Dear Friends,
It seems to me, our choices reverberate throughout the ages, whether we like it or not. How many times could the course of history have been changed, by someone, anyone, saying or doing the right thing at the right time? That still holds true today. If someone says the right thing at the right time, in the right place, it can goad a politician off stage, change the movements of armies and bring into being a future that everyone before had thought impossible. There are many examples of an orator changing the course of history. Alcibiades urging Athens to war in Sicily, Marius calling for the execution of his rival faction and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Often, it matters not who says it, but that it is said. How many times then has history gone wrong, because someone kept his or her mouth shut?
The adage that a butterflies wings can cause a hurricane across the planet, actually means, the future can only be predicted in the near term, due to the fact that there are too many variables that pile up over time. It has also come to be understood as meaning a very small cause can lead to mammoth effects. Both definitions are true enough, so I will use the second. A small action by an individual, at the right time in the right place can change the world for the better… or worse. The implication is terrifying. That you and I have power far beyond anything we can imagine. Our little fantasies that we are powerless, are just that… fantasies we tell ourselves so we don’t have to confront the scary reality of the incredible might we wield, so drunkenly. So we pretend we are irrelevant… and watch Masked Singer instead.
History is made by small events that grow into larger ones. Who knows, if Gavillo Princip had met someone who gave him a change of heart, maybe WWI might have been averted? Instead he assassinated Archduke Ferdinand and we were off to the races. Which means, when you interact with random strangers, they could be a Gavillo Princip, Lee Harvey Oswald or James Earl Ray. One option would be to shoot everyone you meet, just in case, but that is a sub optimal strategy. Another tactic might be to treat everyone like you yourself would want to be treated if you were in their circumstances. In that way, by humanizing everyone, Gavillo might have gone home instead of changing the world for the worse. Uncountable wars have been averted by human heartedness.
History is like a river and we are flotsam caught in the current. Except we are not flotsam, we have agency, mouths and will. Even the mightiest river can be diverted by a random stick changing it’s channel, you and I are not only a stick, but a stick that is intelligent. If we want to change the course of history for the better, all we need do is find that place where we can lodge, and even the least among us can put humanity on another course. In fact, the more powerful the current the easier it is to cut a new riverbed. If only one stick, in the right place can change the course of the greatest river, and has, then how much easier would it be for tens, thousands or millions of intelligent sticks, each looking for just the right place to wedge, diverting the river of time’s course for the better?
No one knows when or where that right time or place is, so to insure we don’t miss an opportunity to change the course of history for the better, we should speak our minds, follow the Golden rule and expose treachery when we see it. Solzhenitsyn said that lies lead to gulags. I think he is right. Don’t parrot a lie just because it is convenient, that temporary convenience will lead to a lifetime of regret. Moreover, leading by example has more power than you can imagine. Others who might be too timid to stand often have a backbone infusion when seeing another use his. You are not powerless, that is what the malevolent forces at work in the world want you to think. Your power is angelic if you want it to be. Else you can become mesmerized, by the glittering lie… your a weakling.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
