“You’re too young to realize how powerless you really are.” That’s what an anonymous poster had to say in response to J.D. Bryant’s column yesterday. Bryant, as I’m sure you faithful readers recall, was encouraging us to vote, because, he argued, it really does make a difference. And maybe this commenter was just talking about the ineffectiveness of voting, but it sounds like he (forgive the gender bias) wants to say more: that if you’re young and idealistic and you really believe that you have the power to change yourself and the world for the better, then you are completely deluded. And I suppose I have no authority to say so, because I am still one of those young idealists, but I say, nay dude! And to all those who would say that humans are powerless, I say naw man! Unless you believe there is some miraculous way in which we have advanced from being apes banging on bones to democratic capitalists sending rovers to Mars without ever having the power to do anything ourselves, then give me a break.
We cannot honestly believe that we have no power, though we often say so in meaningless words. Now, I could get into a long chat about free will and causality, but let’s make it simpler than that: you cannot escape the fact that you make choices. You make the choice to vote or not to vote, to stay in bed or to go to class, to go out or stay in, to laugh or to cry. And it’s an awesome privilege to make choices, because the stakes are big-bigger than we can imagine. Just look at the small things we do that affect the entire environment: we choose where we throw out our Gatorade bottles, we choose to let that yellow mellow, we choose to turn off lights and take public transportation, and so on. And these things make a difference. Many say, however, it doesn’t matter what individuals do, because the masses will never change their ways. But that’s what all of the masses think! It’s really not a matter of you versus the world; it’s a matter of you versus you.
If the world seems too big and complicated, then make it small and simple. There is one power that is almost impossible to strip away from us humans: the ability to choose our own internal state, to decide how we act and react, rather than living instinctively. As far as I know, there is no other creature on earth that has the ability to willfully change itself. If our instinct in a situation is to be scared, we can use our minds to not be. Squirrels, as all Northwestern students can attest, definitely don’t have this ability, and I don’t think apes do either. And this is a power to be practiced and to be cherished. Instead of being resentful, we can choose to be grateful; instead of yelling angrily, we can choose to chat reasonably. If it rains it rains, but rather than be upset and uncomfortable, we can appreciate the fact that that rain is probably falling on some corn and wheat crops in Iowa that will provide us with the Flaming Hot Cheetos we’re going to have with our lunch today. And that it refreshes the trees that give us oxygen to survive. And on.
Consider a pleasant anecdote: this September when I was flying back to school we hit one of those bad storm patches over Colorado; you know the kind when the plane takes sudden, sharp, steep drops and turns, and you can just feel the air coming out of everyone’s lungs, everyone’s sweaty palms grabbing for armrests. I definitely had my share of palm sweat until I had a very simple thought: do you think the pilots are nervous at all right now? And the obvious answer was, absolutely not. To them it’s like driving at night up a mountain pass that has steep edges and sharp turns-sure, there is some danger involved, but as long as you’re in control, there’s nothing to fear. As soon as I realized that, I was completely calm, I chuckled to myself, and I went back to reading-despite the rumbles, peaks and valleys.
We cannot change everything that happens, but we can at least start to change our vision of the world. And that’s just the beginning. Once we can change our internal state, we can change our environment. We can show others that they have the power to change themselves too, to make radical choices about how to live. And that is exactly how we ended up as democratic capitalists sending rovers to Mars, and it’s how we will continue to progress, as long as we are bold enough to realize how powerful we really are.
Jamie Weissmann is a Weinberg senior. He can be reached at [email protected].
