the Secret

In the third hour of the third day of the third month…

I get a little annoyed when people blithely toss off the cliche that “one person truly can make a difference”. When we’re talking about a global scale, what they mean is that one person can inspire a cause. A movement. In some cases a landslide of change.

Wanna do it? Wanna save the world? I’ll tell you the Secret. It’s not a trick. It’s not even something you have to plan your life around for the next fifty years.

You. Just you. You can make the world, for real, a better place. They may never raise statues in your honour, but that’s not what people like you & me are interested in anyway. We just want a happier, safer, brighter world.

I know the Secret. And it really is mind-bogglingly simple. So simple that it’s been overlooked for centuries. Millenia.

This Secret is so simple, so profound, that at first when I tell you, you’ll just raise an eyebrow and wonder where I got my hands on so much pot.

But it’s the real mccoy. The honest and for true Secret that you, yourself, with no budget and no uniform, can do without even getting up earlier in the morning.

You’re dying to hear it now, aren’t you. Well, first ask yourself- do you have it in you to be a progenitor of change? Do you have it in you to be a hero of the ages, unsung though you may be?

What would you do with that glowing feeling filling you up every day for the rest of your life, knowing that by acting on this Secret you have made the world perceptibly and tangibly a better place?

Sounds too good to be true, I know. And the kicker is that I’m not going to feed you a cliche. I’m not going to say, “smile more” or “be good to each other”. Or “employ the homeless”. Or “spay or neuter your pets”. These are all good things, but by themselves they aren’t going to fix things. Well, honestly, it would fix things if we were good to each other, but we have a hard enough time being good to our friends, and never mind people across the ocean who don’t speak the same language. Let’s be realistic here. We’re small minded people who like our comforts.

So what I’m saying to you is this: I can tell you this Secret (and I will) and you won’t have to live in a tent or shoot a weapon or riot in the streets. You won’t have to attack anyone in a public forum. You won’t have to deprive anyone of their rights. You won’t have to exploit the weak or unseat the powerful. You won’t have to learn a new language or train to be an astronaut. You don’t have to put yourself in harm’s way or stand in the face of incredible odds. You don’t even have to be a good cook. Hell, you don’t even have to brush your teeth everyday, although that’s never a bad idea. Halitosis is a bitch.

No. My Secret is pure. My Secret is simple. My Secret is painfully sweet in its subtlety. My Secret is not for sale, and you will never find it in stores or on infomercials at 4am.

Are you ready for a Secret so defiantly easy in a world so complicated and twisted? In a world so determined to blunder ahead without pause, ignoring the obvious signs that we’re spiraling into a murky, gray swamp of knowledge without wisdom, are you willing to be that One that goes against the grain? Will you carry this torch forward against the tide of ignorance?

Will you do this one small thing with your gaze firmly locked on the Long View? I guarantee you will succeed. Persevere in this and you will win. There is nothing anyone can do or say to stop you, not with all the powers in the world massed against you. The success of this one mission, undertaken by you, is a foregone conclusion. An inevitablility.

Act on my Secret, and you will be the creator of a New World, where your children are safer, everyone has enough to eat, and you can confidently drink the water anywhere.

(All this, and I don’t have to change my life? What the hell is this guy going on about?)

Well, if you’re sure you’re ready. I can tell you. But remember- once this Secret becomes yours there is no going back. This is Pandora’s Box for the Good Guys. Once told, you can never again be the same person you are now. You will be compelled forever after by this Secret. This knowledge, though weightless and even bouyant, will always be locked behind your eyes, and colours will be brighter, sounds will be richer, and everything you taste, from the tang of a raspberry to the clean saltiness of love-drenched sweat, will be so much more to you that at times you may want to cry for the fullness of your life.

If you don’t think you’re up to it, stop reading now. Click back over to the world you have and forget about the world that could be.

But if you think you’re up to it, doing this one little thing with an eye to the Long View… click away…

That was brave of you. Thanks for clicking. Let’s go through the Looking Glass then. Here’s the Secret:

Pick up one piece of litter every day.

Whut?

Just one. Yep. That’s it.

Every day, even if the only walking you do is to the car and into the office, pick up one scrap of paper, or one gum wrapper, or one casually discarded coffee cup.

And you will save the world.

(I’ll help you get that eyebrow down now.)

Think about it. I’ll visualize along with you: You pick up a crumpled pop can and toss it in the garbage can on your way through the parking lot. Or you catch a napkin as it blows off a vacated picnic table and you toss it along with your own trash from lunch. Or you pick up a discarded beer bottle while you’re walking the beach and you make sure it hits the trash can back on the sidewalk.

Let’s start the scale small- first and most importantly you yourself will stop littering. It’s hard to litter and pick up someone else’s.

Next- anyone with you will notice you doing this, and not only will their respect for you go through the roof, but they will also start thinking about it.

Back to you for a moment- you no longer litter, but look at what else is happening- you’re more conscious of the space you move through. You pay a bit more attention to your recycling. You notice the casual disregard other people have for littering. You become aware of polluton in a way you never were before. How easy it is to stop polluting. How it’s such a small thing to accept responsibility for your footprint on this Earth.

And look what happened to your friend. She’s stopped littering and she’s picking up one bit of trash every day too. But then she tells you the Thing that awakens you to the Power you hold. The subtle Rolling Thunder of Change you have wrought. It seems she told a friend of hers about this one piece of litter per day thing, and that friend is doing it too!

On Earth, gravity is an inevitability. Its power varies from one location to the next, but you can feel its force wherever you go. Stand on top of a high hill, and start a tiny ball of snow rolling downslope, and you will see the same awesome power you have set in motion with your knowledge of the Secret. At the bottom of that hill an enormous and unstoppable meteor of ice hurtles through anything in its path.

In time you will see politicians acting to preserve the environment instead of lining their pockets with contract bribes. You will see strict laws governing manufacturing, and corporations taking responsibility for cleaning up the damage they have caused. Funds will be poured into renewable resources and clean energy. Fossil fuels with be kicked back to the Stone Age and there will be no such thing as waste chemicals.

True, that’s just “don’t litter” on the grandest scale, and it’s a Very Good Thing, but look deeper:

When you stopped littering, your eyes opened wider. You became not only more aware of your place in the ecosphere but also of your place amongst humanity and its history. You see litter as a symptom of a larger issue- the apathy of a society where everything is someone else’s problem. Someone else will take care of it. You see the fundamental destructiveness of that mentality. The vicious downward spiral with no exit ramp.

So look what happens when that same awareness comes to the people already in a position to enact change. Social programs are torn apart, shredded down to square one and rebuilt intelligently, not as a catch-all for bottom dwellers, but as a true safety net, where you are caught on the way down and rerouted back into a productive life. No one slips through the cracks, and everyone has pride in who they are, because they are not invisible. They are not a statistic. They are contributing, no matter their limitations. There really is a place for everyone in a system designed to work with you, rather than the reverse. And a system like that is the inevitable result when those in a catalytic postion are empowered to focus on the Long View.

This has been my theory for more than a decade. I have yet to hear an argument that can punch a hole in it. And yes, on most days I pick up a piece of litter.

It works, because it works with Humanity’s ultimate weakness- selfishness. Selfishness is why Communism fails and Capitalism wins in the short term but fails in the long run. A capitalist state must eventually follow the Thieves’ Maxim – eventually, there’s just nothing left to steal. It all floats to the top, and multinational corporations own it all, and the Dollar is far mightier than anything so vague as Tomorrow. Strangely, Communism fails for the same reason. Everyone wants what their neighbour has. Or a little more. Or a lot more.

But with the Secret, your way to the top is through clarity of vision. Responsibility. While those who take destructive short-sighted shortcuts are torn down and forced to make reparation, your road is cleared. You are offered the Keys To The City because your way is the most profitable for all. Your way means everyone has a job, and they’re taking pride in their job because it matters. It’s secure, not only because the system is designed to keep them healthy and happily at work, but because they know they’re working for the Good Guys, and that means they all work just a little bit harder, just a little bit better.

Think I’m crazy? What have you got to lose? Pick up a piece of litter. See what happens.