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Topic #159
If you could make one change in the
world, what would it be?
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This is a huge question. Imagine being faced with the possibility that you could change something in the world. What would you do? Would you pick something that would affect/effect the masses or go with something more local? Does the choice tell us if we’re good or bad people, either?
What if we chose to do something that would change the world for just one person? But the ripples that would ride outward from that one act would then impact a large portion of humanity. For instance, what if we went back in time and gave Charles Manson a loving mother? Would he have turned out the same. Psychiatrists say that psychopaths are born that way, but what if the way we are raised, how we are treated, is what determines the severity of the personality disorder? Imagine that for one moment. Sharon Tate would have lived, and the others that were with her. Her child could have been anyone, having a great impact on either art, science, or politics. There is no way to tell. Roman Polanski may have not turned into the utter shit he did turn into. The people that Manson influenced may not have become tools used to commit terrible acts. Thus, everyone single person they ever poisoned by their presence, would not have been negatively affected.
Certainly it is possible that one of the Manson Family members would have hooked up with some other group and performed atrocities that way. It is also true that if Manson was a true psychopath, which we can be certain he was, that he would have still harmed someone somehow.
So, can we ever be certain that the power to change something in the world would matter enough to use such power? That’s where I get rubbery in the legs. What if the choice I make hurts someone? When posed with these questions, I freeze a little, unable to answer with all the what ifs pinging about my brain.
If we could make the choice in a simulation, then it would make me feel better about choosing. That said, we’d be here forever, waiting on the computer to run the numbers on all the scenarios. They’re fast, but such an undertaking could still keep a processor busy for months? Years?
Contrariwise, we like to think that decisions we make everyday don’t have the same types of ripples stretching forever onward through the world. We can easily say, I’d leave that up to others to decide, because I’m not having the fall out written on my tombstone. Sure. But, not taking responsibility still makes you culpable. It really does.
There are so many things to change in the world: hate, famine, fear, waste, pestilence, ignorance… What can you truly justify above the other?
Kindness.
I’d choose kindness, because, like in my example above, kindness can go a long way to framing another person’s choices in the future. One act of kindness can save a life. It will ripple through the world, touching others and igniting a wave of like acts. If we each acted with kindness, instead of delving into the anger, fear, and hatred that we harbor in our guts, the world would be changed profoundly.
Want would not exist.
Things would get done.
Care would be common place.
I wonder, though, would we be so bored, that someone would choose to change one thing about the world, and bring back misery?
Let’s hop on over and see what wish for the world that the other authors might grant…
Kindness starts in childhood, and for a child to be brought up in a loving home by kind parents. Who knows what kind of childhood Charles Manson had? Ooh-er, a terrible one methinks…
They talk about his history on the documentaries about him. His mother was very abusive, as were other adults in his life. Those people definitely contributed to what he became, but personality disorders/types are part of the brain development in utero–not developed by social interaction, I mean. They are honed by it, to a certain extent, but psychopaths are born…sadly…I hope research proves that wrong one day, and empathy can be obtained by all. I can’t imagine being unable to understand that others have feelings/emotions and that they matter.
Kindness would be a great change. And maybe instead of being bored, people would have time to be more creative and solve more problems and explore our world more.
I definitely hope I’d be wrong about humanity getting bored by kindness. Most would likely not be bored by a nice, comfortable world, but there are those who would be driven mad by it.