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# Life’s Trials are all Heaven’s Pearls
- URL: https://rogerhallam.com/lifes-trials-are-all-heavens-pearls/
- Published: 2018-01-16T00:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2023-10-10T20:18:42.000Z
- Author: Roger Hallam
- Tags: Civil Resistance

About this time last year I did a post which said I felt like I had to start doing direct actions again (rather than just researching them).  
  
Since then I have been arrested 8 times (7 nights in police station cells), been suspended from King’s College twice, done two hunger strikes, spent a week in prison and been fined £1000 at various court appearances.  
  
Well someone said I shouldn’t put this up as a post as I would be showing off but really I don’t think it’s a big deal – millions of people around the world last year suffered many times greater hardships in the pursuit of justice and sanity than I have. The point I wish to make is that last year was probably the most fulfilling year of my life so far, not despite all this civil disobedience but because of it.

  
As I finish my PhD research into creating effective radical activism/political change I am increasing convinced that only “high end” disruption and sacrifice can be effective against the forces we are now up against. And so I am increasingly interested in the cultures and life philosophies which create the ability to undertake these actions. I suspect that this means looking at traditions and modes of thought which are usually mocked and ignored by secular western progressives. For instance I think Levon Helm’s lyrics point to a wisdom which personally inspires me.

> Life's a strain of painful things to be overcome  
> We mark the mile by our trials and suffer everyone  
> But hold them near and keep them dear and don't be ashamed  
>  
> Trials of the world are all heaven's pearls  
> Trials of the world are all heaven's pearls  
>  
> We gather scars from tangled bars that catch under the skin  
> The friction burns as they turn working deeper in  
> But day by day sharp edges fade, smooth, burnished and fine  
>  
> Trials of the world are all heaven's pearls  
> Trials of the world are all heaven's pearls

I’m planning on this coming year bringing along a good few more pearls