A Few Reminders As We Advocate for Renewables
Last night I came across a cute little book – a compilation of photos with inspirational quotes: “Go For It,” by Hulton Getty. Paging through it, I was struck by how many of these insights apply to the work facing the millions of us trying to do right by the planet and its people.
Here are a few examples:
There is no such thing as great talent without great will-power. – Honore’ de Balzac
We live in an era of great change, in which the old energy paradigms are rapidly folding down in favor of renewables. But we’re re-learning what we already knew: established regimes do not die gracefully, and great new ideas do not come to the stage without courage and forcefulness. Let’s accept Balzac’s message: Go for it.
Courage is its own reward. – Plautus
There are many bright people with good ideas whose ideas will not get the funding they need to develop effectively. On behalf of those people, I sure hope Plautus was correct.
80% of success is just showing up. – Woody Allen
Have you ever noticed how often your first instinct is correct? Hold tight to that idea. Work hard to develop it and make it bear fruit. Don’t quit; keep showing up.
If it isn’t happening, make it happen. – David Hemmings
I sometimes find myself blaming others: “Damn the corruption of power, the stupidity, the greed, etc.” I need to cut that out. I’m granting cause and responsibility to others when I should be assuming it myself.
Nothing was ever achieved without great enthusiasm.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Here’s a basic truth about life — one that we work hard to teach our kids: Find something you love and get very good at it. And what’s not to love about making a difference in the quality of life here on our home planet?
These are excellent observations and recommendations, Craig.
I’d add another observation from my wife, which I think is useful here:
Apathy is more dangerous than hatred.
As the poet June Jordan observed in 1980 – “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”
…and as JFK put it, “If not us, who? If not now, when?”
We see the results of inaction – others act for us, to advance their narrow and misguided interests.
We must all assume the authority that is properly ours, and take the reins of our nation.
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things for the reformer has enemies in all who profit from the old order.” –Niccolo Machiavelli
Today; most of us in the United States are profiting both from the old order and from the misery and suffering that we are passing off on future generations, and I think we are far too comfortable with that.
I completely agree, Les, that far too many of us are far too comfortable with the status quo – a state of affairs whereby we have long seen the fraud in the statement “ignorance is bliss”.
In fact, ignorance is often extremely painful and lethal, but it’s effects are often transferred across time and from place to place and person to person. This is why it is so vitally necessary to – as Finley Peter Dunne’s character Mr. Dooley advised – comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
A great many people are simply comfortably asleep – we must do our level best to wake them in order to to stave off an awakening far more rude in its nature.
Also, I hope that readers bear in mind that even Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli himself recognized that his observations on successful strategies and tactics in “Il Principe” concerned merely what had succeeded within his awareness up until that point, and was not intended to be a barrier against what can and should succeed.
Indeed, Dr. Gene Sharp and Mohandas K. Gandhi (among others) have since instructed us on the availability of alternate paths that are far wiser, more beneficial and more successful than those of Machiavelli. Further, many earlier societies in the cradle of our species and throughout history have recognized that cooperative communalism is more successful than individual competition or the shrewd exploitation and manipulation of the many by the few.
We must relearn those wiser lessons in our modern generations, or perish from the roll call of thriving species as we continue to cause the tragic and unnecessary decline and demise of so many other forms of life around us.
For Cameron; I must disagree with your offered slogan. Apathy is merely a doubting or a decision to not partake, and hatred is an engagement with insanity. Hatred is linked to fear, and says more about the projector than what or whom the hatred is projected onto. Next;
I have heard the “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” atributed to a Souix Chieftan, but little matter. I accept it refers to the true mind at the base of the mind we see consciously. The True Mind Within. When we learn to understand out true identity and motivations we can begin to move in certain direction without doubt. It is the intention of all the worlds religions and faith derivations or beliefs. The belief that only certain ancient texts can reflect wisdom is the statement that we are too sophisticated and hurried to access the mind within right now. This is, in itself, insane thinking, and extends like itself, as does the mind at peace, if it be wanted instead of the world we have made in our minds, which is where it exists.
I appreciate your having shared your perspective, Phil…
Without apathy – actually being ‘the lack of interest or concern, especially regarding matters of general importance’ – hatred could never flourish and succeed; that is why I believe apathy is the more dangerous of the two, while both exist.
I find your interpretation of the Sioux Chieftain/June Jordan quote intriguing. Certainly the path we choose in every decision has the potential to be informed and greatly influenced by what we know within ourselves (gnostically and experientially), as well as what we have learned from the wisdom of others (however distant in time and space), yet both our faith in our own perceptions and our ability to remake our reality by our own beliefs have definite limitations.
If we stand upon the tracks and deny the existence of the train, our denial will not save us from the impact. That sort of magical thinking is all too common to fundamentalists of all stripes and has caused much pain for our species and for all life on Earth.
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