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I Have Random Thoughts

It's all a number's game. The larger flow of society is always going to go exactly where it goes - and nothing that any of us do will ever make the slightest difference in that, unless you're a Buddha or a Martin Luther King. The planet will either die or it won't. Social justice will happen as far as it happens, for better or for worse, and then it won't happen any further.

This is a truth that no one wants to see, because it would mean seeing so many of your efforts, and the efforts of others, as pointless in the larger picture. And because no one wants to see it, no one does - because that kind of blindness is one of the things that's at the heart of human nature. No one looks at the patterns of history and recognizes that, outside of the acts of great heroes and villains, every shift in every society has come as the inevitable result of larger processes.

And even in the cases of those heroes and villains, society is usually begging for someone like them to step up. Unhappiness at racism and inequality, coupled with (slowly) increasing rights/safety for black people, inevitably led to the civil rights movement. That's always what happens when you combine great unhappiness and injustice with hope and the ability to fight against that injustice without being immediately murdered for it. And before WWII, Germany was begging for someone to come along and promise them a return to greatness.

Recycling, biking to work, going to protests and picket lines - none of it makes the slightest difference in the world. It makes a difference in you, and sometimes in the people in your life, which matters a great deal in the smaller picture - but it doesn't change anything in the bigger picture. Maybe the bigger picture will end up changing in the direction that you wanted it to - but if that happens, then it would have happened with or without your participation.

And you can say "but if everyone thought like that, then no one would have participated, and the change would have never happened." You're right, it wouldn't have - but everyone else's participation would have happened regardless of your participation. A 999,999 man march is just as effective as a million man march.

But most people don't want to see it that way, so therefore they don't. Truth never even comes into play - it's all about what people want to see. The stories that we want to tell ourselves, about the value and worth of our actions.
BlueDiver · 36-40, M
Heh, that's a number's game too. Roll a million sided die - if you get a perfect million, then congrats, you're a Jebus.

Yeah, from your perspective, God has a larger plan in which our choices matter. But that aint how things roll in my neck of the philosophical woods.
SW-User
@BlueDiver: 😂 It may not be good poetry, but it surely amuses me....

What the hell is widdle?
BlueDiver · 36-40, M
I meant to say whittle, but apparently widdle is actually a British slang term for urinating. Widdle on a tree, out of my knee, I am weird with my pee!
SW-User
@BlueDiver: Lol, you're SO awesome even your typos have correct meaning...
SW-User
How will one know if he or she is the next Buddha or Martin Luther King if they operate under the assumption that nothing they do matters in the grand scheme of things?

Perhaps "the bigger picture" isn't the one we see right in front of our faces and what we do or don't do matters far more than we could ever realize....

 
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