“I walked into a nightmare. I have seen famine in Ethiopia and Bangladesh, but I have seen nothing like this – so much worse than I could possibly have imagined. I wasn’t prepared for this.” Audrey Hepburn, UNICEF photograph, Horn of Africa

Most anybody who has delved into social justice and environmental issues has come across the quote by Margaret Mead:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

There are days when I believe this to be true and other days when I believe it to be a head-in-the-clouds idealism meant to keep up the spirits of activists when the other side is winning the battles. One might notice that she says “a small group.”  I don’t want to put a meaning into the quote she never intended, yet one can read it as meaning you, as single individual, cannot change the world. Kind of depressing when one thinks about it from that perspective.

Of course, a small group of people is composed of individuals. Yet maybe it would be good to ask oneself: "What am bringing to the table?" Working in the non-profit sector always gave me an out by saying this how I am helping the communities. There is a truth this, but I could have been doing more and be more effective beyond just fulfilling my responsibilities of my position. Now that I am unemployed I don't have that out and so I have been looking more seriously at how I, as an individual and working in small groups, change the world.

Six Degrees of Separation

Basically I feel that if I engage with someone and they walk away in some kind of good mood that vibe will ripple out to everyone on the planet eventually. From a political perspective, if I engage someone with whom I do not see eye to eye on the issue(s), and he or she walks away feeling respected and listened to, this can have impact in the political discourse everywhere eventually.

An aside, the whole “six degrees from Kevin Bacon” was funny the first time, but over the long run it done nothing but trivialize the concept. It would be same if someone made some entertaining pop version of the concept of acting with the next seven generations in mind.

If one conducts oneself with the six degrees of separation, it really changes, at least for me, in some of the ways one interacts with the world on a day to day basis.  An example for me is dealing with the tailgater on the two lane road (I drive the speed limit so it is common occurrence). My initial reaction is what one would have to call road rage. This puts me in a bad mood, which then makes it more likely in my next interaction(s), I pass on this negative emotion. Near where I live because of the traffic and turns and hills, it is almost impossible to pass a car, so as punishment to the tailgater, I slow down even more and get a dark amusement thinking of the raising rage in the driver behind me.

I won’t speed because  there is a speed limit for a safety reason, plus I can’t afford a speeding ticket. What I need to learn is to (1) keep my own emotions in a good place and (2) pull over at the next possible point and let the person pass me. I don’t know if there some medical or other emergency, like getting to work on time so he or she isn’t fired, that is motivating the person to speed.

As Mr. Day concluded in his blog “Minutiae”:

We have friendly people up here.

I know that this entire essay involves minutiae.

But, and this is a big but, all of our lives are filled with minutiae.

Little events might piss us off for a minute or two and then we think these events are forgotten.

But that is not always the case.

Little events can lead to a build up of anxiety and anger.

But little events can also lead to a happier view of humanity.

The Monk Praying

I had the privilege to attend a reading by poet Jane Hirshfield. During the Q&A afterwards, she made the comment in one of her answers: “I have to believe that even a monk living in solitude praying on a rock makes a difference.” Hirschfield is a Buddhist so when she says prayer, the implication is the prayer for the lessening of suffering in the world. I would like to believe this, too.  Being honest, sometimes I don’t. If it does, there are radical implications for even those moments when we are alone. Maybe it is best we accept this as least a possibility and act accordingly.

Dagblog

Keeping in mind the six degrees of separation, how one blogs and comments need to be done with care. I haven’t always done this, and like all ideals, difficult to achieve all the time.  Yet there are a lot of people who visit this site who do not make comments, which is totally cool. My two most recent blogs (keeping in mind that the number is the number of unique viewers) had 948 and 2383 reads.  How many people actually read the whole blog and really engaged it, or just casually glanced at it. Yet one has to believe at least a few of the non-commenters did really engage the blog.

Just to show how much impact one can have, looking back on one of my blogs “Loser” about the two individuals suspected of the Boston Marathon had 8,027 reads. This number, which is by far lower than some other blogs that have passed 20,000 reads, does not say I am better writer than the others’ that get only couple hundred reads or less.  It merely indicates that what one writes has the possibility of having a profound impact on a large number of people.

[An aside in less than 4 months I will get to celebrate my 5th anniversary as a Dagblog member. I would like to thank all those who have made this site possible and have worked to ensure it operates smoothly as possible.]  

Tumblr

Beginning on May 2, 2015, I started reblogging on my Tumblr site. I had started this particular this blog site (I have had others) back in 2013 and for a while I reblogged from other Tumblr sites, yet I used it primarily as a thing for distraction and amusement. My site now is devoted to a more serious intent of reblogging images of photographs to painting to gallery exhibits to illustrations that are what I would call “art” that has the impact of art we believe art should have. I have even started doing my own photography and occasionally include those I believe to be worthy.

Whether those who take their art seriously or those who were like me in the past, I believe the site is like any good art and has the impact of facilitating a deeper understanding of our condition and world around us. I currently have 81 followers, 27 of which are new followers since I started blogging back at the beginning of May. These people get a feed on their home site showing the blogged entries of all their followers. There are others who just visit the site, just like at Dagblog, without leaving much of a trace. Yet the same impact can happen to them as with the others.

This past Monday (June 1), there was a protest by some of those on the site to “protect the creators.”  There are a number of people who post their original work, many of them professional photographers. There has been a widespread problem of people of erasing the information about the creator and inserting a link to their site as a way to promote more followers. For the entire day no one posted anything except an image of “protect the creators.” A lot of languages were used, but there was no Welsh, so my contribution was a translation into Welsh.

I have gained a much greater respect for protecting the creators of images in this past month. People tend to always attribute a quote or passage with the author, but don’t show the name of the creator. I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone in the past; I think the web makes it so easy to just copy & paste or do a “saved as” and then insert from one’s computer.

Facebook, LinkedIn, et. al

Like a lot of things, Facebook can be used for the good or the bad or the mindless. I have no issue with people sharing funny or “cute” images and videos. I do that myself. We all need a good laugh and Facebook and its ilk are a means to make those who you can’t otherwise see face-to-face have that good laugh. It also can be a way to share political and news items that can help people be more informed and engaged with the world around them. Moreover, it does allow people to “track down” people from the past. Recently some friends from 20 years ago found me through Facebook and I just spent the weekend with them and their kids (they live in another state the is next to mine).

I try to help keep my friends stay more informed, inspired, and, yes, have a good laugh by items from my “news” feed, which can reach their friends should they share it, and so on. Six degrees of separation can be quickly 3 or 2 degrees of separation.

Going Forward

First, I am working on my own blog, mainly writings and pictures with which I wouldn’t inundate Dagblog. I am just getting some content built up before releasing it to public viewing. Likewise, I am beginning my own YouTube channel keeping in mind what I’ve discussed here. Like my accounts here at Dagblog and my Tumblr account, I will still be using my stage name Elusive Trope, but I don’t care if people find out my actual name, located at such places as Facebook.

Second, I have begun to write poetry again. One of the reasons I walked away from a Master’s Degree in Education to Bachelor of Arts in creative writing was I sincerely believed through art, such as poetry, I could be more effective in changing the dominant cultural paradigms than the protests and other activist work in which I directed most of my energy towards. Unfortunately, due a number of “excuses,” I never really wrote any poetry since graduating twenty years ago. Now I am back and able to devote some of my concentration on my poetry.

And third, since I am fortunate in the foreseeable future to have the luxury of lots of “free time,” I can begin volunteering and assisting with community development. I just have to be careful since my tendency is to thrown myself into what cause I am promoting (and it usually becomes a lot more than just one), and leads to burn out and meltdowns. On the political side of things, I will be working on Bernie Sanders' campaign as long as he stays in the race. I even scrounged up $5 from my limited financial resources to donate to his campaign.