Baldwin
This quote from a NYTimes piece that I read today really stuck with me:
I had the feeling that even if he tried to explain I would not understand. James Baldwin said being black in America is like walking around with a pebble in your shoe. Sometimes it scarcely registers and sometimes it shifts and becomes uncomfortable and sometimes it can even serve as a kind of Buddhist mindfulness bell, keeping you present, making you pay attention.
(Race Wasn’t an Issue to Him, Which Was an Issue to Me)
For one, it's a brilliant, apt metaphor for race.
I think it works also as a metaphor for any kind of consciousness that goes against the mainstream cultural grain - I've felt this way (without having words to express it) about being an environmentalist a lot of times. Not to take away from its original intent here, obviously there's a difference, but man, once you take on a certain worldview and identity that doesn't always jive with what's going on around you, you just. can't. stop. seeing. the. problems. It's always there, that mindfulness, the pebble in your shoe, and you can never get it out again.