What If We Can’t Change The World
Jonathan Brink posted some quotes from Gandhi over the weekend, some of which have set some of my mental gears in motion.
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
I shared some thoughts with Parker and Baily this weekend where I started by saying “I don’t want to change the world.” My reason for this was to further explain that I think we start our thinking of the fashionable desire to change the world with the assumption that changing the world is only worthy if it is to the degree that people like Gandhi or Bono have. Our minds are so in love with celebrity-ism that we are unable to imagine the value of being a single person who’s effect is so small. It parallels the idea of not voting, because, hypothetically speaking, if 300 million American citizens all voted, your vote would theoretically count for 0.0000000003 percent.
Gandhi is also famous for saying:
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Does he contradict his own logic by suggesting we change the world but still recognizing its insignificance, thus rendering it pointless?
Perhaps this is yet another example of life’s purpose where the more important thing is its effect on yourself, not on the immediate others. If every person were truly loving his neighbor, the world would be transformed not because famous people are doing famous things, but because love flourishes and builds life at the micro level, causing the ripple effect of goodness throughout our lives and the world.
Be the goodness you desire in the world, and the rest will happen by default.
I believe this is what Gandhi means.
And by the way, I do want to change the world, however small that might be. But I can’t help but ask questions about how we approach this desire within us.
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On almost an entirely unrelated note, another Gandhi quote:
“I could accept Jesus as a martyr, and embodiment of sacrifice, and a divine teacher. His death on the cross was a great example to the world, but that there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it, my heart could not accept.”
I lied, it’s not unrelated. The point of the above quote is to reveal a little bit of the skew with which Gandhi viewed the world. If indeed he cannot conceive of a “mysterious or miraculous virtue” in the sacrifice of Christ, how then might he view the subjective meaning of anything anyone does in his or her life?
My point is not to contradict you. Rather, it is to help close the logical gap created by the two Gandhi quotes you brought up. I think one point that could be extrapolated from the first quote is that the term “insignificant” is a fairly subjective word. What most men might deem insignificant, God might judge as absolutely critical. One must not speak from the position of the thread, but instead from the point of view of the weaver. Anyways, I’m rambling… Sorry, haha.
Great point, by the way. I commend you.
While I was reading, I starting thinking about what the world would look like if every person did small, beautiful, loving things to the people around them in their communities. Then my grandfather, one of the most influential people in my life and the community here in Charleston, has been doing that all of his life, and people know who because of his kindness, because of his love, and because they didn’t see it anywhere else, or as powerful as his love and kindness.
I think if all the world starting truly loving and being kind to everyone’s neighbor, there might not be any celebrities, as we know it. And I’m saying if EVERYONE do so. We would all see each other as the same as them, no one more loving than another, and it simply would be kind of boring, if you think about it… but then I think, isn’t that what heaven might be like, in part.
Just some of my thoughts, thought I would share them. Can’t wait to meet you in San Francisco. I’ll be there from the 10th through the 22nd.
See you soon.
here’s the thing amos, i believe in living that limitless life that we are all meant to live. and i believe we can change the world. i cannot believe that it is an insignifcant gesture. while i understnad ghandi’s thinking here, i don’t nec. agree. you see- affecting ONE person’s life is HUGELY signifcant…and that person will change another two and so and so on….by defult…..making a difference in one person surely changes the world. i think big. i believe in big. changing the heart of mankind is difficult at times and one person is a big dent into an unchanged society.
essentially i think parker’s comment is important to the def. of insignifcant…
just some of my thoughts
@ash — thats actually quite precisely what I’m saying. I’m sure this post is a bit disconnected between thoughts, but the general idea is about our mindset going into life. I’m saying, and I think Gandhi is saying, don’t expect to change the world massively outright. Changing one life can change the world via the ripple effect. The problem comes when we assume it can only be changed through fame or massive undertakings of humanitarianism. The hidden wisdom might suggest that thinking big from the outset brings failure while thinking small but consistent ends up changing the whole world in the end.
I love this. I think there is so much truth to be gleaned from people like Ghandi. Thanks for sharing. I’ll be sure to read and re-read. I love the simplicity and conviction with which he speaks.
well :) ….
i have been reading some gandhi lately, coincidentally, as it seems everyone else has as well (good thing!). he is so profound in his simplicity.
i feel i don’t have much to add to this conversation besides reiteration ha. you bring up a good point regarding celebrty-ism. it is easy to think ‘what can i do that could possibly make a difference?’ and if it isn’t something grand or majestic then it isn’t going to matter. i strongly feel that we miss so much by overlooking the small things… isn’t that where love starts? and you and ash bring up goodness and ripples… and stephen about everyone loving others…. and ah well it just brought joy to my heart in reading all this… knowing that there is a change going on. small but sure. within all of us. and the difference that it will make. and the impact it will have.
so originally i came over here to leave you the following quote because i remember you had a post regarding Jesus for President.
“For me patriotism is the same as humanity. I am patriotic because I am human and humane. It is not exclusive, I will not hurt England or Germany to serve India. Imperialism has no place in my scheme of life. The law of a patriot is not different from that of the patriarch. And a patriot is so much the less a patriot if he is a lukewarm humanitarian. There is no conflict between private and political law.”
-Gandhi, Young India, March 16, 1921
ps- please forgive the sloppiness of all things spelling, grammar, et cetera, et cetera, at this time of night…….err morning. heh.
Hi,
I’m happy to find a discussion about this as it’s something I’m currently having difficulty with.
You see, I work in the field of sustainability education and am involved daily in the pursuit of trying to change the world (because the way we currently live as a species cannot be sustained on this planet of ours). The usual approach for this sort of education is to not preach and teach, but to try and engage with people in ways that are meaningful, thought provoking and which encourage them to to find their own critical understanding of our current situation.
The trouble I have is that most people really don’t seem to give a shit.
There are too many immediate benefits for people in being selfish, wasteful and destructive. It also ‘benefits’ people to be apathetic about the impacts of such behaviour.
The other trouble that I have is that ’saving the world’ is the only thing that I truly want to do. I have lots of positive things in my life (job, ‘nice’ family, income, girlfriend, beautiful places nearby etc), but such things honestly don’t feel significant when compared to the important changes that need to occur within 5 billion peoples hearts and minds.
I then unfortunately come back to the first problem and my inability to personally effect such change. This is the challenging part and begs the question “what is the point of living if the only thing you truly and deeply want to see happen in the world, you have no control over”. I don’t want to drag this discussion into being a therapy session as I am not likely to top myself, but to me, wanting to change the world has become like being trapped in a runaway car headed for a cliff.
I have tried to be the change that I wanted to see in the car, I have polished the upholstery and vacuumed the floor, but no matter how nice, community minded, resource efficient and ethical I may be, it doesn’t change the fact that I am stuck in a runaway car heading for a cliff.
This is obviously a very emotive and personal response to the issue, and to be honest I may feel a bit differently in the morning, but I think my frustration and disaffection with not being able to ‘change the world’ is relevant to this discussion.
Cheers
@GLong — Your frustration is understandable, and I’m sure it can be echoed or at least understood by the many of us who find ourselves in similarly disheartened states. We believed the cliche that “you can change the world” but took it only at face value. If at all the cliche is true, it is true in a characteristically different way than our conception of it when we first fell in love with the idea.
Few things are as we first thought they were. Especially when it is our lemming-like culture that whispers its ideas in our ear. Ideas about the benefit of mass pseudo-pluralistic behavior and culture imperialism while still building individualism. (Such contradictory ideas tend to bring about a certain “fakeness” to our existence, where we think we are relevant individually but cannot understand why it still seems as though we are not.) All the while these contradictory whispers give us the hint that something, someone, somewhere is lying to us, but we just can’t put our finger on it.
Personally I find myself still comfortable with the idea. GLong, I don’t know if you are a Christian, but I am, and therefore I understand this sort of thing through a certain prism that shows this more as an obvious outcome of humanity as opposed to a terrifying and surprising circumstance. (And I don’t mean this in some cheesy “end of days” way) If humanity is fallen, as Christianity suggests, then it proves us fools to think of our cultural imperialism and expansion as evolved, enlightened, or somehow, as gods ourselves. In my definition, that is in fact what fallenness is- thinking we are gods. As gods, we do what we want. The almighty ME takes first priority. We use, abuse, conquer, and control. Were we able to step back far enough into objectivity, the condition of humanity would begin to come into focus. We would see its foolishness and its fallenness despite its own certainty of the opposite.
If I had words of consolation I would most definitely provide them, but there really is little I can say. I believe truth knew the world would come to this, so when I catch glimpses of truth, I am not surprised that it is not surprised. And as a Christian, this is yet another reason why all of Christ’s teaching points to love. It doesn’t point to political salvation, to a program to end poverty, pollution, corruption, or any of the problems our existence recognizes. Christ’s teaching points directly to loving those around you. It points not to earning as much money as possible even so that we can send it off to missionaries, his teaching points to loving those immediately near us. That is all I can offer.