When the Holy Fools Leave the Stage
Young bones groan
And the rocks below say
“Throw your skinny body down, son”
— The Smiths "Shakespeare's Sister"
I. Opening: The Question Nobody Builds For
Many cultural and political systems depend on people who could leave, but don't.
People with jobs that offer paid time off. People with health insurance that travels. People with housing secure enough to risk an arrest or miss a shift. People with immigration status that allows them to show up without terror. People with emotional slack—the psychic surplus that lets them absorb one more meeting, one more crisis, one more ask.
These are not the majority. But systems quietly assume they will always be there, as if surplus were infinite and willingness were permanent.
The music scene needs someone to run sound for the regional tour, absorb the gas costs when the door split doesn't cover it, bring the PA, show up early, stay late. The activist campaign needs someone to cover bail, staff the hotline at 2 AM, coordinate logistics, do the invisible administrative labor that makes actions possible. The mutual aid network needs someone with a car, a basement for storage, time to drive donations across town, capacity to field the panicked calls.
These people are not naïve. They see the extraction, the inefficiency, the lack of reciprocity. They participate anyway, because it matters. They are Holy Fools—not in the sense of innocence, but in the sense of knowing commitment: taking the work seriously without mistaking seriousness for martyrdom.
Until one day, they don't show up anymore.
What happens then?
Not in failure or betrayal or catastrophe—but by choice. When shoulders hurt too much. When the economic cushion disappears. When other obligations win. When it just stops feeling possible to continue.
This is a design question, not a moral one.
Most systems have robust mechanisms for entry: onboarding, training, welcome rituals, clear asks. Few have any mechanism for exit beyond disappearance and shame.
We build as if people who could leave never will.
Then we call it betrayal when they do.
II. Who the Holy Fools Are (and Aren't)
Holy Fools are not the struggling artist working three gigs to survive. They are not the single mother organizing her apartment building while barely making rent. They are not the undocumented worker risking deportation at every action.
Those people are not fools at all. They are the ones who cannot leave, because the systems being fought are the ones directly threatening their survival. Their participation is not surplus—it is necessity.
Holy Fools are the ones with cushions.
The software engineer who uses PTO to run sound on a five-city tour that will net two hundred dollars after gas. The tenured professor who staffs the legal hotline. The trust-fund kid doing jail support. The person whose parents paid for their education, whose job offers benefits, whose citizenship is never questioned, whose rent is secure enough that missing a shift won't cascade into eviction.
They are subsidizing meaning with surplus they could spend elsewhere—or not spend at all.
This is not heroism. It is a specific economic position that permits certain choices. The ability to absorb losses. The capacity to risk burnout without immediate catastrophe. The freedom to say yes to unpaid labor because paid labor is handled.
Music scenes depend on people who can tour regionally at a loss because their tech job covers rent. Activist movements depend on people who can get arrested because they have a lawyer, a stable address, documentation, bail money. Mutual aid networks depend on people who have cars, time, spare rooms, emotional bandwidth.
Not everyone has these things. Most people don't.
But systems are designed—quietly, invisibly—as if everyone does, or as if the minority who do will be infinite.
They are not infinite.
III. The Hidden Subsidy Model
Let's say that a band books a five-city tour. The working musician cannot afford to hire professionals—session players, sound engineers, tour managers—at rates that reflect their skill. So the working musician asks friends. Friends who have day jobs that let them take a week off. Friends who own gear and can bring it. Friends who know how to run a mixing board and will do it for gas money, or for nothing, or for the meaning of participation.
The tour happens. The music happens. But it happens because several people with cushions decided to subsidize it with their time, their equipment, their expertise, their bodies.
If those friends stop—not because they were wronged, but because they're tired, or busy, or their priorities changed—the tour doesn't happen. Or it happens differently. Smaller venues. Simpler setup. Fewer cities. Or not at all.
An activist campaign plans a week of actions. The core organizers cannot afford to miss work, hire childcare, pay bail, rent a space. So the campaign depends on people who can. The person with the stable nonprofit job who coordinates logistics. The person whose parents will cover bail. The person with the van and the time to drive people to actions. The person with the spare room where people can crash.
The actions happen. The pressure gets applied. But it happens because several people with cushions decided to subsidize it with their resources, their labor, their risk.
If those people stop—not because they were wronged, but because they're exhausted, or their cushion disappeared, or they decided to spend their surplus differently—the campaign doesn't happen. Or it happens differently. Smaller. Slower. More cautious. Or not at all.
This is not a conspiracy. It is an unspoken economic arrangement.
Systems that appear to run on passion, solidarity, and shared commitment are actually running on the surplus capacity of a minority who can afford to give without breaking.
The system does not fail when Holy Fools leave.
It is revealed.
IV. Leaving Is Not Failure: The Fishmonger Logic
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, there was a fishmonger. Family business. Loyal clientele. Good fish, fair prices, decades of service. Portuguese-speaking staff. A gathering place, a piece of infrastructure, a small commons.
One day, it closed.
Not because it failed. Not because customers disappeared. Not because a chain store undercut it. The family chose not to continue. The work had been done. It was enough. No one wanted to inherit the labor.
That ending is not tragedy. It is completion.
The fishmonger's sons did not betray the neighborhood by closing the shop. They honored what had been by acknowledging when it was time to stop. The shop existed. It mattered. It is gone. All three things are true.
Translate that logic:
Bands end. Not because the music was bad, not because the audience abandoned them, but because the people who made it happen cannot or will not keep doing that particular thing. The bassist has a kid. The drummer's knees give out. The guitarist moves for work. The Holy Fool who ran sound for free for a decade decides they're done.
The band ends. The music that was made still exists. The shows that happened still mattered. But this configuration is over.
Tours stop. Campaigns conclude. Organizations dissolve. Reading series fold. Mutual aid networks wind down. Scenes disperse.
Not in failure. In completion.
Here is the taboo: we are culturally equipped to mourn collapse—the venue that closes from bankruptcy, the campaign that dies from infighting, the scene killed by gentrification. We know how to name villains, analyze failure, rage at loss.
We do not know how to recognize enoughness.
We do not have language for the organization that says, "We did what we could. We're tired. We're stopping." Without adding, "but we should have done more," or "if only we had more resources," or "we failed the people who needed us."
Sometimes the honest sentence is just: "This was enough. Now it's done."
That sentence is unbearable to systems that frame themselves as permanent struggles. If the struggle never ends, then stopping is always premature, always abandonment, always betrayal.
But if the work is not infinite—if it is seasonal, bounded, human—then stopping can be completion.
The fishmonger closed. The neighborhood still eats fish. Life continues. Something else may emerge, or not. That outcome is not a moral verdict on the brothers who gave what they gave.
V. What Actually Happens When They Leave
When the Holy Fools leave, the system does not necessarily collapse. It changes shape.
Possible outcomes:
The work shrinks. Fewer shows, smaller actions, less ambitious projects. Not because commitment waned, but because capacity dropped. Three organizers instead of ten. Two cities instead of five. The work that remains is the work that can be sustained by whoever stays.
The work slows. Instead of monthly meetings, quarterly. Instead of constant presence, strategic intervention. The pace adjusts to match available energy. Urgency gives way to steadiness, or to waiting.
The work localizes. No more regional tours, just hometown shows. No more statewide campaigns, just neighborhood organizing. The ambition scales down to what can be carried by the people actually present, not the people imagined or guilted into staying.
The work changes form. Live performance becomes recording. Street actions become zine production. Direct service becomes advocacy. The method shifts to match who remains and what they can do.
The work stops. Not in failure, but in acknowledgment that this iteration has run its course. The momentum is gone. The people who made it possible are gone. Trying to continue would mean going through motions or burning out whoever is left. So it stops.
Stopping is not the same as undoing what was done.
Most of the value created by Holy Fools persists long after they leave:
Skill. The person who learned to organize by watching you organize. The musician who learned to run sound by helping you run sound. The knowledge transmission that happened through participation, now carried forward by others.
Memory. The people who were at that show, that action, that moment. Who carry it with them. Who tell the story. Who were changed by being there.
Cultural residue. The way a scene's aesthetics seep into other scenes. The way a campaign's tactics get adapted elsewhere. The echo and influence that ripple outward long after the original ends.
Changed lives. The person who found community. The person who discovered they could take risks. The person who realized organizing was possible. These effects do not vanish when the Holy Fools leave. They persist.
This is not legacy in the heroic sense—monuments, archives, historical plaques.
It is compost.
The work decomposes. What was vital feeds what comes next, whether or not there is a clear line of succession. The fishmonger's closure does not erase the decades it sustained people. The band's end does not negate the shows that happened. The campaign's conclusion does not void the pressure it applied.
Something was made. Then it stopped being made. Both are true.
VI. Why Activism Makes This Harder
In music, loss is cultural and economic. The band that doesn't tour this year means venues lose revenue, fans lose shows, the working musician loses income. It is painful. It is real. But it is bounded.
In activism, loss can be life-or-death for others.
The bail fund that folds means people sit in jail longer. The deportation defense network that dissolves means families get separated. The mutual aid group that can't sustain itself means people go hungry, unhoused, without care.
When Holy Fools leave music scenes, the stakes are: meaning, community, livelihood. When they leave activist movements, the stakes are: survival.
That asymmetry is real, and it creates unbearable ethical tension.
Because the people who can leave—who have the cushion to say "I'm done"—are often not the people who most need the work to continue.
The person with citizenship can stop doing deportation defense. The undocumented person cannot stop needing defense.
The person with housing can stop staffing the mutual aid hotline. The unhoused person cannot stop needing aid.
The person with a job can stop organizing their workplace. The person facing eviction cannot stop needing the campaign to win.
Exit is not symmetrical.
And that asymmetry becomes the moral bludgeon: How dare you leave when people are dying? How dare you rest when others cannot? How dare you preserve yourself when preservation is a privilege?
This is where guilt becomes structural.
Movements do not say, explicitly, "We require you to destroy yourself to prove solidarity." They say, "People are suffering. You have capacity. If you care, you will give it."
And when you are tired, hurt, depleted, the response is not, "Thank you for what you gave; rest now." It is, "But people are still suffering."
The suffering does not end. The emergency does not end. Therefore, participation cannot end—without being framed as abandonment.
This makes exit unspeakable.
And when exit is unspeakable, it happens anyway—but silently, guiltily, destructively.
VII. The Burnout Lie
We call it burnout because burnout sounds like individual pathology. A personal failure to manage stress. A weakness. A breakdown.
Burnout is not personal weakness.
Burnout is unplanned exit in systems that deny exit exists.
When leaving is unspeakable—when every attempt to set boundaries is reframed as insufficient commitment, when rest is guilt, when stopping is betrayal—people do not leave gracefully. They disappear.
They stop answering emails. They skip meetings without explanation. They ghost the group chat. They show up less and less until they don't show up at all. And then they are gone, carrying shame, resentment, and the conviction that they failed.
When this happens:
People disappear. No handoff, no transition, no ceremony. Just absence where presence used to be.
Knowledge is lost. The person who knew how the database worked, who had the venue connections, who remembered why the strategy was what it was—they are gone, and their knowledge goes with them.
Movements destabilize. The departure is treated as mysterious crisis rather than predictable lifecycle. Remaining members scramble to cover the gap, often by overworking themselves toward their own eventual burnout.
Shame replaces gratitude. The person who left feels they failed. The people who remain feel abandoned. No one says, "Thank you for the season you gave."
Burnout is what happens when systems refuse to design for seasonality.
If participation is framed as permanent, then leaving can only be framed as failure. If commitment is supposed to be infinite, then finitude is weakness. If the work is never done, then stopping is always premature.
But people are not infinite. Capacity is not permanent. Bodies age, circumstances change, priorities shift. This is not moral failure. It is being human.
When movements refuse to acknowledge human limits, those limits assert themselves anyway—through breakdown, disappearance, resentment, and collapse.
The alternative is not to demand less commitment.
It is to stop lying about what commitment costs.
VIII. What Movements Could Look Like If Exit Were Allowed
Imagine movements that designed for seasonality instead of permanence.
Not as weakness, but as honesty.
Participation in seasons, not lifetimes. When someone joins, the expectation is not, "You are now committed forever," but, "You will be here for a time. That time might be months or years. When your season ends, we will thank you and let you go."
Explicit turnover expectations. "We expect most people will participate for 2-5 years. After that, some will continue, many will not. We plan for this. Our knowledge transfer systems, our leadership development, our capacity planning—all assume turnover as normal, not crisis."
Alumni roles without guilt. When someone's front-line participation ends, they are offered ways to stay connected without remaining operationally central. Advisor. Donor. Occasional participant. Their exit does not mean excommunication. It means transition.
Ceremonial endings, not silent withdrawals. When someone leaves, there is ritual. Thank you for your season. Here is what you built. Here is what you leave behind. You are released with gratitude, not guilt. If you return, you are welcome. If you do not, you are still valued.
Capacity-based planning instead of endless urgency. Instead of "The struggle continues," the framing is, "We have X people with Y capacity for Z months. This is what we can do. When capacity drops, we scale accordingly."
This does not make movements weaker.
It makes them honest.
A movement that acknowledges exits can plan for them. A movement that ritualizes completion can sustain itself through cycles of engagement and rest. A movement that thanks people for their seasons can call them back later, when circumstances change.
A movement that pretends exits don't happen collapses when people leave anyway—in shame, in silence, without handoff.
Honesty is not pessimism. It is design for reality.
IX. The Dangerous Thought
Here is the sentence that movements are not supposed to say:
Some movements end.
Not because justice was achieved. Not because the work is done. But because this particular formation—this alignment of people, this strategy, this moment—has given what it can.
Ending does not negate the cause. It acknowledges human limits.
The campaign to stop the pipeline ran for five years. It did not stop the pipeline. It built skills, it made noise, it shifted some conversations. The people who sustained it are exhausted. Some have moved. Some have kids now. Some just cannot do it anymore.
The campaign ends.
The pipeline is still a problem. The fight is not over. But this formation of the fight is complete.
Saying this out loud feels like surrender. It sounds like giving the opposition exactly what they want. It seems to betray everyone still suffering from what the campaign was trying to stop.
But pretending the campaign can continue when the bodies that sustained it are gone does not make it continue. It makes it a zombie—going through motions, burning out whoever remains, accomplishing less and less until it collapses from exhaustion.
Better to say clearly: We did what we could. It mattered. It is not enough. We are stopping.
That is not the same as saying: The cause is not worth fighting for.
It is saying: This vessel cannot carry it further without sinking.
A movement that requires endless Holy Fools is already unsustainable. It just hasn't admitted it yet.
The question is whether the admission comes before or after the collapse.
X. Closing: After the Holy Fools
When the Holy Fools leave—
The world does not end.
The form changes. Or it stops.
What remains is what was always real: the work done, the lives touched, the time given freely, the skill passed on, the memory carried forward, the cultural residue that seeps into what comes next.
Completion is not betrayal.
Leaving is not moral failure.
The band that played for ten years and then stopped did not fail. The campaign that ran for five years and then concluded did not abandon the cause. The mutual aid network that sustained people through crisis and then dissolved when its organizers aged out or moved away did not betray anyone.
They did what they could. For as long as they could. Then they stopped.
That is not tragedy. That is life.
Movements, like bands and parades, demand bodies. Not beliefs, not statements, not alignment—presence. And bodies are not abstract resources. They age. They break. They need rest. They stop.
Any system that cannot survive this honesty is asking for bodies it cannot replace.
The Holy Fools gave their seasons. They kept the music playing, the actions happening, the work moving. They left when they needed to.
What remains is what they made. What stops is their participation.
Both are true.
And if that feels unbearable—if the idea that people will leave and the work will change or stop feels like the end of the world—then the system was never designed for humans.
It was designed for martyrs.
And martyrs, by definition, do not last.