Build your capacity to take action by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps
Inane advice for the modern world or the only way out of the mess?
Society, community, and environment are huge influences on what is possible and not possible for each of us at this moment of our lives. None of us is a self-made person because we all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, the privileges of our birth and the random luck of our lives. It takes community, connection, and cooperation to build and maintain a great society — a society in which everyone can thrive and those that fall are caught. [Thanks to Aaron McClure for the inspiration to write this piece.]
We (you and I) can act to change our society, to seek to make it a better place. While we may never create Utopia, we can create societies that are far from dystopian, societies in which few are without boots and in which those who fall are caught.
Meanwhile, we have the society we have, we have the community we have, and we have the environments (at scales from the room to earth) we have. We are historical beings each with a past that explains who and where we are at this moment of our life. While we can reinterpret the meaning we ascribe to past events, we cannot change the facts of the past.
