It actually doesn't really matter if you're right.

This post has been months in the making.  I've wanted to say this for a long while, but I didn't have the words... or the time.

As you probably know, the world's not doing so hot.  And worse yet, very few of us are attempting to do anything about it, let alone care.

The ones who care are searching for better ideas.  The ones who act are trying to foster better habits.

Both are seeking and attempting to realize solutions.

---

What if I told you that there's a significant chance that there is no "solution"?  No paradigm to shift to; no golden idea that will transform society; and no be-all end-all way to solve our problems?

These words are not those of a pessimistic fatalist.  Recently I've become tentatively confident that one could have all of the currently knowable knowledge in our world and still go through his/her entire life without making a positive impact on society.  This reality is less a reflection of the potential qualities and quantities of knowledge than of the day-to-day maintenance and function of the human race.  Our collective condition is such that one person could have an idea that could solve all of the world's problems and yet this person could forever live in a world full of problems.

I was lucky.  I stumbled upon the Meta-discourse at a relatively young age.  I'm speaking of the values discourse: the discourse that overshadows, informs, and shapes all other discourses; the first and last discourse of importance. I've often questioned whether my knowledge has been a blessing or a curse.  However, to this day, I continue to maintain that knowledge in of itself is neither good or evil; that the value of knowledge depends on what one does with it.

It's funny.  Knowledge of the highest discourse is actually meaningless given the parameters of planet Earth.  Even if one had an idea as to how every human decision is made, this knowledge in of itself is valueless.

---

Exhibit Edward Snowden, our new modern middle-class hero.  He opened our eyes in ways that few have in our generation.  He gave us hard evidence that our governments in the West are not to be trusted and that our supposed representatives have a systemic distrust of the public they supposedly serve.  And yet here we are, almost years later living ostensibly the same lives we were living almost years before.  What really changed in the day-to-day habits of the masses?  The people who already distrusted our governments gleefully confirmed their biases, and the people of faith have yet to demand hard concessions.

Snowden demonstrated a reality of democracy that ironically few care to acknowledge.  You could walk into a crowded town square containing the majority of a society with a gold tablet handed to you from the highest God telling everyone how they should live their lives differently with the greatest wisdom, and almost no one would change their day-to-day routine.  If one cannot market that understanding, sell it to the masses comprehensibly, and institutionalize it for future generations, then that knowledge in of itself has no value to the future of humanity.

---

In fact, it actually doesn't really matter if you're right.

This is my problem with some of the people who continue to look for that gold tablet, the so-called whistle blowers.  Practically speaking, these martyred actions change almost nothing  In fact, they will likely change less and less the more bureaucratized and institutionalized society becomes.

That's not to say that the situation is hopeless.  We just need to accept the situation for what it is, and use the resources at our disposal.  Particularly, we need to target structures.  And first and foremost, we need to stay practical.

I continuously hear my friends and colleagues demanding for better ideas.  But many of the ideas have been here all along.  "An absolutely new idea is one of the rarest things known to man."

People need to make better use of existing good ideas.

We need less armchair humanists and more people carefully leading on the front lines.  We need less concern for new ideas and greater execution of ideas that have been around for millenia.  We need less people concerned with being right and more people concerned with making us right.

...on creating real change.

The office is pretty quiet...

It's time for me to get back to the roots of this blog.  The flaming "social justice warrior" that initiated this collection, especially its forerunner Facebook notes, has aged considerably.  I'm much more diplomatic and reasonable than I was when I first started writing; however, the flame that originally ignited my passion still burns strong.

It's time that I put my thoughts about what it means to create real change into writing.

If you're one of the few that has read most of this blog, then you're probably aware of the "methods" label that I've attached to many of this blog's posts.  I've consistently believed that improving the world requires far more than the heart to do it; I believe that it requires careful consideration of methodology and of actual execution.

To truly improve the world, one needs to genuinely change it.  However, I think that real change remains far rarer than most people would have you believe.

To understand why, we must examine the notion of the normal.  The normal is defined by and depends on a set of habits of thought and of behaviour.  This status quo consists of routine and can be identified by recurring signifiers such as milestones in people's lives (graduation, marriage, children, etc.).

It's important to grasp the breadth of the former definition: it's important to consider what can fall within the purview of normalcy.  For example, resistance, in all of its various forms political or otherwise, is practically normal.  Social movement theorists going back as far as Max Weber, (and earlier, depending on who you talk to), identified the emergence of resistance in the face of hegemony as a natural occurrence.  Resistance emerges as a means to balance power; its emergence is causal and therefore predictable.  Resistance is normal.

Therefore, if change is that which separates from, or alters, the normal, then resistance is not in-of-itself a form of change.  In fact, resistance is usually an aspect of the status quo.  Moreover, resistance fosters or becomes change depending upon what's done with it.

If normal is the habitual norms that would continue macro- and micro- institutionally in spite of any one person's actions, then change would be that which alters or separates from the routine.  Change is therefore before or after the status quo and actions that cause change are performed above or below normalcy.

Notably, many self-proclaimed and self-asserting "change warriors" are simply a part of the status quo.  They neither harm or aid normalcy; some of these professional activists spend their whole lives changing little to possibly nothing.

To affect change is to act beyond the normal: to act beyond the cycle of dominance and resistance.  This rule applies regardless of one's station.  From  professional activists to professors to factory workers, we can all be an aspect of normalcy if we choose to do so.  To truly create change is to go above and beyond the easy, the usual, and the routine; in other words, to really change something is to genuinely do and be more than what you could do or be otherwise.

---

Then how does one know that he/she is creating real change?

It's impossible to know with any significant certainty, as with most things of importance.  After all, the legitimacy of change depends on the legitimacy of the normal and both realities are constantly shifting.  These categories are dependent on, and ultimately relative to, one another.

Still, there's some useful questions to ask yourself if you're genuinely concerned about whether or not you're creating real change.

Here's a short list:

Are you, at this moment, comfortable?  If yes, then you're probably currently reaffirming the status quo.
Are you consistently more committed to performing well than your colleagues?  If yes, then there's a good chance you're contributing to genuine change.
Are you awake relatively early every day?  If you are awake early most days, then you're probably having a different impact than most of your peers.
Do you take your own reflective self-criticism seriously?  If you don't, then there's a significant chance that you're contributing to normalcy.

So in sum, if you're uncomfortable, relatively over-committed to good performance, waking up with the birds, and actively responding to your own practice, then there's a decent chance that you're creating real change.

---

The picture at the top of this post depicts my office at my high school in China.  The piles of books on my desk contain the three assignments from three of my classes that I've been marking for the last 40ish working hours throughout the Chinese New Year holiday.  My colleagues maintain that I'm spending too much time preparing for lessons and marking.  But I maintain my commitment to real change.