It wearies me to see all the conflict and unrest in the world. In people. In cultures, religions, politics, and at all their intersecting points:
“Oh! When will [terrible / evil / greedy / immoral / unethical, group of humans] ever [do this thing I prefer them to do / think this think that I prefer them to think / repress this belief I want them to repress, etc]! Look how AT FAULT THEY ARE FOR OUR LACK OF PROGRESS!”
My grandmother used to say, “Child, don’t go around pointing fingers until you understand that, no matter who you’re pointing at, you’re pointing three times as many fingers at yourself.”
She was a really wise woman. I miss her terribly.
Things really just are not that complicated; humans make them that way because accepting things as they are is painful to one’s ego and pride and vanity. So all the talking just goes on and on and one. No one outside of magazine or paper editorial celebrities or talking heads paying much mind to the fact that talking is not doing, that doing is doing; one cannot MAKE anyone but oneself DO more than TALK without sacrificing the very things one is trying most to bring to full equality.
It’s easy enough to point at someone else and proclaim them the reason nothing is changing; but the energy spent to say it could be better spent (and less hypocritically so), couldn’t it?
Simply put, no one can plot a course to where they want to be if they steadfastly refuse to acknowledge and accept their true starting state and point… one must know both where one is beginning from and where one wishes to end to make any journey possible.
One is not going to change a mind with afflictive, negative approaches. The entire activity is a distraction for ANY humans in a conflict. Flipping that on its head is the one thing that no one wants to do.
It’s difficult to admit to wanting “that other person/side/view” to “give in” first. It’s hard to confess the humanity that is really not so far removed from the animals; to admit that, for all one claims to be “above” it, the demand for submission, the demand to be dominant, it still drives much of the historical anger on all sides of any conflict that involves humans.
Progress is having humans, one by one, admit that one’s need to be ascendant, dominant, right, upheld as superior in cause or the support of the massed as righteously aggrieved, etc OVERTAKE even the noble goal of equality itself.
How could you possibly conclude otherwise if one is only looking at someone elses “wrongs” and unable to admit to their own?
There’s a really excellent book on this topic called “The Power of Personal Accountability” that I think you’d enjoy; it demonstrates how to recognize failure patterns and what motivates them so one can mark the “beginning” point on the map of “what one wants most in life”. Becoming comfortable with one’s true interests, reach, and influence allows one to become more fully beneficial in the world, not to mention happier in life.
The time being spent pointing fingers, laying blame, and arguing over the “first cause/blame” is time that isn’t being spent on actively doing what you can DO in your sphere of life to help promote positive change. But more interesting still is that operating in your sphere of personal accountability is precisely how every great leader and change maker in this world has done so.
Think about that…. at one point in each of their lives, they were just someone with a conviction in a big old world where disagreement was much more common.
No one would ever think me as someone “involved in the community”, but I am.
No one would ever say that I am “a charitable person”, but I am.
No one would hold me up in recommendation for recognition in any way, and I’m happy for it.
I have created great, lasting change in this world and that is a hell of a beautiful thing. Personally, I find it better that it’s “anonymous” to the world; I dunno, it seem purer that way. Now if I could just stop being so human about the seeming inexhaustible willingness to engage in conflict I see around me, mebbe I could figure out something more positive to do.