Activism is not for everyone. When I say the word ‘activist’, I evoke an image of a certain person: a picket-wielder, with a voice loud, definite with conviction, someone who summons provocative slogans from thin air, a Greta Thunberg type. Someone resistant and defiant to their circumstances, which, depending on your politics, can be taken as virtuous or—in the eyes of many—a designation worse than evil, annoying.

So it is surprising then that someone like me is identified as one. The æsthetic doesn’t agree with me: I’m deliberative and introverted, always quick to blush when called upon in class. My style of activism is warm, soupy and inclusive—making tea with my friend Eezu and crowding people into a Redfern basement as we teach them about the basics of civic participation, writing civil but firm letters to politicians about climate policies we want to see and fossil fuel projects we want to condemn—a subset of activism known as ‘quiet activism’.