No optimist

Inaccurate it is to say I am an optimist: I simply see things: things that are possible, things that are a different way of seeing, things that can make a better world. What informs my vision is not that I tend to take a hopeful view or even my belief that good will ultimately prevail—I do see that there is evil and suffering all around, and it is part of the world in which we must live—what immediately and deeply informs my vision is my grandchildren.

I want them to have what is possible for them. One possible world has people tightly packed and milling about like so many night­crawlers in the bottom of a bait can—this is not a world I want for my grandchildren. Another world is an Utopian field with children running and jumping and pulling colorful streamers behind. Neither do I want that for them. What I want is a world they need to work for, a world they need to heal—and one toward which they want to stretch with others.

This is no “ism” at all, simply a knowing that if we want a good world, a humanly livable world, all who care need to engage. We can neither give up, nor abdicate to some far off leader. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the ones the world has been developing toward.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on May 4th, 2008 | No Comments »

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