Finding Hope Through Quiet Acts of Rebellion: The Rise of Everyday Activism

Every time I walk past my kitchen shelves I feel a jolt of joy, and a reminder to keep rebelling.

I’ve stopped watching the mainstream news. Too depressing. Too soul-destroying. Too disempowering. Instead, I find myself here, deep in a Substack rabbit hole, drawn to the voices offering something hopeful, something helpful.

Is there a name for us Substack converts? Enlighten me.

Here in Australia, we’re bracing for a federal election, and with Dutton poised to win, the country teeters on the edge of a Trump-style free-fall. It’s like watching a runaway train hurtling toward disaster—hard to look away, impossible to stop.

The book Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone reminds me that hope isn’t passive—it’s a practice. A choice. A daily act of resistance. It’s a playbook for those of us who refuse to collapse under the weight of it all.

If you’re feeling helpless, this book might just be the game-changer you need. I’m reading it again right now, and it feels like a salve to the wounds.

The book lays out three states we can exist in: business as usual, the great unravelling, or the great turning. No question, we are deep in the unravelling. But every day, I recommit to the great turning. To doing what I can, where I am, with what I have.

Every time I walk past our kitchen shelves, I feel a tiny jolt of joy, a surge of satisfaction at this small act of rebellion before me.

Against the supermarket monopolies.

Against a food industry that does not produce real food.

Against the cancer that exists in capitalism.

For me, that means growing food. It means refusing to hand my power over to supermarket monopolies and the broken food system. It means sharing what I can, eating what nourishes, and reminding myself that progress matters more than perfection.

And some days, it means simply taking inspiration from my mother. When I called her after the U.S. elections, distraught over the results, she could only talk for a minute. She was on her way to pick up her frail 93-year-old neighbour and take her shopping. “It’s no trouble to me,” she said, “and it means the world to her.”

Maybe that’s what everyday activism really looks like. Not grand gestures. Just small, quiet acts of rebellion. Over and over again. Until they add up to something unstoppable.