Our world isn’t looking so good, though our view depends on where we stand in society. The atrocities that people suffer around the world at the hands of one another, or at the hands of Mother Nature, are hard to comprehend. But the minute digs (like paranoid actions because of the unknown) that we don’t notice are also doing equal damage to the way that we feel we should be allowed to live. Sometimes it takes enormous tragedy to get even the slightest bit of momentum forward to make change happen… simply because we can no longer stomach the way that we exist.
As a busy fan of Bones, it is sometimes much later when I can actually view a show. A particular show that took place in 2012, The Patriot in Purgatory, hit all of my buttons for reasons that had little to do with the main force that drove the exemplary Jeffersonian team to find out the truth about a man in the shadows. Not shadows as we’ve been hearing due to national security, but shadows as in someone who didn’t fit into our idea of who or what is acceptable. Take a brief glimpse at this short tribute done by LamaxProductions1 (courtesy of YouTube):
http://youtu.be/TrlJrsc1U9E
There were several important moments in this episode that helped to remind us of why being human holds its own strengths and weaknesses. Like the moments:
- When Arastoo told Brennan that it was his duty to help this one man swept under the rug get his moment of truth;
- And when an unthinking Finn asked if Arastoo would be fine continuing the examination of the homeless man he brought into the light, simply because of his beliefs;
- And when Fisher forced everyone to face the unspoken boogieman that no one wanted to admit to in his own “crazy” (his words) way;
- And finally when Booth choose to memorialize a man who continued to shape our world in his own way, even after the atrocities of war that he had experienced.
Watching the news everyday can make one go insane. The fact that people who are in leadership positions choose to ignore the inconvenient because it will shake the foundation they count on to stay solid. Or the fact that selfishness seems to be the underlying motivation to stop cooperation. Or even the fact that one specific view demands precedence over all else. And on and on and on…
It’s only moments when people push back against the accepted norm that we actually have a chance of making the world a better place. These so-called outlier personalities force us to face the uncomfortable truth that we have let this world fall apart for far too long. It has little to do with generations, because there are outliers in every generation. It’s more about how we each choose to raise and nurture our humanity.
There are those who want the world to be a better place, and their sense of justice permeates every atom in their being. It moves them to do things that others would call naive or insane because it’s not what everyone else would do. But it’s these moments of insanity that focuses the reality as though looking through a powerful microscope. When we strip away all of the dressing, we confront the truth as we see it. Both good and bad.
When others around us see this same truth, it becomes a new foundation on which to build the next iteration of life. Hopefully this iteration takes into account what we all as a single humanity desire more than all else. Hopefully it has nothing to do with power, wealth, personal security, or any of those other trappings that do so little to the actual nurturing of life in its entire complexity and mutual dependence on one another.
Here’s to another emotionally necessary reminder that we are all capable of shaping our world in our own way. But it’s together that we shape a future that respects all. Don’t listen to leadership words. Learn why they are spoken so that you get the ultimate lesson that life provides us on a daily basis. Word can become anchors when actions repeat without thought. But actions that have weighted thought behind them, that take everything into account, are what motivates others to follow. So we need to make our impactful actions live up to the thoughts behind the words. Because they all are shaping our world in a collective, maybe even exponential, way.
That’s your ( my, and our) legacy.
…just saying
