A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn’t see the clouds at all – he’s walking on them.
Leonard Louis Levinson
Recently I had a chat at the dinner table with some of my teammates and friends about the possibility/impossibility of international peace. Of course, I was outnumbered about 20 to 1 with the (20) making their appeal that world peace is simply impossible because of the human inclination towards the idea of "self first." They brought up valid points that it only takes a couple people to disagree completely with the idea of peace and commit a violent act or disrupt the peace. The boys also talked about the difference in religions, cultures, attitudes and things that are important to some and not others. As I was listening, all I could hear was the pessimist coming out. They would retort "well I would LOVE to think it IS possible but it's just not."
Is this what the human race has come to? What happened to the dreamers? I know you're out there. I know there are people in this world, like me, who see an issue like World Peace and smile and go after it. People are often intimidated and frightened by the enormity of a project or the "impossible." If dreamers in the past didn't do the "impossible" and accelerate the human race forward, where would we be?
Of course the challenge of world peace is not easy or else it would have already been done but too often our problem is we get in this LANGUAGE problem. If we only learn to change our language about a subject then maybe we can start seeing things in a different manner. For instance, when speaking about this issue you often hear the words "us" and "them". This is subtle but as you can see already generates separation. Another thing people fail to realize is that, more often than not, their first inclination is to give all the reasons why something CAN'T happen and then are self proclaimed REALISTS. Everyone is already aware of why it WON'T work because it never has been done and won't get done unless we have a paradigm shift towards why it WILL work.
If you ever feel inspired to do something to change the world then DO IT and don't ask yourself why it won't work... ask why it WILL.
One Love,
Jeb
I think you've identified a key characteristic of the dreamers. The dreamers and the optimists understand the differences and distinctions between things that are truly impossible and things that are just improbable.
ReplyDeleteJust last night, I was having a conversation with a friend and complaining about how impossible it is to change some of the broken structures within higher education. And he said, "No, it's not impossible. It's just improbable, and there's a difference." Well, yes.
So, world peace might feel improbable at this stage of human history, but it certainly remains within the realm of possible. If we, as humans, have the capacity to choose "self" and "violence" then we also have the capacity to NOT choose those options. And maybe, eventually, we'll all learn how to do just that.
That is a great point! Thank you for the comment Anna! I certainly agree with you and know that the life cycle of radical ideas goes from impossible to improbable to possible to probable to REALITY. Right now I believe World Peace is in the Possible stage but we need to get more and more people out of the Improbable and Impossible stages to really gain some momentum. Thank you again for your comment!
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