Are You Optimistic?

In "It's About Time," I planted the guideposts for this blog - write something that could change the world, and be funny at the same time.  Changing the world is one thing, but being funny - now that's going to be a real challenge!

My wife has a strange idea of changing the world. Her idea is helping individuals. For example, she often visits a young man, who as a result of a kidney ailment and several strokes, is confined to a wheelchair. She watches movies with him and his family which is one of the young man's favorite activities. He telephones our house nearly every night just because he enjoyes talking with her. My wife also has dinner each week with a young lady whom she has been mentoring for 7 or 8 years. The young lady was experimenting with drugs as a teen and was pregnant at 17. Now she's gotten her GED, has a steady job and as doing a good job of raising her son while maintaining a stable relationship with a responsible young man. But is that really changing the world? Come on. Really. I mean, what if everybody did that sort of thing?

In this blog we've got bigger fish to fry - or broil or poach depending upon your perspective.  We need to talk about the need to make this world a better place.  No, don't think that I just made my wife's point.  She can write her own blog.

I suppose there has always been resistance to changing the world regardless of the issue.  After all, we fought a huge war in this country over whether it should be legal to own human beings.  At the time, all sorts of arguments were made to justify the continuation of slavery, including reference to the Bible to prove that it was part of God's plan.   By comparison, the things we talk about changing now seem pretty trivial.   

Having been an environmental lawyer for many years, protecting the environment is an important issue for me.  Global warming or climate change may be the most important environmental issue of our time.  The accumulation of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere over time can lead to increases in temperature, severe weather events, melting ice caps and rising sea levels that can inundate low lying coastal areas.  There appears to be a strong consensus among scientists that human activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, has accelerated climate change.  Consequently, many people see the need to change how we generate energy to reduce the amount of carbon that is emitted.  On the other hand, there are many people that simply don't believe global warming exists.  They think everything is fine.

Protecting innocent victims of gun violence is another topic that has gotten a lot of recent discussion, particularly since the Newtown slayings.  Many believe that reducing gun violence means passing new laws requiring background checks on gun purchasers and limiting the number of bullets that can be loaded at one time into an automatic or semi-automatic gun.  They see the need to change.  Others believe existing laws are sufficient.  The only change necessary in their view is to encourage more good people to carry guns so they can shoot the bad guys before the bad guys can shoot innocent people.  In other words, everything is fine.

On nearly every important topic of the day there are strong opinions.  One the one side, people see the need to change.  On the other side, people sincerely believe that everything is fine.  The problem, however, is that what passes for discussion between these two sides all too often amounts, at best, to a reiteration of talking points from special interest organizations.  More typically it consist of insults and name calling.  The world cannot change - for the better - on any subject if there cannot be a true dialogue between those holding contrary opinions. 

Regardless of the issue, I suppose there will always be those who see the need for things to change and those that believe that  everything is fine.  In that vein, I refer to the 1972 song Dialogue Part I from the band Chicago:

Terry (Kath): Are you optimistic 'bout the way that things are going?
Pete (Cetera): No, I never ever think of it at all.
Terry: Don't you ever worry when you see what's going down?
Pete: Well, I try to mind my business, that is, no business at all.
Terry: When it's time to function as a feeling human being, will your Bachelor
of Arts help you get by?
Pete: I hope to study further, a few more years or so.
I also hope to keep a steady high.
Terry: Will you try to change things, use the power that you have,
The power of a million new ideas?
Pete: What is this power you speak of and the need for things to change?
I always thought that ev'rything was fine, ev'rything is fine.
Terry: Don't you feel repression just closing in around?
Pete: No, the campus here is very very free.
Terry: Does it make you angry the way war is dragging on?
Pete: Well I hope the President knows what he's into, I don't know.
Oooh I just don't know.
Terry: Don't you see starvation in the city where you live,
all the needless hunger, all the needless pain?
Pete: I haven't been there lately, the country is so fine,
but my neighbors don't seem hungry 'cause they haven't got the time,
Haven't got the time.
Terry: Thank you for the talk, you know you really eased my mind,
I was troubled by the shapes of things to come.
Pete: Well, if you had my outlook, your feelings would be numb,
You'd always think that ev'rything was fine.
Ev'ry thing is fine.

I am optimistic that by talking and listening to each other - by having a real dialogue - we truly can change the world.  Are you?