One of the things that makes fishing so enjoyable for me is that it is not activism. It is also not my work as a teacher or my career as an academic, and it is not being a good husband and father. When I am on the water, looking for a fish rising or a good obstruction under which some fish might be hiding, pole in my hands waiting for the quick pull that signals a fish, my mind both focusses and drifts. Like participating in a Japanese tea ceremony, I am simultaneously completely in the moment and a million miles away. It would be easy to say that fishing is an escape from the responsibilities of my life, but that’s not entirely accurate. Fishing is not so much an escape as it is an addition to my life; it doesn’t take away from my other roles in life (though my family, editor, and comrades might disagree) but supplements them. The most obvious example of this being the words I am writing right now, but their are other compliments as well. After a few hours of fishing, I am less short with my kids, more generous with my wife, more serene at faculty meetings (dreaming of fish, rather than getting enraged at petty academic squabbles), and recharged enough to dive back into the anguish of the world and the activism that might change this world for the better.
“For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.” — Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The best — and happiest — activists I know are not only good activists, but also good lovers, bothers, sisters, workers, dancers, musicians, gardeners, bakers, readers, runners, and, yes, hunters, anglers, shepherds, and critics.