Occupying space

Despite the assumption that Rosa parks suddenly decided to keep her seat on the bus and stand up to the tyranny of racism, the actual fact of the matter is that her decision was years in coming, and she had trained in activism for several years. For twelve years she helped to lead a chapter of the NAACP, and she had recently gone to a civil rights workshop.
This very much relates to something I've been thinking about lately. I very much admire people who I see as spontaneous, and public. Those videos of people messing around in airports? I think they look like fun, and I admire the courage and audacity of the people who perform and record them in public.
However, the other day, I realized that such things are not as out of the blue as they may seem. The people who create those videos of random acts of publicly strange behavior spend a lot of time in those places, they are comfortable in them and they understand how they work.
Rosa Parks spent a lot of time in the abstract space of activism and social change, so she felt when the time was right to keep her seat, she felt comfortable in her decision to own the space she was in.

In realizing all of this and linking it up, I realize that in order to inherit or develop the qualities of those I admire, I must first become comfortable in that space of activism, public connection, or private, instantaneous connection.