The beautiful struggle?

I'm feeling particularly taxed this week working on three distinct but interrelated papers on power and health. The concepts, while incredibly broad and likely to consume the rest of my career, are currently being centered on work I've been doing with Latino teens.

I'm finding myself tired and sad. 

It's hard work looking at all the structural factors that oppress and constrain people like me. It's hard because I identify so much with those I'm researching, which in and of itself is difficult but, moreover, it's hard to spend so much time look at and analyzing all the ways in which sociopolitical structures have been designed to keep us in subservient social roles. 

By by that same token, this is exactly what I want to do because only by bringing these things into the light of day can we start to change them. 

But man does it take its toll sometimes.