cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43553416

Let’s say you put all your energy and hope into doing your part in the revolution. And, what happens is that the revolution doesn’t happen, or the world ends up becoming a dystopia, or humanity ends up becoming extinct—would you then say that your life was a waste of time?

  • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    2 days ago

    I think this has a very straightforward answer.

    If someone is in danger and you try to your fullest ability to save them but fail, does that mean that you should not have tried? Perhaps if you had adequate reason to judge it impossible and had something beneficial you could accomplish by turning your attention elsewhere. We do not have adequate reason to judge revolution impossible and we have nothing beneficial to accomplish except those things that could each be fairly characterized as “doing our part” for the revolution.

    The only waste is in not doing our part.

    Man’s dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying, he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world──the fight for the Liberation of Mankind.

    ― Nikolai Ostrovsky