There’s been a whole lot of bad news over the last two years. We’ve now lost over 6.5 million people worldwide to COVID-19, are desperately running out of time to curb the most critical effects of climate change, and 2022 is on track to become America’s second-highest year for mass shootings ever. These and countless other global crises — so many of which have unfolded in silence in recent years — are sound reasons to not feel particularly optimistic, for aspiring to aspire no more, for nihilism, for allowing emotional exhaustion to siphon away the meager reserves of energy we tap into daily.

Which is why I was surprised to find myself feeling recharged on a Zoom call with colleagues a few months back, talking about work, of all things — at 10 p.m. on a Wednesday. They felt it, too.

We had just clinched formal recognition of PEN America United (PAU), the independent union for staff at PEN America, a nonprofit focused on defending and celebrating free expression. Though unionizing an organization driven by First Amendment principles comes with a ton of built-in leverage, attaining voluntary recognition did not come as quickly as it should’ve, especially given PEN’s history of protecting the right to dissent.