Building A Career On Her Terms: Meet Nigeria's Shalom Russel

The Essential Journey of Self-Discovery - Part 2

At what point in a person’s life do what should count in life really matter?  This is not even a question to which there can be a universal answer, since no standards exist by which the right answer can even be determined.  How can there be when no agreement exists on the things that matter in life?  What matters to one doesn’t necessarily matter to another. One could, for example, assume that everyone agrees that all people have a right to live and breathe free air; or that everyone should be able to worship without being harassed, forcibly converted or killed by people who hate them; or that everyone deserves to love and be loved.  To my mind, none of these is so far fetched as to invite the disagreements that they do in our world.  Yet, the reality is that all around us are people who not only believe the contrary but actively deny others the right to live, worship freely and love who they love.  Among the tragedies of this reality is not only that such people exist but that they, mostly adults, teach younger members of their families and communities the same values of hate and destructiveness that define their own existence.  This fact makes it difficult to hope for a world in which peace, genuine love and mutual understanding reign over malice, bigotry and killings of the other.  Why?  The reason is because children who are taught to hate cannot become loving adults unless a very rare supernatural experience occurs at some point in their lives.  Generally, hateful children grow into bigoted adults who bear false witness against those who they hate, deny them opportunities and/or kill them.

Perhaps the question to ask is: To what extent can one continue to hope as one lives with a sense of history and embraces the blessings of aging?  Aging confers on one the ability to celebrate life’s continuity in the face of challenges and realities over which every human is powerless.  However, aging also represents an accumulation of history that constitutes the main building blocks of a person’s life.  Thanks to the image and memories that are formed by those blocks, aging positions the older person in a place where he/she does not only look back at the history of the life lived but can also, if he or she chooses to engage his/her abilities, get a glimpse into a future yet to come.  This is possible because, not only does history not exist in a vacuum, it also informs the future.  It is in this context that the aphorism of the old philosopher, George Santayana can be examined and understood - that "Those Who Do Not Learn From History Are Doomed To Repeat It”.

The process of self-discovery is a walk in which every individual should probably engage at some point in his or her life.  It requires a certain degree of  self-consciousness and a realization that one does not have everything, does not know everything and has not produced everything that one is capable of.  Once engaged, the process of self-discovery is a very personal journey whose end the human mind cannot possibly determine from the beginning.  For this reason, a very high degree of open-mindedness and questioning is required for a successful walk. The hope is that among the eventual outcomes of this journey would be increased understanding and acceptance of self and others, higher levels of knowledge, an ability to understand and listen to an expressed challenge of orthodoxy and a deeper ability to genuinely and passionately love self and others - even those that one might ordinarily consider impossible to love.  At this point in one’s life, the ability to embrace and promote good is palpable and the willingness to challenge and shun bad is not only sincere but is effortless and consistent in its display. We cannot be as selfless, open and loving toward others as we ought to be unless we know and embrace who we are at a much deeper level.

If we can each become the same person in private that people see in public, if we can understand and accept that we are neither in fact superior or inferior to others, if we can love genuinely and embrace our own infallibility and work to make ourselves better humans, then we may actually be on our journey to self discovery. So let it be said of us!

The Essential Journey of Self-Discovery - Part 1

In my subconscious quest for self-discovery, I have learned how little I know about my own life. While I know the history of my life, as I would assume that most people do, and the memorable circumstances that define that history, I now understand that I only know pockets of what my subconscious has registered as the significant events of my life. Therefore, I ponder a little about questions that some might argue would be relevant only if the potential value could be of great significance.  But how do I know what the potential value might be if I paid no attention to the questions that my mind ponders? 

What about those events in my life that I do not know or do not recall?  Are they insignificant or do other people who know and can recall some of those aspects of my life use those aspects to define me?  Doesn’t that therefore mean that there is something actually normal in what we tend to complain about, that people judge us unfairly based on little or no information that they have about us?  In other words, people will never know all about us, but they will always base their assessments of us on partial information - and that is okay, since we do not truly know all about ourselves either.  If I asked someone who knows me well for their impressions of me (what sort of person he/she thinks I am), chances are that what I would hear the person say about me would be things that I was not thinking or had never even thought of about myself.  Does that mean that the person is wrong in his/her assessment of me?  Perhaps not; nor does it mean that the person is accurate because who I truly am is much more than the product of a simple reflective exercise.

What we think we know about ourselves and others may be no more than just a glance, which we then amplify into an image that never truly tells the complete story of our existence and/or who we are.  We are able to market ourselves and others as good, bad, superior or inferior based on the images that we have created that may or may not be wholly true about ourselves and others.  What is really true is that our life stations are often determined by circumstances over which we have no control. We are not always successful just because we work harder than others but often because some circumstances align in our favor to help make us so. For example, we have no power to stop time or to determine what people would cross our paths in life.  Yet, the impact of time and connections and inter-connectedness (or lack thereof) in the life of every living creature cannot be overemphasized.  A year goes and another comes as one day folds and gives way to the next, then one week followed by another, and a month after the one before it.  We live, not because we are special and do great things, but because we are beneficiaries of grace bigger than us.  I know this because I am a product of that grace, a fact that makes me feel no greater or less than anyone else and, yet a fact that I feel confers on me responsibilities beyond what would otherwise be my own human and natural desires for self-aggrandizement.

A Tie That Binds

I had lived my entire life without any major health concern but I never considered myself invincible.  I considered myself fortunate because I was, and remain, very conscious of my humanity, with all of the attendant frailties. Also, I have been around long enough to know that being human is a tie that binds. That tie binds me with so many that have died, including those who died young during the period since I have been alive.  One of those is my mother who died at age 36.  I consider every breath that I take and every wakeful moment in my life to be a significant blessing, since none of that happens because of me. Even that has taken on new (and perhaps urgent) significance for me as I have aged.  I do my best to approach each day knowing that every one of those days takes me closer to the end of my journey in this beautiful world.  More than ever, I find myself more comfortable now with knowing that the the day will come when I will no longer be counted among the living.  I must confess that I do not like that reality but it is one (possibly the only) area of life in which the embrace of helplessness is healthy.

Despite the careful manner in which I have generally attempted to live my life, I am not longer immune from the kinds of health challenges that most of us will confront at some point during our lives.  It was exactly a year ago that fate brought me in contact with the major health experience that I had never imagined and did not expect.  I did not dread the diagnosis, nor did I dread the treatment options that I was offered.  In retrospect, that was only due to multiple reasons, among which were the following:  First, I had a fair amount of time to prepare for the treatment because, for several months during which medical tests were performed for determination purposes, my doctors carried me along by sharing with me every piece of information about their findings and listening to my questions and treatment preferences.  Second, I am blessed to live in a country with superb medical facilities and physician acumen.  Third, I had very significant support from the areas of my life where it really mattered. 

Then came exactly a year ago and I had to walk alone in and out of a major surgical procedure for this medical condition with which, just like many men around the world, I had become afflicted.  For someone who had never spent a day on admission in any hospital and had never had a surgical procedure performed on him, this was a very significant challenge but not for reasons that I or anyone could have anticipated. The seriousness of the surgery notwithstanding, such procedures are now routine; thanks to the incredible medical advances from which we benefit in the United States.  However, the initial post-surgery period produced experiences that were uncertain, confusing, fearful at times, humbling and fraught with powerlessness and gratitude as I realized how potentially close I got to that life-state that had previously been unthinkable and for which I could not truly say I was prepared.

Most people who know me well will find out about this experience for the first time, as they read this or hear this episode of my podcast.  That is because it was never in my plans to discuss this experience. It is also the case that, until now, I have discussed this health experience with only very few people for obvious reasons.  Many other people will consider it shocking that I would be so open in this forum because I am generally a very private person.  Well, there are reasons why I had not spoken or written about this previously and why I am doing so now.  One, I did not want anyone to feel sorry for me rather than focusing on the miracle of my recovery and the lessons to be learned from the experience.  Second, I wanted to spend time in the mental and spiritual zones to which this experience had transported me without losing sight of the significance of silence and the potential distractions of noise.

Now, I have chosen to write and speak about this publicly for the following reasons: First, having been blessed with the opportunity of communication platforms such as I have, I realize that I have a responsibility to encourage all men to pay strict attention to all issues relating to men’s health.  This means having a primary physician, recognizing those health challenges to which men are prone, undergoing all medical evaluations when due, and complying with all medical recommendations when prescribed.  Second, it is time for men and women to clear out of their minds the traditional myths about what causes specific illnesses and learn the true causes and treatment of whatever symptoms they may be experiencing at any given time.  Third, people are dying in large numbers in developing countries because of poor access to good medical care.  All of us who have the means and influence to effect some improvement in healthcare in such societies, even at the most basic levels, should actively do so.  Fourth, all men who have experienced any form of illness that strikes men should speak and teach about their experiences.  Women should also learn and be ready to speak and teach openly about their own health experiences.  By so doing, we can save one another’s lives. Finally, men who think that they cannot suffer from major illness are inadvertently digging their own graves because we are all susceptible to illness.  Being in denial of any symptoms only speeds up the process of dying. 

It has not been my desire to present this health challenge that I experienced as more serious than it actually was because I know that it could have been much worse.  Yet, I am conscious of the fact that one never really knows how another experiences periods of loneliness, helplessness and pain.  Everyday, I think about the very supportive people in my life who carried me through that period which, thanks to great medical care and support, was very brief but also very significant.  Often, I wish there were stronger words of appreciation than “thank you” but I also know that some ways that I can show my gratitude are to always remember to live in daily recognition that I was not responsible for my own recovery and to do my part in lightening humanity’s burden until the bell tolls for me.

The Triumph of Darkness

We can no longer deny the overwhelming presence and power of darkness in a world that needs light now more than ever.  I do not dispute the claim that the triumph of darkness, if that ever occurs, can only be temporary and that light does eventually win.  However, I dispute the idea that darkness can never triumph over light because it does. Those who have not yet seen, or have not been cognizant of the state of our current world, are still allowed to downplay the presence and power of darkness, but only until they can sincerely reclaim and exercise their God-given ability to be self-conscious.  Then they can also embrace the responsibility that we all have to affirm and deal sincerely with the awful state of the world in which we now live.

There is light; but then there is darkness.  To the extent that we believe that darkness represents something bad and light represents only good, it seems to me that humanity’s entire existence has largely been a battle to suppress darkness in myriad forms - darkness in our physical lives, our spiritual lives, our personal and/or professional lives, our family and community lives...our national lives. Every time it appears that light and its purveyors have won, darkness comes sweeping egregiously to the fore, aided by people and circumstances that give it roots and nurture. So, it becomes very hard for mere humans to understand and make sense of the dizzying realities of a life and world that they hardly understand.   

We are all subject to the vagaries of life and none is free from them; nor does any know what afflicts the other better than he/she who is afflicted. However, even for the afflicted, a presence of self is often required to be able to see clearly through the haze of darkness that tends to accompany many human experiences.  

The 19th Century philosopher, Jacques Rousseau summed this up perfectly when, in the opening statement of The Social Contract, he wrote that “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains”.  If anyone has ever considered those words quaint, time-constrained or anachronistic, the world in which we have lived over the last century has proven that what is indeed anachronistic and shortsighted is the very idea that anyone may have that Rousseau may have looked in the wrong crystal ball. 

Hunger, poverty, strife, disease, fraud, deceit and bigotry are ravaging societies around the world. We are destroying our environment, oppressing the less privileged, stealing from others and selling them the false idea that they can only experience light if they give the little that they have to increase the already-saturated bank accounts of their oppressors.  Elected officials are taking earned privileges away from ordinary citizens that they are supposed to protect and some of us maintain cheerleading roles for those officials despite knowing in our hearts that they are wrong. Therefore, we side with dishonesty at the expense of honesty; with theft instead of recompense; and with hate instead of love. These are all representations of darkness and the fact that they are spreading like wildfire concerns me greatly - and I am not alone. 

It seems to me there is a pall of darkness hovering over our world.  How else does one explain the ascent to power of so many dictators who have no regard for human life? Why is our world currently experiencing the rise of bigoted and xenophobic people in so many corridors of power?  Why do we keep quiet when so many women and children in our world are in constant danger of injury at the hands of people who ought to protect them? Why are houses of worship serving as auction houses for the clerics who lead them?  Why are wicked, unconscionable and lying bigots taking over the reins of power in countries where that was previously unimaginable? Why is violence being increasingly perpetrated in immeasurable proportions while the powerful watch from their glass houses and do nothing to remedy the situation?  Why is it that people who once told us that some behaviors were wrong now tell us that the same behaviors are right? Why do people who once preached love now practice hate? Why is lying now celebrated above truth telling in high places, even by people who put themselves out as arbiters of morality?  Why are humans so increasingly judgmental even at a time when one would imagine that we know much more about each other and should understand the value and power of acceptance? Why is “otherism” a growing phenomenon when mutual understanding and tolerance should predominate? I do not know the answer to any of these questions but it seems to me that across and within this disheartening trend lies a common denominator that can be summed up in one word: darkness

Despite my lack of answers, however, I think about these things because I want to understand them even as my mind tells me that I cannot because I am only human.  Yet, although I am conscious of my fallibility and frailties, I am also concerned about the world in which my grandchildren will live. I am concerned that our world is getting darker as hope increasingly fades in the minds and projections of those of us who want very much to think that the world about which we dreamed may not have been utopian but was at least possible.  As we destroy our environment, hate one another, kill the idea of selflessness, embrace religion while we abandon even the spiritual foundations of the religions that we profess, turn our backs on our mirrors and close the windows into our hearts, I am bothered about the future of this otherwise beautiful world.

Even now, I am bothered by the fact that I live in a world in which darkness in so many forms has increasingly taken residence but I am more bothered by the fact that too many people are silent at best, while many others that one once considered to be advocates of goodness have become complicit trumpeters of hate as our world marches toward doom.  Hate, dishonesty and oppression are not virtues by any standards and nobody is a paragon of virtue whose character can be described by any of these characteristics, regardless of the status of that individual in any society. Those who are complicit in the expressions of these characteristics are just as guilty in darkening our world.

For God’s sake, let us take a breath and re-evaluate what we are doing.  We need to be messengers of good, carriers of love and agents of light to halt the powerful force of darkness and assure the triumph of light in a world that so desperately needs it.

 

Chasing hope

My father had it all laid out. He hoped that at least one of his children would become a medical doctor, one would become an engineer and one would become an attorney. At some point in my life, he hoped that I would be the attorney. I hoped that I would become a biochemist, though I didn’t quite know what a biochemist did. So, I spent years planning to become something that I knew very little about, in the hope that I could develop all necessary skills and will myself to a dream that I now know was neither necessary nor possible.  For those years, I chased hope, and on many occasions in my life, I have chased hope, thinking that I could turn an obvious impossibility into a possibility, listening to my heart even at times when I should have been listening to my head, and listening to my head when I should have been listening to my heart. The reality that I struggle to accept is the totality of my humanity which, by its very nature, makes me as imperfect as I truly am; my existence in an imperfect human body that struggles with the realization that some things may never be possible, however much I desire them.  Yes, the realization that I am not half-man but all-man, and my hopes, therefore, may not always land on a bull’s eye.

Hmmm...I know. How dare I, an American, say that something is (or was) impossible when that would be contrary to the American ethic and belief that anything is possible if one sets his/her mind to it? Or, how could I, a Christian of African descent, be  expressing something that is contrary to the Christian belief that all things are possible? Well, I am not delusional. I have a very good understanding of the specific context in which the Christian idea that all things are possible was first used. I am not Abraham and this is not that context. I also clearly understand the whole idea of self-motivation to propel oneself to success. However, I am not inclined toward senselessly casting myself as a superhero or as one with powers that reside only in the domain of the Almighty.  Why is it that I can never stay up for several nights in a row without sleep when I feel a need to do so to complete projects that I am working on? Well, some things are possible and other things aren’t. That’s exactly a fact of life. It would be great if I could be a soccer player now and dazzle the world with skills never seen on the World Cup stage. But that will never happen because, at my age coupled with my history of never having before been a skilled soccer player, it is impossible. Only a delusional mind or a baselessly hopeful individual would say otherwise.

So, we grow up hoping to be something that we are unlikely to ever become either because we do not have the skills, the resources or the opportunity, or we just don’t work hard enough to translate hope into the kind of action that produces desired results.  Even when these elements are present in our lives, we sometimes do not accomplish some of the most life-fulfilling things we hope for because realizing certain hopes depends on the cooperation of someone else. So, even when we hope alone, our hope can falter on its way to realization because it was a hope that needed someone else to play a role in the aspect of our lives covered by that hope. What do we say then when this is the case?  Do we fold and give up on our hopes, modify those hopes or keep hoping? Of course, it depends on the circumstances and the players in that space. Those who genuinely love us, and who we truly love, will always be the dependable collaborators and support that we need in our travels down the lanes of hope, even when we feel that they no longer earn the quality relationship that we had with them.

In our youth, we think we have the world all figured out and we know what our elders don’t know, even though the elders know everything that we know, and more.  The cockiness that is associated with, and attends to hope is more evident in youth, but also in states of ignorance. In our youth, we hope to grow into careers, earn enough money to have very comfortable or, in some cases, lavish living.  We hope to be richer, more successful overall, and worldlier than the older people that we know, including our parents.  As ignorant adults, we hope that everything we choose to do will result in the outcome that we desire, either forgetting or not realizing that hope is only one step in the pursuit of attainment.

Hope is not reality. It is a wish to accomplish a higher level in whatever life situation we desire to change. We wish because we are human and we hope because, again as humans, we are conscious of the possibilities that exist in the environments and spaces in which we live and act. That consciousness creates in us aspirational tendencies, which we can have.  However, we are not granted the ability, nor are we subject to the wishful circumstances in which hope automatically converts itself to gain. The world in which that is possible does not exist because, although we may hope alone, we do not live alone in our world. Instead, we live in a world where we see and know other people who have attained the kinds of quality of life that we admire and desire for ourselves.  Ours is a big world in which we love and maintain connections with others at whom we may sometimes get angry and disappointed but are nonetheless important to us and are in our lives for a purpose. Yes, we live in a world in which our ability to succeed often requires our understanding of, and our willingness to embrace our interconnectedness.

We spend much of our lives chasing hope and less of it evaluating and/or re-evaluating the substance of our hopes.  Yet, some hopes are baseless because the ingredients to support them are either completely absent or insufficient in our lives or around us.  For hope to be realistic and realizable, it must have a basis. Baseless hope may have the same emotional effects that hope of any kind naturally generates but, ultimately, it is of no greater value and of no more significance than shifting sands.  To that extent, hope that is not, or cannot be framed on or within a structure is only a wish; a baseless one.

The same principle is true for individuals as it is for communities and nations.  It is not an accident that most ultra-religious nations in today’s world are failed states. They are filled with clerics and political operatives who push hope while filling their pockets with money from the hopeful.  While they are doing that, less-religious countries are developing their societies on well-constructed and realistic hope. Such is the hope that is attended by selflessness, a sense of responsibility, a desire to create a better world for posterity and now, and an understanding that those who push hope without providing the support needed for its realization are fraudulent cultivators of wishful thinking.

We must desist from spending so much of our lives chasing hope and spend more of our time planning realistically because an unstructured chase makes elusive even the otherwise possible. While we hope, we must also build the infrastructure for the realization of those hopes. Since hope is not static, the chasing of it ought to be strategic. Otherwise, we hope in vain.

 

When All We Do Is Sit, We Fall

Dietrich Boenhoeffer was a German pastor who lived from February 4, 1906 until April 9, 1945. As a young boy, he witnessed World War I from 1914 to 1918.  He also saw the beginning of World War II but not its  end.  He had been arrested in 1943 because he stood for something and he was executed by the Nazis on April 9, 1945 - five months before the end of the War.  By standing and fighting against the Hitler’s Nazi regime’s euthanasia program and genocidal acts against the Jews, Boenhoeffer stood for humanity and for the best potential values of mankind.  He actively stood for life, love, freedom, peace and justice..  In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, published in 1937, Dietrich Boenhoeffer foresaw and lamented the cheapening and selling of grace, which is now what we see in today’s world.  He also stood for the idea that Christians and the church ought to see themselves as the moral conscience of a society in which injustice was rampant.  Certainly, the Church has lost its way.  But that is not what this piece is about.  It is about the value of standing.

I have been thinking of Dietrich Boenhoeffer lately.  If I was asked to weigh in with an opinion about this life and the value of his body of work before now, I would most likely have described him simply a visionary who may have lived before his time.  But for that to be the conclusive commentary on his life would not be doing justice to the memory of such a remarkable man.  Boenhoeffer stood for something and was murdered for what he stood for, which was the right of all humans to live without being persecuted and/or killed because of their race, ethnicity or religion.

How far have we really come from the time of Boenhoeffer?  We live in the same world into which he was born and raised; the same world where he was murdered for standing up against the persecution and killings of fellow humans.  Against all odds, he spoke truth to power because he could not bear to be a cheerleader for injustice.  So, how far have we really come from the time of Boenhoeffer? I don’t know because, as I think of the times that we are in, it seems to me that ours is a topsy-turvy world in which the idea of progress is really a mirage.  It appears to me that the more it appears that we have made progress in our ability to achieve and show practical demonstrations of love and compassion in our world, the more it seems that things are actually regressing, or remaining the same at best.     

We have mastered the art of beating down people that we dislike, some for no reason that makes sense.  Yet, no human should have the authority to be judge, jury and executioner over a fellow man.  Religious texts are used to support oppression, stealing from the poor, and casting others as inferior and beneath human.  We condemn others, not because there is a divine instruction to condemn them but because they do not fit into our prescribed rules of conduct.  So we fish out the Holy Book of whatever religion we practice and twist the words to support our hunger for judgement.  When any of us uses the Holy Book of our religion, any religion, as a cudgel to whip others that we disagree with because we have determined that they are sinners, we become present-day persecutors and deny both the humanity of our brothers and sisters and the existence and power of grace.  When we do that, we actually suggest by our deeds that others are unworthy of love, liberty or even life because we are perfect and they are not. 

If I sound pessimistic or concerned, it is only because I choose reality over baseless optimism While I perceive of the former as honest, the latter, to my mind, represents nothing more than the acceptance of crumbs thrown down by oppressors who know and expect that the rest of society would be happy to pick up and perceive those crumbs as brownies.  Now, we have mostly become carnival barkers for people who use their power and authority as guillotines for dehumanizing and destroying others.  Therefore, we allow a few powerful people to pick winners and losers among us and, in that role, determine who should live and who should die; who should have the opportunities for gainful participation in a prosperous social and political economy and who shouldn’t; who should have a right to good medical care, affordable housing and food security, and who shouldn’t; which immigrants from what parts of the world should have a right to keep their children and which immigrants should have their children forcibly taken from them and put in cages where powerful people would not even put their dogs.  The same powers determine what countries should sit at the table when major decisions are made even on matters that affect the entire world, and what countries should be excluded from the opportunity to determine their future. 

But it is not at the macro level where we ought to always focus and either complain or act.  It is also, and in fact mostly, at the micro level of society where individuals oppress their neighbors or even people that they do not know.  The world needs communities of active change agents who understand that we each have a responsibility to be loving and compassionate to one another.  Silence in the face of cruelty is not the best antidote for a world that is increasingly riddled with acts of wickedness that are occurring in the homes that we know, in our neighborhoods, our communities and our nations.  We cannot change our world unless we are ready, willing and able to change ourselves. 

The problem isn’t always that we vocalize support for cruel acts perpetrated by our neighbors but that we stay silent when we should speak up; defend oppressors when we should be advocating for the oppressed and, in some cases, rationalize wicked acts by the powerful either because we are afraid to defend what is right or because we truly believe that those wicked acts are necessary to maintain the illusions that we hold about our own relevance.  Sometimes, we remain silent because we believe that our own status and security are best guaranteed when we do not protest the injustice that happens to others.  Of course, times also abound when we stay quiet because we consider the oppressed as the “other”.  Well, I happen to believe that Thomas Paine was right when he said that “He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself”. History is replete with accounts of oppressors against whom the tides turned even in their own lifetimes.  That isn’t ancient history; I know because I have seen that repeated several times even in my own lifetime. 

Certainly, our world would greatly benefit from individuals and communities that carry with them lights of compassion and courage. While we can sit with bowels full of thoughts and compassion, it takes more than thoughts and compassion to stand from our seats of comfort to accomplish the kinds of changes that positively impacted our world in the past - and still do in small doses.  It also takes standing up; standing for something.  Society stands still at best, or regresses at the worst when all we do is sit.  Nobody’s freedom or national independence has ever been attained because people sat.  We must all decide to do more than sit because the conveyance of hope demands that we take a stand, and then stand up.  Robert Kennedy was right when he said that “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance”.  We fall, and our world falls, when all we do is sit.