Bridging the Gap

Here's to the crazy ones. 

The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. 

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules. 

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. 

Because they change things.

They push the human race forward.

And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough 

to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

~Apple, Inc.

I think most of the time what we really want is a little bit of peace and quiet, a little bit of tranquility, prosperity, understanding, relaxation and just the feeling that we’re okay.  And often what we get is a whole bunch of aggravation, irritation, confrontation, conflict, difficulty, challenge, and, well, one sort of problem after another despite our desire for comfort and ease.  Before we know it, this dis-ease pulls us this way and that in conflicting directions.  So we have to ask ourselves, am I going to take the bait and allow this to consume me, or am I somehow going to rise above it?  Yet, even when we do nothing there’s this nagging feeling that we cannot do what we would like to do about these factors, which exacerbates things quite intensely. 

On the one hand we may feel that we want to make a clear and determined move to do something about “it”—drawing a line in the sand, making a point and saying, no, I don’t want to have this anymore; yes, I want to sort this out; I want to move on from this; I want to clear this up and I want to change something that can’t possibly continue for another moment in its current form.  This desire for change is both admirable and appropriate, because it’s what spurs us into action.  The opportunity for change always exists when we leave the door open. Yet the speed at which change can come about is the unknown factor.  If we push too hard too fast, not only do we face extreme burnout and disappointment, we’re likely to miss something critical to our long-term success; maybe we leave behind someone or something that ought to come with us on the next leg of our journey.  Perhaps we end up with dissent instead of support.  On the other hand, if we do nothing and they do nothing and we just sit around waiting for change to happen, it will most surely continue to elude us.

Keep this in mind as you consider your own goals, resolutions and, perhaps, shortcomings in the new year, and as we look to our leaders to make it all better following the Fifty-Seventh Presidential Inauguration and the swearing in of President Barack Obama to a second term in office.  

Real change—thoughtful change—takes time.  It doesn’t happen without some effort.  The longer I live and the more I experience of the world the more I tend to side with the science fiction writers who have long maintained that time is not necessarily a linear thing.  We see it as something that has a beginning, middle, and an end; we see the past as something to move away from as we step into the future.

But perhaps time isn’t such a straight shot.  Maybe it’s more of a circular thing or a twisty swirly thing and instead of darting ahead, trying to get from where we are now to where we think we need to be by forging the quickest, most direct path forward, we should be looking back to our past, to our history, and re-examining some things that we thought were done, re-reading some case files that we thought were closed, to see what else might be there for us to learn from; with the goal of understanding how by re-writing our history or changing our perspective from what’s gone before we can empower ourselves, individually and collectively, for the future.

So take a deep breath and another deep breath and then one more.  Never mind about moving anywhere quickly.  We must ask ourselves, what can wait?  Why can’t it wait?  What must be handled right now?  I’m not suggesting a course of apathy or retreat, but rather that we pace ourselves and get it right.  Remain calm.  And put our confidence into something that we have every reason to be confident about, namely, about our ability to bring about the right kind of change at the right time.  We may not get it all at once but great change is attainable when we’re committed to finding a solution.

ROOTS

When solving problems,

dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves.

~Anthony J. D’Angelo

Wild Weeds.  MJohnson  © 2009.

I’ve learned a lot about life by working in my yard. For instance, here in my mountain community great emphasis is placed on keeping things in their natural state. Aside from the main roads, very few surfaces are paved. Instead, roads and driveways are formed with packed sand and gravel.

Likewise, my back patio was designed to be gentle to the land, created from large slabs of flagstone that fit together like puzzle pieces with tiny pebbles in between, rather than grout or cement. The downside to this design reveals itself in the warmer months when I am faced with a mass of unruly weeds, awkwardly sprouting between the stones.

At first I went on a weed-pulling frenzy, bent over for hours as I pulled and tugged at the stalks of things I couldn’t define. After a while, my back hurt and my hands were tired, so I settled for the appearance of no weeds; I wanted to have my friends over for a fabulous party on the patio. At that point, I started grabbing handfuls of weeds, pulling wildly as I went for a quick-fix to the problem. A quick-fix it was not, for within two weeks those pesky weeds were back—thicker and stronger than ever—and, once again, I found myself slumped over for hours pulling them from the ground.

The next spring, older and wiser, I decided to take a different approach. Armed with a variety of earth-digging apparatus, I settled in for an afternoon of weed pulling, moving methodically between the stones, taking my time, digging deep into the earth to get to the root. It took me most of the day, but that season I only pulled weeds twice.

I thought it was a done deal. Imagine my surprise to see new weeds sprouting the next spring. My effort to get to the root wasn’t deep enough, and failed to take into account the many branching veins and structures supporting their unruly growth. This time, armed with an animal-friendly weed killer, I made a cocktail strong enough to take them all down, gently pouring the mixture between the stones in an effort to eradicate them forever. That year, I only pulled weeds once. Now it’s all about maintenance.

My experience with weeds—as difficult and frustrating as it was—gave me great insight into the depth of human nature and the truth of effective problem-solving. All of life, every creation, every problem, everything we think, say or do can be traced to the fundamental core from which it grew. When we ignore the root, we miss an opportunity for greater understanding, and without understanding we cannot possibly hope to solve the problem in a meaningful way.

So it is with social justice. When dealing with the great issues of our time, especially in this “day of the non-profit,” where giving is seen as fashionable among the “haves,” the first thing we should do is ask: What’s really going on here? Then start digging at the roots. That’s what many of the great charitable organizations are trying to do, often in tandem with offers of temporary relief.

But simply throwing money at a problem or attempting to lift people out of their problems without more—understanding why it persists or requiring some form of self-help from the receiver while sharing critical tools for future problem-solving (“teach a man to fish…”and such)—is no better than hacking at the leaves of pesky weeds.

Some criminal and civil justice systems have been examining their roots as well, evolving toward a more holistic approach to problem-solving, albeit slowly at times. Rather than moving forward in a strictly adversarial way, restorative justice is a unique approach to law—a social movement, really—that focuses on the needs of the victims, offenders and the communities affected by their actions; digging deep to uncover root issues and bring forth peaceful approaches to harm, problem-solving and violations of legal and human rights.

After all, if the root problem that led an offender to commit burglary is her drug addiction, simply throwing her in prison in an effort to punish and exact revenge does nothing to address the underlying issue of addiction and its psychological cousins. In this way, a restorative justice approach demands compassion—a willingness for those harmed to see beyond their anger and grief and cooperate in arriving at a peaceful solution that considers the safety and dignity of all—together with the offender’s commitment not only to repair the harm done, but to eradicate the root that led to the crime or civil malfeasance in the first place.

Examples abound; because in the end, everything has a root. So do we.  And we must go there to understand what keeps us grounded—for good or ill—for it will determine much about the direction of our growth.

___________________________

By  Melissa Johnson; © 2010.  All rights reserved worldwide.  

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