Heroes Not Zombies

Once upon a time a king commanded the poets to write a phrase which could be inscribed on his ring and which he could use appropriately in all circumstances…..

You know how these stories go. After several failures resulting in a few poets having their heads chopped off, one finally succeeded.

These were his words…..

This too shall pass

I thought of that when I saw this rain cloud passing over Ben Ledi. I’ve had the experience of seeing a rain cloud approaching and knowing the rain will arrive soon. I’ve even had the weird experience of walking from the front garden where it was raining round the house to the back where it wasn’t. But I’ve rarely seen such a distinct edge to a rain cloud dropping its rain onto the earth below.

It’s not that easy to see change coming.

Here we are still in the midst of a pandemic and it’s hard to see when, how, or even if Covid is going to disappear. Will there be more waves, will it trundle on with flare ups here and there, will it bed in and become endemic or will it weaken to nothing more than a common cold? We don’t know and we sure don’t know when.

We can’t see the edge of change.

I’ve often thought about how difficult it is to see the edge of change. Think of any city on the planet. Can you imagine London not being there any more? Can you imagine Paris, New York or Tokyo not being there any more? Yet we find the scattered ruins of great cities around the world, some shadows of their former selves, some reduced to mere traces.

Once thriving and powerful empires have gone but it would have been impossible to imagine them disappearing if you were living in them.

It’s only when we look back through history that we can see the edges of change. Only then do we trace the beginnings and the endings. But we have the superpowers of imagination, hope, determination and creativity. We should be able to see a different path ahead.

The big cities, the powerful states, the current economic systems, structural inequality, the political and social elites…..none of them will last forever.

That gives me hope.

Perhaps we can’t see the edge of change but we can imagine a better world, and that’s a start.

As Greta Thunberg said yesterday at #youth4climate in Milan….

We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah blah blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action.

Perhaps we can’t see the edge of change but we can choose a different future.