The Semblance of Thought

 

Sometimes circumstances conspire to lead us in a direction. Such relevant circumstances currently include the following:

So, I find myself inspired, in the manner of bloggers everywhere, to share my thoughts in the middle of the night.   

 

The Speech. 

 

After giving a particularly rousing presentation to the Eden Prairie Rotary club, I was asked to present to a high school mentorship program, a collaboration of a couple of high schools in the West Metro. I happily agreed, and then learned that they already had a speaker scheduled to discuss business ethics. They needed me to talk about leadership and making a change in the world. By the way, I was reminded, keep it relevant and engaging for high school students.

 

Yikes.

 

I’ve had plenty of practice talking about ethical leadership, mostly within the context of business or non-profit organizations, entirely about realizing a commitment to social responsibility – to doing good, to improving the world, or at least some corner, nook, or cranny of it – in ways that benefit the organization, too. While I find the reasons and methods for doing so endlessly fascinating and boundlessly motivating, I have no reason to believe that my young friends will feel the same. 

 

Making a difference in the world. Heavens to murgatroid.

 

As I ponder the notion of leadership writ large, I am confronted by a notion, possibly inspired through the mists of time (and other mystifying factors) by the political philosopher Hannah Arendt.   That notion concerns the peculiar and powerful nature of human action. Action!  Let us think of action as the intentional, public, sustained direction of energy to achieve a change in the world.

If effective action is noteworthy, it is also, it seems, increasingly rare. The forces arrayed against taking action are vast. First, there is the challenge of truly knowing what to change: what problem to address, what opportunity to realize. Then, there is the burning question of what to do. Does choosing “paper” rather than “plastic” really help global warming? Is burning ethanol better than gasoline, or do the energy inputs to grow, harvest, and distill grain, combined with the impact of food prices, make ethanol fuel a wash or worse? Who can I trust to tell me? 

 

Indeed, there’s a bigger question: are those choices really ACTION? I would argue that they are behaviors, things we do, but not truly actions in this richer sense. That doesn’t make them bad. If lots of people engage in those behaviors, if lots of people choose fluorescent tubes rather than incandescent bulbs and lots of people truly drive less, whatever their fuel choice, a difference will be made, but by whom?  Is it action?

 

We measure behaviors through the tools of social science: polling, observing, measuring how people respond to stimuli and move through their days. We remember and take note of actions because they stand out as decisive, and they make a difference. The differences need not be global or massive in scope: we may be moved by the actions of a local leader, or a work colleague who truly acts to make a difference I the lives of others. I’m inspired by volunteers who act together to change the lives of those who need help in so many ways.

 

From the perspectives of the high school student, I imagine that figuring out what to do and how to act are significant challenges. We all face a more insidious challenge, as well: the seduction of inaction. We have many, many devices and practices in our lives that make it far too easy, too comfortable, to sit still.   Instead of acting, we can simply be entertained, anywhere.

 

To achieve a truly epic level of sedation, we have developed epic modesof entertainment. Indeed, even the phrase, “epic modes of entertainment,” is interesting: epics, as a genre, depict action. The Iliad, The Ten Commandments, Gettysburg. Now we can imagine acting, while we observe the imagined actions of others, and are acted upon by a stunning range of media. I recently saw a minivan advertised with dual rear DVD players. Presto! The kids don’t even have to agree on what to watch, and nobody has to talk to anybody. I hate to sound like a geezer here, but watching in the car used to involve only the windows, and it was a good thing to do during and in between – gasp – conversations. As a parent, car time with kids can be awesome, the conversations extremely enjoyable, helpful, even memorable and formative. Teaching kids, just actively sharing with kids, and listening carefully to them, is action.

 

I’m not a Luddite. I have an iPod, and I’m not afraid to use it. I have watched Paul and Paulie build many an American Chopper without picking up a wrench myself.  But increasingly, I am recognizing that entertainment can seduce us away from action, and the more passive the mode of entertainment, the harder it seems to be to shake off the stupor and engage the world.

 

Now, if I can find a way to communicate some of those concepts without sounding like an epic bore or a self-righteous nag, I might have a reasonable speech for next week.

 

I wonder if there’s anything on TV at this hour…