http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KG4HP-hqP0
Why would anyone be stupid enough to do what I say, and not
what I do? Why would anyone be stupid
enough to believe what I say not what I do?
Why would politicians, corporations, be stupid enough to do what we
‘activists’ say, and not what we pay the price for, or offer to pay the price
for, with our lives?
Probably my favorite quotation is Albert Schweitzer, the 1952
Nobel Peace Prize winner, a Renaissance man of so many talents, in demand for
so many things around the world, and instead devoted his life as an example of
being humane, in the least accessible parts of Africa that had rarely if ever
been visited, setting up medical clinics, and running them. He said, this man
of infinite talents, music, theology, lecturing, writing, he said -
"example is not a major thing in influencing people, it's the only
thing." He wasn't kidding. He wasn't being cute.
We know Gandhi's words.
Was it Gandhi's words that changed the world? It was Gandhi's behavior that changed the
world. It was Gandhi's example that
changed the world.
We know words of people like Wael Ghonim in Egypt,
revolutionary of a year and a half ago, Google executive, but why do we know
those words? Because their words changed
the world? No. Because the action of such people changed the
world; their example. Their example that there was something more precious than
their own lives, reminded enough of us, awakened enough of us, that we stood in
solidarity long enough that Mubarak is now gone.
Alice Paul graduated the top of her class at Swarthmore, and
graduating top of class, is kind of a career death sentence - high school
valedictorians, that category is one of the greatest predictors of life
failure. I'm sure Alice's writing and
speaking was brilliant, but it was her example, subjecting herself to torture
in a prison, 20 miles south of DC, subjecting herself to force-feeding on
hunger strike, it was her example, showing that there's something more
important than our own selfish pleasures; showing that the rights of their
daughters and granddaughters was more important than their own lives, turning
the value equation upside down, that changed the world.
And so it's always been.
My God, what hideous creatures that we continue to pervert and ignore
such an obvious fact.
Stop your God damn demonstrating; Stop your God damned
taunting. Stop your God damn
talking.
Be what the world needs to be Be what the world needs to see. Be the change the world needs to see.
Nothing less has remotely the power it takes to save your
world.
And doing so is the only path to joy. It's the only path to meaning.
Your nervous system isn't stupid. You're not going to fool it. Talk is cheap. Your nervous system will know that you're
cheap. You'll be depressed, you'll be
unfocused, unmotivated. Not if you talk with your example. If you keep your
mouth shut, and make your example clear.
You do that, your life will be full of joy. If you're in prison being force fed, it will
be full of joy. If you're ostracized by
all your friends, your life will be full of joy, because you'll be living out
of the heart, and all the heart knows how to do is to produce the feeling of
joy and total peace of heart while it is exercised.
Everything less kills the one resource you don't have left -
time.
Be what the world needs to be.
No amount of taunting could have saved my life. No amount of ridicule, and if someone has any
humanity in them all, but they’re on the wrong track like I was, you taunt
them, you ridicule them, they just change the channel from you, man. You're off the list of people that can
influence them. You really want to waste
the little bit of time you have left to change things on such mental activist
masturbation?
Really? Come on,
you're better than that.
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