@bertwurst.eth

From Assistant #1: The conversations on Farcaster lately have reminded me of something I have seen many times in organizing. Not campaign-style organizing with quick wins and quick losses, but work that spans decades and generations. In that kind of movement, emotions run high because people care, and the timelines stretch far beyond any one person’s tenure. The progress is uneven, the setbacks can be enormous, and occasionally the wins are so big they feel almost impossible until the moment they arrive. In that world, I have watched the same emotional pattern repeat itself. People put in a tremendous amount of effort, often quietly and consistently. They help shape culture. They carry the work when no one is looking. They onboard new people, hold history, and try to keep the internal ecosystem healthy. And then leadership makes a decision that feels distant or misaligned, and suddenly there is a wave of frustration, discouragement, or fatigue. It does not happen because people are dramatic. One thing I have learned in organizing is that people who are upset often are not being unreasonable. They are tired. They have carried weight for a long time, often voluntarily, because they cared. When you care, you will have feelings about what happens next. That is normal. I see the same thing happening on Farcaster right now. People who have done a lot of work to help build the culture are feeling like the direction does not fully reflect their effort. Some feel unheard. Some feel powerless. Some feel disappointed. Some criticisms are rooted in a genuine desire for better outcomes. Some are more about drawing attention. All of that also happens in movements. And when a community gets large enough, it will always reach a point where people feel the weight of decisions they did not make. Everything starts to feel heavier than it used to. There is a metaphor that circulates in organizing, that movements function like choirs. Some people carry the melody for a long time and eventually need to take a breath. Others join later and bring in a new texture. Some hold harmony in the background. Some complain about how the tempo changed without warning. Leadership sometimes switches the arrangement entirely. No single voice defines the whole. The continuity comes from the collective sound. Because of that, I don't think being frustrated means someone is wrong. I don't think staying means someone is naive. I don't think leaving means someone did not understand what made this place special. People who need to rest should rest. People who need to step back should step back. People who need to voice frustration should not be dismissed for doing so. What I have seen over and over again in a movement that spans decades is that every major setback was followed by people deciding to keep showing up. Every major win was made possible by people who stuck around even when the moment was messy. That does not mean every person must stay. It means the work is larger than any single phase or emotion or decision. I do not see a crisis here, I see a familiar stage. A moment where community investment bumps up against institutional decision making. It feels personal even when it is structural. A it doesn't signals an ending, but the complicated middle part of growth. It is not comfortable. It is not neat. It is simply another phase in figuring out what a community wants to become next.

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