its another midnight run...

I ran again. but this time, with an agenda. Now, usually, people say that your mind works in the background, and when you are wrestling with a problem, the usual advice is to give things a braek, do something mundane, and voila! solutions come at you. Now, that usually happens to me, so I decided to try something different. I ran tonight with some purposes in mind.

Someone at church reminded me of my past affiliations with SYINC. I say 'affiliations' because I was never part of the core team. Thats another story, but anyway, I began to think anew again about what the heck am I suppose to do. 

I shall start with my childhood. I came to know God because of fear. I had this fear about UFOs and the creepy aliens, and I would pray to deities for protection. Now, all of these seems laughable now, I must say, but when you're a 6 yr old kid with nothing else to bother your mind, alien-kidnap seems to be a serious thing. But I'm 21 now, and those things are laughable. So yeah. The other thing that probably set me up for faith was reading about the Holocaust and the Rwanda genocide, and about all the massacres that people would do to each other in the name of whatever. That somehow brought up a kind of compassion within me, to want to say NO to all these things and these manner of evil. I guess these were the things that were sown in my heart, about the world and about the people that led me to want to pursue things such as social change and engagement, about how to PREVENT, societies from turning to prejudice, to prevent cleansings from EVER happening. Which has led me thus far. I think about compassion, and I see the elderly and homeless and the neglected, I hear disputes about money - insecurity and anxieties... and I feel pained... 

But, what can I really do? I thought about church, and about clusters, and how societal change is still about social engagement. That no matter lofty ideals, the work that you do in engaging people is still the ONLY thing that determines the success and failure of social movements. I thought about G12, about vertical and horizontal hierarchies, about the fact that horizontal connections between different subgroups are the most important features. Even right now, I think about how Hitler mobilised SS and SA and all that, and I think about Martin Luther King jr and how he organised and organised, and kept on organising people! I think about Obama and his campaign right now, about how he is now president-elect, because of his inspirational vision THAT MOBILIZED PEOPLE TO GO DOOR to DOOR TO VOTE FOR HIM!!! I guess in large part, it becomes about people inspiring people, and how eventually, communities become won over for whatever purpose - for the case of Hitler, it was his national vision of nazism. For Martin Luther King jr, it was about the civil rights of blacks and for the peace movement. For Obama, it was about the political transformation for a country based on the past. I think about critical mass, about giving people critical thinking courses to help them think about the world, but what about tangible actions? I don't know! People will only ever learn by doing! So what can I DO? I CAN DO NOTHING EXCEPT BY THE HOLY SPIRIT THAT TRANSFORMS THE HEARTS AND SPIRITS OF PEOPLE! arrgh. I need the Spirit! That is all that can ever be done. Nothing else. 

I thought about religions and ideas as memes and their broad analogies to viruses and bacteria, how fundamentalism might be seen as a kind of memetic spanish flu, that might peter out because it killed people too fast, too horribly, that religions are moderate because of the benefits that they bring and how all these ideas exist in an ecology, in a context, cooperating... The memes that bring the most benefits survive, and they crowd out the other memes that cause detriments and peter out. That could be something worth an ISM.

But more than these ideals, I think about the removal of prejudices, about openness, about the minds of people - because people are God's creation, with potential, and our lives are about unleashing that potential for His glory and purpose. I think about what writing can do, how communication might matter - which I have no idea, and chemistry - about a materials revolution, abut making a better future possible because of my ideas about materials and the material basis of our everyday lives. I could intern at Cradle to Cradle and see how things work out. After all, the one half of cradle to cradle is a chemist!

AndI prayed. For cell leader, for cell members, for my friends around me. No small thing too. To juggle praying and running at the same time. I pray for the country, for compassion in the leaders. 

So what am I doing when I go to InteresThink? What is the *larger* agenda out there? Touch base with the TOC writers. Touch base once again, with Bernise, YW, and the whole gang. Meet new people, explore connections. I see myself as a connector of people and ideas. 

So what is all of these in the context of God? I don't know. I want to bring out the best in people, for people to use their minds, and think about the world, yet at the same time, enjoying their life and work. A society of philosophers, but thats... unrealistic to say the least. And who am I to enforce my own vision upon the world? I want people to lead happy lives, lives that will bring them purpose and joy. I want to teach them to think wider! So that we will disregard our prejudice and prevent us to do stupid things to each other. Like wiping out entire ethnic groups! A kind of awareness, a new kind of consciousness that maybe appreciates the interconnectedness of many things in a tangible way. 

I begin to see connections between writing essays and doing humanitarian stuff. I see that our lives are a kind of essay - we close read the whole world, and see something obvious that everyone else takes for granted, take it apart, examining it, and then come with an interesting motive and thesis, and work at it. That is how all the NGOs in the world can have their place. Some will be interested in animal welfare, others about indiscriminate killing of animals, others against pollution. That is all that we can ever do in the finite lifespan of our lives, I guess - a kind of word limit, so to speak.

And I worshipped the Lord, and continued to pray, and here I am, limbs aching, but a spirit still strong, a mind still sharp...