I’m Not A Cockeyed Optimist, Though I Aspire To Be One

I wish I could be an unflappably, buoyant optimist, one who stood strong against the daily bafflements of the world around me. But I have a lot of hours, a lot of days of complete and total “chicken little” worry. Which, considering the state of our current world affairs, is kind of normal; not constructive, but entirely normal. What helps is hearing an “everything will be alright” kind of message from someone, somewhere.

Recently, I ran across The Message in a couple of different places – one, a book review from last spring that I saved, and only found recently. The other from an email list I’m on. They both popped out in front of me as these things are wont to do, with perfect timing Herewith:

Paul Hawken’s most recent book is, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. Hawken is an environmentalist, educator, lecturer, entrepreneur, journalist, and best-selling author. Fundamentally, Blessed Unrest is a description of humanity's collective genius, and the unstoppable movement to reimagine our relationship to the environment and one another.

Hawkin explains: “The whole book, really, is about a rise of a movement that is a shift between a world created by, and for, privilege to a world created by community, and it details the rise of over one million organizations in the world who address civil liberties, social justice and the environment. And even though they’re atomized and there’s many of them and they don’t seem connected, due to modern technology—cell, texting, internet—they’re starting to intertwine, morph and come together in ways that is making it much more powerful than it has been before.”

And this from San Francisco Gate and San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Mark Morford:

"Stop thinking this is all there is. Realize that for every ongoing war and religious outrage and environmental devastation and bogus Iraqi attack plan, there are a thousand counter-balancing acts of staggering generosity and humanity and art and beauty happening all over the world, right now, on a breathtaking scale, from flower box to cathedral......Resist the temptation to drown in fatalism, to shake your head and sigh and just throw in the karmic towel.
Realize that this is the perfect moment to change the energy of the world, to step right up and crank your personal volume; right when it all seems dark and bitter and offensive and acrimonious and conflicted and bilious... there's your opening.
Remember magic! And, finally, believe you are part of a groundswell, a resistance, a seemingly small but actually very, very large impending karmic overhaul, a great shift, the beginning of something important and potent and unstoppable."