hands for the children in his community.

A few years ago, she gave a TedX talk in Frankfurt Germany where she argues that the steady diet of “bad news” that makes those of us far from harm’s way feel helpless is not necessarily countered by the fluff at the opposite end of the spectrum of news coverage, but by more stories centered on how people use what they have to live lives of meaning and purpose.

“What I love most about these kinds of stories is that they show us that there is human dignity and creativity in every situation and I believe that these nuanced stories of resilience are the creme of journalism. They don’t just help us stay sane but we can learn how we can fix our world.” - Didem Tali, “Staying Sane When News Hurt” TedX Frankfurt

Update: Didem Tali went on to produce eight videos and several shorts for her project. Check out Sanity Feed below.

Hitting a nerve: literacy matters

“There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Not without a fight

In my last post I wrote of a friend who had learned of a plan to remove her and all the school librarians in the district along with a number of teachers. They did not take the news sitting down — especially when it was learned that the school district actually has a surplus in the budget. Neither did parents or teachers. Last Saturday, my friend showed me what fighting for their kids looks like. Click here or on the photo below for video or to read the story.

Even though the board went on to vote 4 to 1 to eliminate the librarians, the fight is far from over. A coordinated social media plan is underway and the same crowds will show up at the next meeting of the school board. Feel free to share this with anyone you know who may be facing a similar situation.

Looking for actions you can take to feel more sane? Check out and add to this list of things to do to support literacy.

Literacy Program Spotlight: Tucson Festival of Books

Subscriber and #bookstacker Abra McAndrew writes that the Tuscon Festival of Books “is a flywheel collecting and then releasing so much energy to support year round initiatives by the library and non-profit literacy programs. Over $2.3 million donated to literacy initiatives since 2009.” In 2024, the festival funded several Arizona literacy organizations: Literacy Connects, a program that supports adult literacy, workplace support, and early childhood reading as well as Make Way For Books, a childhood literacy program that fosters reading early by supplying books to schools, libraries, and wherever they can reach children. You can donate as a friend of the festival or donate directly to either of these two organizations by clicking on the links above and navigating to donations.

Do you know of a literacy program that could use support? Share it and we will make sure that everyone in this community learns about it. Just reply to this email or hit the comment button below.

Before we go…

The long list for the 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction was just announced on March 6 and includes novels from major and independent presses all by women with a range of perspectives and voices. Not a bad place to start if you want to invest in women authors this month.
Books make you live longer according to studies like the one in this Guardian article.
More women living defiantly: Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage

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Ciao for now!

Gratefully yours,

Betsy

P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…visitation at sunset

New Hampshire subscriber John G. was making dinner late last month as the sun dipped lower and lower. Then he looked up and saw this face peering right back at him through the kitchen window.

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