[Probably the toughest, most difficult, most challenging, most important essay in this book. Rough language and imagery ahead.]
Friends, this is a silly, true story that comes to me and I
use by way of introduction. When I was a youngster I was enamored of something
that I now really, I'm fairly appalled by, that's the Olympics, more distraction from the 26,000 children
that die every day from easily preventable causes of poverty, and every other
important issue of our global neediest.
But I sure had what I thought was an appropriate admiration. An event I never liked much, but I still paid
attention to it, was the high jump; seemed so awkward. Sometime during my youth,
an unimaginable change took place, a new invention. This guy's name was Fosbury. Instead of diving over the bar as had always
done, in his last plant right in front of the bar, he turned his back to the
bar and leapt over backwards which I think is still the predominant way to high
jump today. In any case, it was for long-time. The Fosbury Flop. Your going to reinvent how the high jump is
done? Really? Yes. For
all time.
Was Gandhi fooling us when he told us, 'there must never be
a Gandhi-ism, I've just scratched the surface on Unviolent warfare. You must take it way beyond.' Jesus said, similarly, 'if you love me you
will do greater works than these, because I go on to the Father, you
remain.' Well, that suggests we're
supposed to be constantly figuring out how to do this better, and that's been
true of me, lifelong believing that it could be done better, more importantly,
knowing I wasn't good enough yet, I wasn't powerful enough yet, I wasn't
effective enough yet, I wasn't the key yet, and trying to figure out how to
invent ways to improve my shape so that I could become the key in the
lock.
Gandhi was not some static dogmatist, he was constantly
studying, famously saying, 'learn as though you're going to live forever, live
as though you're going to die tomorrow.’
Learning was central to him.
I'm not suggesting that this the for the title of this
video, talking about keeping others in the room with you at all times, your
clients, I'm not suggesting that's ever been the exact thought of other
activists, though the good ones would applaud me for inventing something new
and they would use it. It was only about
three months ago as I was in a desperate struggle to figure out how to become
the key to averting climate Armageddon, because no one else was even trying to
figure out how to do so, that the following came to me. My focus of the time was very high, very
intense and powerful, but it was not perfect or close enough to perfect. My intensity was extremely high, but not high
enough. My clarity, my sense of reality
my moral imagination were very advanced but not advanced enough. Then, the following gift was presented to me
by the 80% of my brain that I understand to be the Heart, others understand to
be God, as follows - keep the client population that you have in the room with
you, or their parents at all times, every waking second, is you go to sleep, as
you get up in the morning, as you eat, as you party, as you are thinking of
going to a party, as you're thinking of diverting your gaze to the scantily
clad girl, or boy or man or woman; as you're on hunger strike and you're
thinking of devoting half an hour to the idea of eating. Keep the potential victims you to care for,
in the room with you, and arm them with AK-47s so that if you divert your
attention from saving them to your own self-indulgent rants, pleasures,
intoxications...they will blow you away in righteous rage.
In the beginning, I kept ‘in the room’ with me, the parents
of the 26,000 children that will die exactly 30 days from today from easily
preventable causes of poverty, largely dirty water, because we don't care
enough to stop it. So, I'm thinking of,
'oh boy, I just want to go and a enjoy hamburger someplace?!!?!?' They're not going to punish me for that,
they're going to frickin blow me away.
'Pal, you have allowed yourself the over-privilege, the time, the
skills, the place of the most powerful country in the world, and you're going to
indulge in a hamburger, while my children are going to die in three months, if
you don’t get them salvation?
I want these armed parents with me there, friends. I NEED
THEM WITH ME. I don't want to be that
person that's so small that I'd rather get a hamburger, than be the creature that out of love, out of
greed for joy, is devoting every second to saving those children. [NO, my point is NOT that a hamburger should
never be eaten.]
And now the population that I keep in the room with me, or I
bring into the room those rare times now where I feel myself drifting - with the
greatest gratitude and joy I will reach to the year 2050 and I will pull in
with me, the children of today the five-year-olds of so today, the children of today's 20-year-olds, I will pull them into the room with me, and I
will keep them there, every second armed with AK-47s. They know what I know; they can't talk to
me; they can't tell me what to do; but they can hold those weapons, cocked and
armed.
This is such a beloved, blessed, godsend of a device for me
to stay the joyful path, rather than waste my life as I did for 40 years on the
garbage trivia of the head and the flesh, nothing but a different form of
addiction. The infinite flow of 'stuff'
in this culture, just a different form of crack. It's a different form of heroin. It's a different form of alcohol.
If that's really what you want to spend your life, do
it. But if you want joy, if you want the
quality of life of a Gandhi, or a King, or a Loving, you put your and keep your
population in the room with you, armed with AK-47's, joyful, that if you
forget, they will blow your ass away with righteous anger. Hatred?
No. Righteous rage.
It'll keep you alive friend. If nothing else it'll keep you alive, and
joyful, and loving, and it just might save them, and a future for your kids.
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