‘I’ is the new ‘we’

1754: 

Everything the human race has so far achieved has grown out of imaginative ideas, and been implemented to see if they work. Sometimes they really do work and we benefit from them always. Sometimes ideas work only for a time and end up doing more harm than good. In that case, hopefully, we see the error and fix it.

But who is ‘we’? On a personal level I can dream up ideas and fix them when they go wrong but I can’t change anything on a global level. I can try to be useful, however.

How to be useful? If it’s an idea that needs fixing I can at least not take part in it. I can boycott animal products, for instance, and go towards an alternative. Using animals in this day and age is not only unnecessary but soul corrupting. It’s also damaging the planet, as cars are too.

Take the internal  combustion engine, for example. It was such an asset at first but, a century down the track, it’s contributing to the death of our planet. The car is a big problem, but it’s unlikely that you or I are going to give up our cars because they’re so useful. If you give up your car (for the greater good) I won’t necessarily give mine up.

         

Our modern day lifestyle includes many of these damaging habits, damaging for myself, for the planet, for the future, very damaging for the animals, and this ‘out-of-control’ damaging is a worry for us. It makes us afraid and pessimistic, and makes for a grim- looking future. And it’s all the more depressing to know that most of us haven’t even started addressing the damage or tried to shed our worst habits; our own daily lifestyle is still cranking up the machine. We are either too obstinate or too impotent to change.

We say to ourselves, “I’m reluctant to take the lead if you won’t join me”. There’s nothing to bring us together on the worst habits which we share - we won’t act together and we won’t be self-sacrificing. Sell the car, use less electricity, give up meat – all very brave and noble. But will you follow my lead? Will you be so impressed that you will follow suit?

If you don’t join me, then my own efforts could make me feel resentful - why would I give up things on principle and make my lifestyle more uncomfortable? Perhaps I won’t change my habits after all, perhaps wait for you to change first, and then I’ll follow you. It seems that most of us follow fashions, we don’t lead them. Perhaps this is the most dangerous habit we have.

Now, what if all I want to do is be useful. Change according to principle with not a care what anyone else does? Imagine acting from conscience only, the norm no longer affecting my decision to do what I think is right.

This isn’t as unrealistic as it might seem. It brings us to the possibility of enjoying the process of change, finding new ways to self motivate without needing the approval of others. These damaging habits are springboards towards finding better ones, connecting personal fulfillment with practical repair work. Learning how to make change be less painful, even to enjoy the hard work involved.

It’s like that when you decide to become vegan. Even though others aren’t doing it, the rightness of doing it is obvious. There’s the bonus of improvements in health and energy. But perhaps it’s our ethical health we come to here, helping to get animals off death row. This level of change boosts self esteem, if nothing else. It’s rather as if we have taken the first steps in regaining control of our own lives AND our own world.