“The threat today is not passivity, but pseudo-activity, the urge to ‘be active’, to ‘participate’, to mask the nothingness of what goes on. People intervene all the time, ‘do something’: academics participate in meaningless debates, and so on. the truly difficult thing is to step back, to withdraw. Those in power often prefer even a ‘critical’ participation, a dialogue, to silence – just to engage us in ‘dialogue’, to make sure our ominous passivity is broken…If one means by violence a radical upheaval of the basic social relations, then, crazy and tasteless as it may sound, the problem with historical monsters who slaughtered millions was that they were not violent enough. Sometimes, doing nothing is the most violent thing to do.”

Slavoj Zizek, ‘Violence’, 2008

There was a big city businessman who once went on holiday to a faraway beach. One day he walked past a local fisherman who was lazing around, with his fishing rod in the water, enjoying the sun and a beer.
The city man’s mind went to work immediately. The fishing spot was a gold mine, and a serious fishing business would thrive in the area. “Why are you so stupid?” he asked the fisherman. “Get some boats, hire some extra hands, and in a few years you will turn your little shop into a million-dollar business!”
The local man asked him. “And what would you do once you have a million dollars?”
The city man stared back blankly. “Why, I would have so much free time I could sit around in the sun all day and drink beer!”

From: http://zenhabits.net/2009/03/passion-and-purpose-in-life/

If you are content, though, how do you stop stagnating or losing your curiousity?

I’m going to be brutally honest with myself now. I am not someone who sets goals, while I can appreciate they can focus the mind, emotionally I react to them as something trying to trip me up ‘ha you failed!’ they will say if I don’t achieve them. Instead I feel I have inner peace and contentment. Partly due to my ability to NOT set goals. This is my over-riding philosphy, but in recent weeks I have contradicted this – I’ve set the goal of exercising for 10 mins every morning at part of my routine. This is a goal, and one that is easy and achieveable (and I’m managing to keep I’m glad to say…hopefully for the duration of my 30 trail, then it will simply be normal, as discussed in an earlier blog).

I’m also hoping to motivate myself enough to start Saturday work as local IT support. We’ll have to see how this one goes though! Thinking on the spot I think these ‘bite-size’ goals are working for me. Big daunting changes just don’t seem appealing or achieveable without sustained, unenjoyable effort on my part.

With regards to larger global goals. I recycle, but I think it’s naive to think doing everything within the realm of feasibility is ever going to affect climate change to any significant degree. This needs a complete change of life style and ethos which is so vast and complex it would take a 50,000 eassy to even begin to address what needs to be done.