[GWD.F.]
Real activists be what they want the world to be. "Example is not a major thing in
influencing people; it's the only thing," rightly said Schweitzer. 80% or more of communication is visual, nonverbal,
one of the few consistently supported tenets of psychology. It's what we do, not what we say, that has
influence.
To my beloved brother and sister activists. If all that is true, then it would seem that
the world you want is one with more taunting, one with more insults, one with
more hypocritical self-righteousness, because this is what you do, that's what
you be. The exception proves what the
rule is. You taunt, you ridicule, you
demean others, you disrespect others. I
didn't say this is how you think of it.
I say this is what you do. So if
the world you want to see is more and more and more of that, then you're on the
right track. I suspect this is not what
you want to see, in which case it's time to reflect on the three must see
must-see movies I keep speaking of, Iron Jawed Angels, two Freedom Rider
movies, a special , a PBS documentary, and a special by Oprah. There are other examples, but those are just
the best, most immediate. Those people
clearly wanted a more civil society.
They wanted the society with greater humanity, greater respect, greater
courage, greater selflessness, peacemaking behavior, standing for what's right, Unviolence, that is, not violating the rights
of others in any way. Where people earn
and pay for what they value, rather than trying to extort it in any variety of
cloaked ways from others.
For God sake, what change do you want to see in the
world? What do you want the world to
be? That's what you need to be. You need to be the tip of the spear. There's no other way. Anything less will kill the one resource you
don't have, time. I wish I could
remember the quote, it's a widely known saying.
But the essence of it is - those who ignore history repeat the same mistakes
over and over again. You need to study
friends. You're the ones that will reap
the horror of your own ignorance. Good
hearts, which to my joy, I see some of you have, are not enough, and really
good hearts will not settle for less than every possible advantage in serving
their clients, and delivering results for their clients, to whom they're
dedicated.
You owe yourselves better.
It's time to step up, and first and foremost, to get clear, sufficiently
clear, not perfectly clear, sufficiently
clear as to the world you want to see, and you need to be that. There's nothing else you can do that can make
up for not doing that. And if you take
on that responsibility and hold yourself to the highest standards in that
regard, you will be doing the single most powerful thing by orders of
magnitude. Everything else is
details. Everything else will follow if
now, you do the work of developing huge
clarity as to the world that you need to see.
I've done what I can to help, by doing what I've outlined
above, and leaving a book for you to try and help you accelerate toward the
powerful form of activism - "Resurrecting the Powerful Unviolent Warfare Pre-1970’s."
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