~ From OCTOBER 2004 ~
Sitting in the Greenling Institute office in San Francisco, waiting for my friend Chris, I look at a letter to the New York Times hanging on the wall. It was written by Chris, one of his save-the-world/people-for-change/join-the-revolution letters – and suddenly I feel incredibly small. This one letter, written with such grand hopes of change – what did it do? It appeared for a day in the newspaper and then was gone. Did some in a powerful position read it and change their view? Did some politician implement a policy that had any effect after reading the letter? Or did it die a quick death, read by no one of importance, no one with the power to do anything, reduced to recyclable pulp by the end of the week?
I want to believe that words and paper may not last, but feelings and emotions do, yet all I can muster is a drowning feeling of hopelessness, of not being able to affect anything so why even bother. It’s the same feeling I get when I’m in New York City for longer than a few days. The masses of people, the careless way we bump into each other, looking through and beyond other human beings – it becomes oppressive and stifling, like all those bodies are bearing down on one another, flattening our finest edges, erasing individual identities, and obliterating our separate souls.
How do you even begin to affect so many people? Lost in crowds, swallowed by swarms, a mite among many – what can one person really do for the good of the world? It’s so much easier to be destructive. A few men can take down the country’s tallest buildings, but how many does it take to build them up again?
And still Chris reminds me that all change has to begin somewhere, that the greatest social movements started with a small group of dedicated individuals, uniting and crusading until change is set into slow but definite motion. I want to have that faith but I don’t. So I place my faith in Chris. For now, it will have to be enough.
Back to Blog
