I like the initial proposal; the initial posts are also complementary. This discussion has enormous potential. Hopefully we can all learn from David Bohm's suggestion for how to create a truly creative dialogue. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_Dialogue)
I want to begin my posts here (I anticipate making several) with some reflections. Reflections about the challenges I find when participating in quasi-public activities.
I find most people there are polite most of the time, but for many of them the opportunity to listen to the one speaker the group is focused upon presents an unbearable challenge. The tendency for so many people to take up "side conversation" instead of honoring the "one speaker at a time" rule, is a big challenge for me to tolerate.
I want to yell at the side talkers to grow up a little and shut up. And keep their traps shut until they are mature enough to participate in adult activities. Yet there is a gentle voice inside me that reminds me every moment when this challenge emerges affords an extraordinary opportunity for political transformation. Even if I cannot see this opportunity, it is here; the moment is pregnant with it; and I may be blessed with the divine honor of midwifing it into reality. So what if grasping the fullness of this opportunity takes a while. Maybe the pregnancy is not yet to term. Maybe I'm not as divinely blessed and/or civilly adept as I like to believe.
The next big challenge I find routinely is the common fear of making any commitments of any kind. Zip. I am baffled by this fear, yet know it is widespread, common, and an brilliant opportunity for public transformation, for integration of common private and public concerns, and for much more.
There are other such challenges in every activist moment, every meeting, indeed, in every "hello" in the checkout lines. "Who'll decide who speaks next?" "Who's Secretary today?" "Why aren't we formally organized already?" "What is our primary goal today?" and so on.
Yet, I feel so challenged by this whole range of issues included in both the challenges I feel and also in the opportunities they present, that I suspect I am not the divine angel chosen to transform the moment, almost any moment (sometimes I do succeed, and it feels exhilarating). Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut until the gifts these moments present are more clear, more obvious. Because it is obvious that I often speak too soon and say too little to justify all the words I use.
Yet another voice inside says repeatedly, "You can do this! Just practice, practice, practice! Stay with it! No emergencies until someone needs their air passages opened or bleeding stopped! Just stay with it, listen to the inner voices, but don't forget the over-arching power and value of simply being present, alert to inner and outer indications of what the present includes! Every successful midwife is very patient, very alert, and very successful, even if they do make some mistakes! Remember, every voice is a miracle, and we all need to learn how to most appropriately honor our miracles!"
Thank you for beginning/reading/contributing to this post.
Sincerely,
Walter J Smith
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But I digress, the only person that I know of who is struggling to survive, is only struggling because she refuses to change the way she lives, she still has cable and the internet and giving her daughter everything she wants.
