What If We Could Change the World?

“Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.” ~ Malala Yousafzai

“Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.” ~ George Lois

“It takes a different value system if you wish to change the world.” ~ Jacque Fresco

“We will leave a legacy, whether by choice or unconsciously. So why not intentionally create the legacy?” ~ Dr. Maria Church

Wow! What a tumultuous few days we’ve just lived through. For me it has been doubly so because of my gall bladder attack and trip to the hospital. All of which has caused me to do a great deal of soul searching.

I do not believe our physical ailments are hereditary. I think what Caroline Myss says is true, “our biography becomes our biology,” which means that my gall bladder was kindly telling me that I still have things to work out. Thank heaven it was only a gall bladder attack and nothing really serious. In meditation I’ve been asking to be shown what unhealed issues I have been hiding from myself. And little by little I’ve been getting answers. The first of which is, I’ve let all the societal turmoil get to me so that I’ve become angry while at the same time feeling helpless to effect any kind of real change. That’s not helpful so I’m working on that. Instead of worrying, I’m going with the flow right now to see what God has in mind rather than to try to make things come out the way I want them to. It’s a little bit of a balancing act.

I think similar wake up calls happen in society. Events slap us in the face with increasing rapidity to wake us up, to get us out of our complacency. And they keep happening until the day we pay attention and do something about them. So when bad things happen, like the shootings last week, I always try to figure out what I can do to help facilitate the change? How can I bring peace instead of violence and hatred? What keeps coming to me is to keep writing.

At first I thought that being a writer was kind of wimpy talent to offer to the problems of the world until the day after I got home from the hospital. Barry and I watched the movie Network. I had never seen it so when TCM had it on their schedule, I thought I’d watch it because it was made in 1976, another tumultuous time in our history. WOW! What a prophetic movie! If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you do. Screenwriter, Paddy Chayefsky, tells the story of how one network turns real news reporting into entertainment. “Sound familiar?” Host Ben Mankiewicz asked when introducing the film. Yeah!

Watching the movie got me to thinking that the 60s and 70s are kind of like one book end to the continuing progressive movement, with now as the other end. We had a lull there for a while, but you can’t cover up a festering wound and expect it to heal. We’re in the middle of ripping off the the overgrown skin and letting the putrid junk we tried to cover up seep out so the wound can truly heal.

So, my thinking was influenced by watching Network, but throughout the years I’ve read many thought provoking books and seen movies that make a statement about situations in our society that we can do something about. We just have to speak up and I’m excited to see that there are lots of people speaking up right now about all kinds of human rights issues. That gives me hope.

To do my part I’ll state right now that I support the rights of ordinary human beings to have a decent place to live, food on the table, a job they can be proud of with access to health care and proper education. In other words, I think we should take care of each other and not let corporations dictate what we can and can’t have. Ned Beaty gives a very chilling speech in Network that might just sound like a familiar mantra of some big business owners and conservative politicians. However, nothing stays the same and their days of control are numbered.

Because of who I am, I’m never going to be the writer who examines the dark side of life. Yes, dark things happen to people, but I want my characters to face the bad things that happen and allow themselves to heal and move on to a better life. That’s what my book, The Space Between Time is about. I want to be like Gene Roddenberry and write a version of society that some people call unrealistic because if I write a vision of the way we CAN live, and other authors do too, that’s one way to influence change. As Dumbledore says in Harry Potter And the Deathly Hallows, “Words, in my not so humble opinion, are our most inexhaustible source of magic.” I think so too because that’s how ideas are disseminated. So, read, watch, talk, and think.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment or share with a friend.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2016