Monday 12 December 2011

On Changing the World...

In the last six months, while on hiatus from the net, I spent a lot of time ruminating on who I am, what I do, and why…how cosmic is that?!? Point is, I’d like to say that I’m at that time of life where one spends more time in thoughts of life, the universe, etc., because one is older and finally has the time to do just that…but, for me, I’ve taken these kind of breaks most of my life, where I take time to ponder what my strongest or deepest point is, in that moment of time…what am I doing? Attaining, for myself and/or for others? Where am I going? What do I want to see happen, to see change? What is my part in that and why? So this has been a constant since I was oh, twenty -three or so, and at the end of the time spent, I find I have a new direction to go in, a new idea unfolds and I can take hold of it and run with it…and I truly have found myself amazed each and every time this has occurred, because the actuality of what happens next consistently exceeds my wildest thoughts and expectations…in other words, the direction or idea I had in the first place, turns out to be far bigger and has far more impact than I ever expected it could…
I cannot remember a time in my life where I haven’t been teased by family and friends…or jeered at by ‘unfriendlies’, because of what I thought I could do about something that needed someone to do it,especially when everyone tells me ‘it can’t be done’…(oooh, what a challenge!)…most people love me or despise me because emotionally I will dare to go where most people will not…I will dare to love, to care, to try..to take time to listen…and it has constantly astounded people one way or another, that my maxim of life, is that you can do dishes, dusting, cooking, cleaning, anytime, but the moment you get with the person in front of you may only be that one moment, so take it..unplug the vacuum cleaner, toss down the tea towel, turn off the oven…all that will still be there later (it’s not like it’s going to disappear or something!)… but the person who needs you now, may not be here tomorrow..whether sister or brother or mother calling long distance, a friend who needs a listening ear (and not advice on how YOU’D deal with it, whatever it is)..someone who needs a cup of sugar or flour, a jar of coffee, five bucks, or a pack of smokes… and the teasing comes in because when others ask me why I’m doing these things, I tell them that it is not only the right thing to do, but it’s actually my bid for changing the world…
Now some people seem to have gotten the idea that I’m walkin’ around with blinders on..I don’t see what’s really out there (I don’t know how many times my kids alone have said this to me over the years…if I had a dime for every time, I’d be a millionaire! lol!)…cuz if I did, I wouldn’t act the way I do…other people who don’t know or cannot see what my life is really like, think I’m safely esconced in the aura and softness of a middle class life…that I am secure in my financially sound surroundings so I can spew ‘sugar and pixie dust’ everywhere I go, because I have such a safe and beautiful life….nothing could be further from the truth…someone who has known me for forty of the fity-seven years I have been walking this earth once exclaimed that most people have five to eight bad years in their lives, give or take, and then they have some sort of turn around where things change for the better, and by that discussion, I have suffered more hardship and distress than ten other people put together…no exaggeration there..I couldn’t argue the point on any count, because the person talking was absolutely right…the last thing I should be doing is deciding that giving to others, at whatever cost to myself is the point…but I don’t see it that way…the more you hurt, the more experience you gain…the more experience you gain, the more you have to give…if you aren’t giving, you aren’t living….
My brother, Howard, is a marine biologist by profession…just got his PhD. a year or so back…he’s 55 yrs. old, and he’s been in an all out, do or die discussion for saving the planet since he was about, oh, twenty-five or so…he often teases me (light heartedly because he’s my brother and he loves me), that possibly I shouldn’t spend so much time trying to save the world…I tease him(just as lightheartedly) right back and say there wouldn’t be any point in saving our ecostystems, ie, the planet, if there’s no one left to take care of it!. lol!
In all the places I’ve been, all the things that I’ve seen, I have come to this one inexhorable truth: change will happen to us corporately and individually, no matter what we do…but by what we do or say, we can make change a good thing, for ourselves, for someone else…we all could use a little less of the phrase, ” Seeing is believing” ….turn it around and it becomes “Believing IS seeing”…believe in it, act on it, and then change will occur…maybe only something that seems small, not necessarily signifcant at the moment…but even in history do we see that one small act changed the outcome…
On that note I hope y’all have the best day ever! http://youtu.be/-mM3QaKaBAM

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