I think it is like the lottery; while the odds of winning are so low as to approach zero, there is proof – always – that the winner actually bought a ticket.
Preamble – to set the stage for my argument:
Reading collage of articles – industry news, U.S. politics, environmental protests over a pipeline to carry raw oil (bitumen) as opposed to refined oil on environmental grounds, the plight of the prairie sage grouse, hockey riot night analysis, post-overthrow Libya, an interview with Conrad Black, and acres of newsprint devoted to advertisements.
I wonder, as individual citizens, groups or our leaders, do we really make decisions which actually determine outcomes – or just make noise and flap our wings about ones that would happen anyway with or without our actions? Or never?
Not to skew my point with too much emphasis on oil, but really – does chaining one’s self to a fence in Washington in order to get arrested change any long term outcome? Given the inevitability of that pipeline, they might be wiser to chain-up to save the grouse with probably a better chance of saving it from extinction (slim to none) than changing the western world from using fossil fuels when they are so abundant. It’s too soon to tell.
I’m not pro-oil or anti grouse; my analogy is that we humans too often decide, act or speak for or against something, commit to change (or to stop change) in some belief we have the personal or collective power to actually made the difference.
I know – there are countless examples (MLK, Rosa Parks, Ghandi, suffragettes, Rick Hansen etc) and the infamous Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
My argument:
I think people want to feel good about how they waste their time. Save a grouse, or stop a pipeline? Make significant long term social change, or get name/picture in the paper for a day? Or two.
You see – don’t you, what I mean?
Is it what we accomplish that matters, or that we can say out loud, “hey, look at what futile thing I am trying to accomplish”, that matters?
That’s the macro argument. Here is my micro one:
Waking up with an ache in my belly . . .
What kind of ache? An ache as in ‘belly ache’ from illness? No. A bellyache, as in a complaint about something? No. A belly aching to feast at the trough of ‘anything called food’? Yes. Then I got on the scale. I smiled.
It seems the ‘eat less’ plan is working. Seriously, it is. Seems to be, to me, and what more evidence do I need?
I still crave food as much as I did before I started; so far the evidence is that I can get past my habitual behaviour and actually make change. It’s too soon to tell.
If I was to graph my progress, clearly, it is not a straight-line progression; jerky rising and falling might resemble a heart rate image on a scanner at the doctor’s office. The difference is that graphing my weight pattern does not show a rhythm. I wonder though, in keeping with those who monitor bio-feedback, if there might be a discernable pattern.
Do I eat more, or less, when stressed?
Do I eat more, or less, when excited, thrilled, surprised, rested, tired . . . ? The list could go on the entire length of the page, and somewhere there is likely someone who has written a software program or phone app to address it. But that’s not my point.
I am having an experience – THE EXPERIENCE – that I have been describing lately; it is like a mystery novel. I don’t know which direction it will go next. I can’t predict whether this method will work, that it will work for me or that it has validity at all.
My conclusion:
Unless there is a scientific proof sitting on your desk, is there any way of knowing that at gut-level feeling, a sense of just knowing, or the latest initiative-du-jour will work our, will make sense a week, month or year from now?
So, while the chance we can change the world, or much at all, by our singular efforts – a chance approaching zero, we cannot deny that for those who DO change the world, they at least tried.
Perhaps it is mathematically just as futile to try, or not, with the results likely being zero. But ask yourself, where would the world be if MLK, Rosa Parks, Ghandi, suffragettes, Rick Hansen etc. hadn’t tried. Their chances were as slim as yours or mine. They might have toiled in obscurity and ultimately failed. The only difference between them, and us, is that they never quit.
Mark Kolke
309,836
P.S.: I gathered everything laying around the floor of my office last night, piled it sequentially in piles behind me on the cabinet. I vacuumed. I see clean, tidy and clear – in front of me today, my outlook uninterrupted by pending tasks, outstanding commitments. I’ve not put all these things behind me, but in a sense, they are behind me. I cannot ignore, forget or shirk them, but they are not blocking my view of the day and do not roadblock me from tacking the challenges I choose to shackle myself to in unswerving commitment. Or, maybe it just seems like it . . .
