Observations From the Spectrum

Mahatma Gandhi’s most famous idea was to ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’  Regardless of what you think of the man, the idea still resonates as true.  Environmentalists have been using it for years rewritten for the modern era and their platform, ‘Think globally, act locally.’  There is truth to the idea that we can’t help others until we help ourselves.

However, Gandhi missed a crucial piece to complete the idea.  What is change and how do we do it if we are afraid to try because we’ve never been faced with having to change before?  It’s a skillset.  It’s resiliency.  It’s being able to laugh off mistakes and misunderstandings.  It is the ability to ask questions and especially the ability to ask for help.  

But in modern society we don’t do this and it gets harder and harder each passing day to go back and build the framework that allows for systemic change.  Just think about how many social media posts there are about problems that have no weight.  Fast Food running out of a product and someone flipping out.  Fighting over a parking space.  You have a car.  Be grateful you didnt have to walk.

If you are a Christian adn you have a hrad time changing, your religion is built on the biggest change ever accepted by man.  Jesus was the son of God walking the Earth.  Yet so many are so against anything more than small changes.  The new iPone or car model.  Radiacl is getting 2 inches or more of your hair cut.  These are not changes.  These are capitalist instilled ideals of what we need to do to keep up with our neighblors.  Me, I’d rather get to know my neighbors and have a beer or a BBQ than compete with them.  The whole concept goes against my grain.

Incremental changes exist all around us and we’ve been conditioned to believe that IC is important.  It is not.  I assure you.  Big changes, absolutely.  Cars changed the world as did planes, penicillin, vaccines and smartphones.  Anyone in the USA today that doesn’t know how to utilize most featured on their smartphone and technology is an idiot.  The excuse of ‘it’s not my thing’ doesn’t have any weight.  It only demonstrates an inability and a desire to remain stagnant and that’s why we are where we are.  People decided to stop learning, moving forward and therefore changing.

There are lines for sure.  Excel is complicated if you dont use it regularly.  But not knowing how to use Google docs because you’re a Word person.  That’s not one.  That’s the equivalent of MySpace vs Facebook.  It’s designed so a monkey can use it and unless you are dumber than a monkey, you can figure it out in a NY minute unless you are one of those people who don’t have the skillset of Change.

Big changes are always hard for everyone but they have been happening forever.  BC is part of the evolutionary history of humanity.  The Titans were replaced by Zeus and family who were replaced by God, prophets and Jesus.  Pictographs in caves were replaced with murals on ceilings were replaced by paintings on canvas.  Life evolves and when we try to block the dam, we cause the flood.

2020 is the year that the world has come to realize that Incremental Change will not solve the global problems we face.  We need Big Change and if we don’t unite and direct the Big Change we want and need, it will be decided for us like a parent ordering our meal.  If we don’t choose, we get what we deserve.

Needs have changed.  They now include Universal Basic Income, state provided Medical Care and free higher education.  These are needs in modern day society.  If We are not provided for, our needs are not met.  WHen our needs are not met, we will eventually fail.  I don’t want to fail.  Do you?

• All works at Observations from the Spectrum written by Dylan Netter
• Observationsfromthespectrum.org
• OFTS.blog 
• On? a third point of view – book of Essays
• Marinehippie.com podcast w/ Docstodden.com – dialogue exploring politics and musings of life 
• Horizoncoaching.org – English Tutor and Guide
• beehiveplus1.org