Sub Terra Vita #45 Questing for Normalcy: Allowing the Change: Why? What Type?
Sub Terra Vita #45
By Tim Krenz
April 24, 2016
Rev. November 23, 2016
Questing for Normalcy: Allowing the
Change: Why? What Type?
We need to engage in the discussion of
change, because of the inevitability of change can assert its own
means beyond human ability to control. Many cliche's about change in
civilization nonetheless will sometimes hold true: “Nothing ever
changes;” or “the more things change, the more they stay the
same.” Yet, these cliches usually speak power to apathy among
people who feel powerlessness to change anything. Voice to this
reason: Everyone has it in their power to make change in themselves,
in their immediate surroundings, and somewhat beyond themselves—at
any time in their lives if they choose to do it.
The ability to change anything takes
what most people would only reluctantly give up, things like effort,
work, ideas, energy and the irreplaceable quality of time. As a great
industrialist once reportedly said, “If you think you can't, you're
right!” The power of believing that change can happen, and that
good can result from that personal action, demands the informed
decision and hard work in the individual. Positive change requires
willingness and effort to make it a reality.
If people want nothing to change,
change will still happen without them, but it might not turn out
well. If not done broadly, someone else or a motivated few will
benefit from any change to the status quo, seizing the opportunity to
profit from a mass reluctance to participate. Time does make everyone
outdated in the end. In certain moments in history, those who failed
to evolve with the new conditions ceased to keep their status, their
prestige, their security, or their very lives in some instances. If a
consenting majority does not involve itself in the process of change,
then the few will profit. In that case, a small faction thereby
obtains too much power in their own hands, which harms the good of
the whole.
What level of change in our society
would work best? In short, change from the bottom up in society, from
the homestead and main street, actually has the most advantages for
the greater good of all. In the world today, technology and the power
relationships vibrate in an odd flux. How the changes we make or
allow politically, economically, socially, and culturally to affect
us here in the St. Croix Valley have more importance to people here,
more impact for the good, here, than any amount of change a person
tries to implement in the Madison Capitol or Washington, D.C.
To clarify the argument, a voter in the
Valley, or even an activist, has little to absolutely NO IMPACT on
state or national policy, unless, of course, they swing massive
amounts of wealth. While that statement holds generally sound as a
“gold rule” of higher level changes, only truly exceptional and
visionary people, those few bright souls in a century, have the
ability to affect change beyond their line of sight. But ultimately
the simple voter and even the vocal and caring person, can change
almost zero things beyond their home town. To use resources better
and wiser, the focus put in the Valley or any hometown to make those
necessary or desired changes can multiply effects—better and here,
rather than wasted and frittered elsewhere.
On the optimistic side, the effort to
change things grows naturally, the closer to home a voter, an
activist, an entrepreneur, indeed ANYONE, puts her or his effort. And
furthermore, those individuals or a community conscience will always
find it harder to work alone to create the type of changes necessary.
Whatever way the community defines as necessary and good changes
for the most people, the entire community or a large portion must
work together. Beware the change that the majority consent will not
approve or cannot control. That type of force or unleashed spirit to
only destroy the old without a consensus for viable, stable, and
logical replacements will in the end unleash horrible consequences in
which everyone gets victimized. Always seek changes that could unite
and solidify a stable order in a community or region.
As implied above, a local change close
to home can grow easier in a natural, steady way forward, with less
disruption. Like a Frenchman named Talleyrand said about his
country's 18th Century revolution, any upper-level or mass
and chaotic disruptions in the name of changes will eventually “eat
their children.” Digest those words, and do not gorge on change
without thought and effort. Changes happen, with or without us. It
remains the responsibility of all to help work for them and to guide
them.
posted by Scipio Cepicanus @ 4:00 AM
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