They've been community organizers all their young adult lives, traveling the US, Brazil, Nicaragua, Nepal and beyond to learn, and help.  One of them recommended I read Nonviolence, by Mark Kurlansky; the other sent me The Inheritance of Loss, by Karin Desai. 

I started reading Nonviolence before going to see the young gift givers, dug into The Inheritance of Loss during the visit and plan to finish off Nonviolence (as would the rest of the pampered few) when I'm done reading the novel.

The two books tell the same story in very different ways.  The journalist sets the stage, the novelist fills it with humanity as I, the audience, weep.  It's a story a lot of us fight to ignore, and one a whole lot more, who barely survive the underbelly of the beast, can't.

Add to my reality book-burger (vegetarian, of course) a certain picante dressing served up by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot on Bill Moyers Journal, talking about a passion-rich life at any age:

Burnout is not about working too hard. Or working too diligently or being overcommitted. Burnout is about boredom.
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

My first thought was, 'but I'm not bored with music.  I'm just weary of the relentless PR side of it.'

Bingo!  Sifting through the surfeit of promotional tools that promise to weld listeners to great music is boring.  Boring.  Boring!

OK.  I get the message from all you activist do-gooders out there.  Stare at reality, let it in, shed the innocuous mantra.

Get to work.

Photo Dider Gentilhomme, Fairtrade Certified quinoa producers in Ecuador, GNU Free Documentation License