I thought I'd throw this thread up in the political forum to give it a more serious flavour, and because at its core it is political. The idea behind this thread is a question of what influences you to want to (or not) 'change the world', if you actually care about making a difference why do you do it, how do you do it, how effective are you at it.
It's an interesting idea that a lot of people seem to get in their heads: "everything about the world is wrong, and it needs to be improved", and so often times people do whatever is in their power to 'make a difference' in whatever way they can. When I was in my early twenties I had a good deal of idealism, and maybe even a bit of ego-mania, and thought I was going to dedicate my life to the cause of making things better. I thought I could have genuine, significant influence, and I was pretty dead set on having an affect. It's not that having significant influence can't be done, it can, but over time I started to become more realistic about the scope of impact I was able to have. I realized that there were people directly in my life who I interacted with every day, and it was these people that I could have the most affect on if I so chose.
Over the past few years I've also thought more and more about the motivating factors that have caused me to want to have some kind of impact on the world. Many people will conjure up grand moral philosophies that make it an imperative for thinking people to act for betterment in the future, but I don't know if I buy into any type of moral imperative. When considering the 'how's' of living I think there is a great power in recognizing the needs of both others and society, but also in absolving yourself of the responsibility to make a better world. That's not to say that we shouldn't act to make a better world anyway, but rather we shouldn't expect that the world ought to become a better place and that the future of the world is largely out of any single person's hands. In other words there seems to be a default assumption that causes most people to enter into 'save the world' mode for most of their lives, and consequently they miss out on standing back, grabbing a beer, and watching the squirrels.
Going deeper down the moral worm-hole I also think there is a strong tie between sexual fitness and acting morally or righteously. Those who are able to act gracefully, respectably, and reduce harm in social situations, as well as those who are seen as 'good' people will typically be seen as attractive by others and so end up with more reproductive success. I guess you could say that for this reason moral behaviour has probably been selected for in our evolution. Our society and biology has developed in a way to make us courteous 'do right' machines.
And those are my two cents.
It's an interesting idea that a lot of people seem to get in their heads: "everything about the world is wrong, and it needs to be improved", and so often times people do whatever is in their power to 'make a difference' in whatever way they can. When I was in my early twenties I had a good deal of idealism, and maybe even a bit of ego-mania, and thought I was going to dedicate my life to the cause of making things better. I thought I could have genuine, significant influence, and I was pretty dead set on having an affect. It's not that having significant influence can't be done, it can, but over time I started to become more realistic about the scope of impact I was able to have. I realized that there were people directly in my life who I interacted with every day, and it was these people that I could have the most affect on if I so chose.
Over the past few years I've also thought more and more about the motivating factors that have caused me to want to have some kind of impact on the world. Many people will conjure up grand moral philosophies that make it an imperative for thinking people to act for betterment in the future, but I don't know if I buy into any type of moral imperative. When considering the 'how's' of living I think there is a great power in recognizing the needs of both others and society, but also in absolving yourself of the responsibility to make a better world. That's not to say that we shouldn't act to make a better world anyway, but rather we shouldn't expect that the world ought to become a better place and that the future of the world is largely out of any single person's hands. In other words there seems to be a default assumption that causes most people to enter into 'save the world' mode for most of their lives, and consequently they miss out on standing back, grabbing a beer, and watching the squirrels.
Going deeper down the moral worm-hole I also think there is a strong tie between sexual fitness and acting morally or righteously. Those who are able to act gracefully, respectably, and reduce harm in social situations, as well as those who are seen as 'good' people will typically be seen as attractive by others and so end up with more reproductive success. I guess you could say that for this reason moral behaviour has probably been selected for in our evolution. Our society and biology has developed in a way to make us courteous 'do right' machines.
And those are my two cents.