Friday, May 15, 2009

Little Teaspoons


















"I honestly believe that the future is going to be millions of little things saving us. I imagine a big seesaw, and at one end of this seesaw is on the ground with a basket half-full of big rocks in it. The other end of the seesaw is up in the air. It’s got a basket one-quarter full of sand. And some of us got teaspoons, and we’re trying to fill up sand. A lot of people are laughing at us, and they say, “Ah, people like you have been trying to do that for thousands of years, and it’s leaking out as fast as you’re putting it in.” But we’re saying, “We’re getting more people with teaspoons all the time.” And we think, “One of these years, you’ll see that whole seesaw go zooop in the other direction.” And people will say, “Gee, how did it happen so suddenly?” Us and all our little teaspoons..."

~ Pete Seeger

1 comment:

Michael said...

Thank you for sharing this imaginative view of critical mass.
I am sure I will continue spreading Pete Seeger's creation to others as you have to me. I wonder what you think of the following words penned in 1899:

"One may stand up against the united opinion of the world and be right, but he is generally wrong!

Happy they in whom the elements are justly mixed and incline them to be good!

Much as one flies from heaviness and should, for the spirit is light and aspires, the wisdom of the world is its weight. Gravity is its norm. Conservatism, conventions, even a degree of narrowness, the backbone of orthodoxy, custom, law, an everyday understanding,--these steady the course and conduct of life. They regulate and chain to prudence, to reason, the too loose or imperious flight of thought, of action, that not seldom beats ineffectually the void. They conduce to enlightened liberty, to true freedom, and hence majority happiness, in the absence or rarity of seasoned will-direction. Accept what is common in religion and law and the rest. Acceptance may evince more intellect than refusal or the attack destructive. It is greater to build on the better old, and the natural, creative way. For any departure you must certainly master yourself finely and think master-like, or you are apt to run counter to logic and facts and otherwise come to grief. Sometimes, therefore, when I am inclined to scorn people who are slaves to system and cowards of thought, I check myself and say, These too are of service, perhaps of the greatest service, in keeping life sound and sweet. But the air is circumambient, and birds and those who like to breathe its finer heights will fly. ‘Tis their element and joy. For I know that imagination will always be king, and everything, even facts, figures, logic, must melt to meet him and rearise in shapes brighter, more distinct and graceful."
1899...........Edwin Manners

I found this treasure (among so many others) in Edwin Manner's original journals not yet published ....and for me in 2009, I transform "king" into "supreme" and "him" into "in the Himalayas" or "in the mountains" or in New Mexico, Peru, Iowa, West Virginia (where I live now), and even in Washington DC where I often work.