“My predictions of what we would be allowed this time were all surpassed by the crowd around me, who were blessed with the inexperience necessary to push beyond the limits of what was possible. So-called “knowledge” becomes a liability when one context is mistaken for another. The same series of motions that wins someone a boxing match will lose them a knife fight.

I was mistaken that night. I thought we were on a different field playing a different game. The truth is I don’t know the world I act within well enough to justify a moment of certainty. Of course I deceive myself into many such moments, because the scale of chaos that swirls around me is beyond comprehension. But if you ask me the point of undertaking the small acts of resistance I find within my reach, I must admit: “Probably nothing, but possibly everything.”

And those are the best odds I can expect to play if I am in the
habit of believing in troubling things like freedom. I might never
know the results of what we do, but I have trouble thinking they
could be worse than if we had done nothing at all.”