12/31/2021
On the Shoulders of Heroes
Even when homo sapiens were hunter-gatherers, made everything from scratch, washed and made their own clothing by hand they were not as busy as we are today. When their normal routines were disrupted, forcing them to pay attention to things bigger than themselves, things that impacted more than their small slice of a valley or mountain top, threatening the very existence of all they had come to know, they banded together to take on the challenge ensuring a future for generations yet to come.
Before the convenience of prepared foods, clothing purchased off a rack, cars, and the speed of a world run by technology the bigger things were easier to see. It was not as easy to be blinded by self-importance. Being busy with survival reminded our ancestors of the fragility of an unforgiving world.
With blasting and blaring of never-ending, real and fake, information cycles… so much screaming makes everything important so that nothing is important. We reside in siloed worlds more sheltered than the towers and motes protecting thick-walled feudal castles. Even with greater mobility and access to knowledge we seem more self-focused and less open to what goes on around us.
In today’s world, even the poorest have more than our forbearers could imagine. We waste without a thought, pollute without awareness, and almost consciously surrender our hard-earned right to self-government, our very democracy, because we are too busy to pay attention to the threatening signs all around us, even as Gabriel sounds his horn.
What you do is important, but will it matter to those who overturn our democracy? Will they care about the environment, education, healthcare, poverty, women, children, disabilities, justice, leadership, and other issues and ideas that keep you engaged day and night? Without your pathway to freedom, without holding on to the inalienable rights bestowed upon us, what does the future of busy look like? How free will you be in a world free-of-freedom?
Prophets across time were rejected but movements grew from their determination. Religions, social, political, economic, and cultural change birthed new nations, ways of thought, new understandings of what it meant to be human. When they started, they walked alone, in our fast-paced world we do not have the luxury of our ancestors to ignore their message. So much of what we hold dear is on the line and it is the busy ones amongst us with the most to lose.
Accept this moment of inconvenience, take a chance to live outside your silo. Save what is the last great hope of freedom; build that democratic, resilient, inclusive, responsive, human rights focused world where your priorities are everyone’s priorities and dignity is not a gift but a right. As the calendar page turns, the hourglass drains of sand, and the world as we know it shifts with the tides. Stand with me on the shoulders of heroes.
Robert Kesten 12-30-21
