We will, collectively, it seems, let our shared pot of water almost boil before acting to stop it. Is this tendency in our DNA? The mere thought of leaping from the warming water into the unknown causes fearfully emptied store shelves and the helpless simply hoping for numb. Change is violence to the safety of our routines, no matter how sick these routines may make us. Voices of care for the poor and planet are drowned by louder cries from threats believed to be more pressing. The fears of tomorrow preempt the fears of next year. But next year will come, it always does.
Individually we know and lament this. But our waters and resources are shared, as is the will to collectively act for change.
When we all finally move together to change, no one person will have caused it, it will be the outcome of our collective will, the first roiling boils leaping at our heels as we jump.
So, with weary sighs, we hope for and encourage change while appreciating the absurdity of needing to.
The world groans, as one writer put it…