The "Succession of Little Things" That Breaks the Ice

Frankly, I'm done with the pressure to stay silent.

Photo by Bryan Rodriguez on Unsplash

In this newsletter’s “About” page, I wrote something that came from a deep place: “Frankly, I’m done with the pressure to stay silent... ‘Digging In’ is a little weekly step of rebellion.”

I’ve been thinking about that line all week. Not so much the big, cinematic acts of rebellion that make the history books and demonstrate major resistance, though these are important.

But, the small, subtle ones. The minuscule acts of courage that I believe can be the most powerful of all.

We’re often taught that “shattering limits” requires a monumental effort, a single, thunderous crash. But what if it’s softer than that? What if true, lasting transformation is built on a foundation of day-to-day courage that often happens when no one is watching?

This is what I mean when I say I want to “dig in.” I want to gently prod beneath the surface of what it really means to find and use your voice. For “minuscule rebellion” isn’t about a self-righteous storming of the castle. Rather it’s the calm, internal shift that becomes a small, external action.

It’s the moment you choose to honor your potential over the pressure to conform.

What does that look like?

It’s respectfully asking: “Can you help me understand the data that led to this update in our DEI policy?” It’s the moment you choose notto laugh at a joke that marginalizes someone. It’s gently but firmly correcting a colleague who mispronounces someone’s name for the third time. It’s hitting “publish” on an article or a post you’re terrified to share. It’s applying for the job you know you can do, even when your inner critic screams “imposter!”

For me as an author:

• It’s not avoiding including inhumane historical atrocities when writing a scene, but rather intentionally taking care not to describe graphic, horrific details and so inform but not hijack the humanity of today’s reader.

  
  

• It’s stiff-arming “click-bait” news, recognizing that much of it is designed to manipulate through anger or fear and cloud my critical thought.

  
  

• It’s the truly rebellious act of choosing to rest in a culture of relentless writerly hustle.

  
  

This idea of “minuscule rebellion” lives at the very heart of the story I tell in my novel, Saving Vincent. It’s the story of Jo van Gogh-Bonger, the overlooked woman who gave us Vincent’s genius.

After her husband Theo died, Jo was left a widow with a baby and a collection of art the world considered “worthless.” The experts, the critics, the men in charge—they all told her to get rid of it. To be silent. To return to her father’s house.

Move on.

Her first, and most profound, act of rebellion wasn’t a grand exhibition. It was a “minuscule” decision. A single word:

No. I will not move on. No. I will not get rid of my brother-in-law’s paintings. No. I will not return to my father’s house.

For with each “No,” what her opponents saw as mere stubbornness—even stupidity— was actually the work of clearing a path for the next step, and then the next.

It was the quiet, daily, unseen work of refusing to let Vincent’s—and her own—story be suppressed. Her rebellion was in writing a letter. Hanging a “worthless” painting on her own wall. Translating a letter. These day-to-day acts of courage are precisely what brought a discarded artist to light—and in doing so, lit the way for all of us.

Wouldn’t you know Vincent himself had an inkling of the importance of small steps, for in a letter to his brother Theo he wrote: “The great doesn’t happen through impulse alone and is a succession of little things that are brought together.”

I grew up in Illinois in a village next to the Mississippi River. Each winter that mighty river would freeze over. My three siblings and I would slide out onto the ice along the river’s shores until our parents’ caught us and yelled to get back.

For no matter how solid that ice felt and looked, they explained, a current was always running underneath, silently eating away at the ice from below.

As the spring advanced, that ice continued to look solid, unshakable. But that current never stopped its work. And then one day, it would happen—a sudden shattering. The ‘solid’ surface would break apart and wash away, revealing the relentless power that had been moving beneath it all along.

These “minuscule” acts are the antidote to the pervasive lie that problems are too big or what obstructs us is too solid. They are the undercurrent. They are the work.

This is why our stories matter. Your story matters.

And they are the very things that build the “groundswell of connection” I’m so passionate about. They are the sisterhood and solidarity stories happening right now, in our offices, our homes, and our hearts.

Keep digging,