Ripples

[da]

Yesterday in Quaker Meeting, someone spoke about walking El Camino de Santiago. He saw wagon-tracks that initially looked like they were in mud, but on inspection, turned out to be worn into the stone. He said they also saw trees that he says were planted over 1,000 years ago. He concluded, "What impact could I have on the world that could last 1,000 years?"

This question can lead in all sorts of interesting directions. During Meeting, I was thinking how living with that as a guiding principle is invariably a recipe for Doing Nothing at All or ego-driven tilting at windmills. And simultaneously, I think there is value in being forward thinking; and there isn't harm in occasionally dreaming about the far future, even if it is hubris.

When I mentioned the original question to melted_snowball, he said nearly everyone's impact will be no more than the consumption of resources over their lifetime. This can be argued by looking at the number of people alive at any given time, and how relatively few people have an impact that we can see. (Right? Is that the best summary for that argument?)

My reaction was quite different. I say there are millions of effects we might not be able to directly attribute, but are still important. Granted, most of those effects couldn't be measured on the scale of a year or 100 years, let alone over the course of a millennium, but I say they exist. You might ask, "these effects are important in what way?" I would respond, either they're important to God; or they're just part of the bigger mystery. This is a common thread among mystics, I think, and one I can't find a good argument against.

At least, I think if one lives one's life as if any action could have an effect in a year, ten years, 100 years, it's good incentive toward wanting to be a better person.

I'd be fascinated to hear where this question leads you.

Comments

[ancawonka.livejournal.com]

I don't think we can know for certain what impact we will have 1000 years from now.

Our lives are made up of more than just the consumption of resources. Our impacts are not just on the world around us, but on the people in our lives, and the creations that live on beyond us to impact people in the future. A kind word or a curse has the impact of the famous butterfly flapping its wings.

Artifacts we leave after we are gone, whether they are ruts worn into stone or a shard of pottery depicting an everyday scene, are connections we can make with our past. They teach us of the continuity and evolution of humanity.

What we leave behind will either warn or delight our descendants.

[dpolicar]

In this context I'm usually a ripples man, myself. That is, things I do or don't do have a boundless series of consequences in terms of what the people I'm connected with do or don't do, which in turn affects what they do, and on and on. So, to some vanishingly small but nonzero degree, all of my actions affect everything we do on this planet, although none of them have a discretely measurable effect.

I find it's useful to live my life mindful of that interconnection.

ripples

[mapletree7.livejournal.com]

This is something I was thnking about in a slightly different context last week.

Dan and I went to see Steve Wozniak Friday night at UW.

I work with and go see a lot of famous people. Not a new experience. Dan, not so much. He got his old Apple II manual signed and said his mumbly inspiration bit and still felt vaguely dissatisfied.

There's a sad feeling you get when meeting someone who you admire greatly, who has affected the course of your life. They made such a big impact on you. But there's nothing you can say to them that will change their life, nothing that will be different from what they've heard from thousands of people before.

I'm glad you used the word 'ripples' because now I am visualizing it as a reflection of their action coming back to them.

Not everyone gets to be the stone chucked into the pond. Your positive interaction is still a gift back to that person, even if individually it won't have the same impact.

Every vote counts. Etc.

[dawn-guy.livejournal.com]

I need to make time to write a good response on this topic.

The Reader's Digest version is: at my best, I live as though my every thought and action changes the world; I have seen my words, actions and attitudes have lasting effect on others; I am just one person, but I am a person.