Change Matters

- on support of the subversive

TROUBLE AND STRIFE
Things change. Cities expand, technology develops, climate alters, people die. As such, we need people who can engage with the implications. Those who can explore and navigate, and project on how things will be. Regulations of society and habits of people become fixed, or change very slowly, in contrast to aspects of society which can change very rapidly. The consequent rift is at best a missed opportunity, and at worst a threat to society, so who will recognise when the context changes that originally brought about those regulations and habits?

The rich palimpsest of society becomes unstable if the accretions of those layers are not bonded together. The ‘subversive’ is the basis for the main ingredient which becomes the glue that holds, and links, subsequent layers together. Those who are often held to be ‘rebellious’ or ‘subversive’ elements, have aspects of their personality that question the way things are.

If this critical rejection of convention matures into a well considered idea of how an aspect of how we live will change or can be improved, then we have something that is of great value, which should be supported, even earlier on when that tendency may still manifest as ‘toublesome’. But not everyone will develop the skills and wherewithal to pursue and achieve such ends. Usually as we become older, most conform to the norms of the social environment around us.

So how can we distinguish what may become something interesting, and what is just teenage angst? We cannot. But, we can provide opportunities and environments where such behaviour is less abrasive, and where these tendencies can be explored for their underlying impetus and given space to evolve.

IN YA’ FACE INTERFACE
Whilst ultimately integral, societal interface explored as distinct from inner frustration, would allow separate tendencies to be temporarily isolated to see them more clearly. Young people should be given better opportunities to explore their interface with society, in different arenas and at different scales – people, family, neighbours, strangers, authority. This can operate alongside their ‘own’ development, which is more about exploring inner frustrations, with parameters rather than limits (in most quarters). This perception of inner and outer self is of early Christian origin, so very deeply embedded in our cultural psyche, as distinct from the ancient Greek notions of sophrosyne and poiesis which enabled a well integrated society, with a refined sense of civic and community; something mostly lost to us.

In this way we may see more positive manifestation rather than negative outpouring, with development of latent skills and discovery and refinement of natural tendencies. We are seeing the results of not giving young people appropriate outlets, particularly young men. As such, we are losing out on the full range of diverse individuals, as well as, more bureaucratically, less taxes from people not fulfilling their potential.

A bridge could be established by acknowledging that people need to recognise and consider changes in our society, and linking it to a mentoring system, that can create and establish these environments where early frustrations can be refined into something more tangible.

As I have said before, young people seem more often talked about, rather than to. Such programmes as outlined above would acknowledge this lack, and also address the need to complement the reduction of the sense of civic, with it’s concomitant reduction in public investment, as private interests come to the fore and increasingly dominate thinking.

SAMSARA Vs MOKSHA
The path of life can take many forms, but human nature, understandably, tends to default to non-action, so many paths go untrodden.

Change is precipitated in life by a fork in the road of the path our life travels; it can be passed by and ignored, but in a sense to pass a fork is to choose. It is not always a clear fork: sometimes we travel a path too quickly, and miss paths that are more hidden, off to the side; or at a busy crossroads, with many people to distract us and prevent us from seeing clearly.

The influence of others is something to be engaged with; we perhaps only really control half of what we do. We should be open to the influence of what that other half may bring. When things do not work out exactly as we had hoped, it is not necessarily a bad thing. It depends on our outlook and attitude to change.

It is not about choosing the path we are on, but understanding why we are on that path. If we do, when a fork in the road approaches, we naturally tend the right way.

When we are at ease in our life; familiar with the situation of our family and community; unthinking about the routine that has established, the ‘weight’ that we feel is light. As some things become abandoned, or they sit outside our recognisable environs - the parameters of our conscious existence, so the ‘weight’ increases. The discovery of new or abandoned things can be both interesting and rewarding. Sometimes we chance across such things, but a concerted search for such things will take us into unfamiliar territory, and many people from the world behind will reciprocate when we turn our back on them to walk away.

PERSPECTIVE SHIFT
We can be different things, even at the same time, and we can change; it is not true that a leopard doesn’t change their spots: The context of our life can have a significant influence on how we act and what we say – essentially who we are, as far as how we are perceived.

As we mature, we are perceived from a different context, but also from a perspective that context has less of an influence on us as we continuously explore ourselves through interactions and exchanges, and come to know what we do not believe, what we do not like, what we are not good at – this being part of realising what we do believe, like or are good at.

Some embrace change, others cling to the status quo, and only change when it is forced upon them. A balance between the two would be less polarised. Sometimes major change is forced upon us – do we resist or do we embrace? It depends; surely we should consider the implications of our actions and test our thoughts against our own beliefs and opinions, and of those we love and those who are worthy of respect.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Sometimes the price of change can be too high. Whilst I would advocate change as a default or at least an active mode of thought to counter continuation of the status quo without questioning evolving context, change is not always good. North America has been, both recently (although more recently Obama is changing the present – he seems intelligent, considered, and thoughtful) and consistently through the last century, a de-stabilising influence across the world: from the effects of greed through commercial endeavours, to the acts of war and clandestine terrorism committed in pursuit of those ends – if you are looking for the world’s number one terrorist, ‘Dr’ Henry Kissinger has to be your man.

‘From each according to their ability; to each according to their need.’
- Marx