I would like to believe I have not given up. But for all the difference I am making, I am thinking I have. Is it that no one listens? Or is it that I am not making a strong enough effort? Or is it that I am wrong? Or maybe I am just not very popular. Or is it that on some level each one of us does understand the importance, the necessity, of Beauty, Truth, Wisdom, Justice, Love, but find it easier to filter thoughts through the momentary me and act and react accordingly? I am guilty. Every day I go to work and pretend. When not managing my public face, I frequently work to lose myself in walking, reading, cooking, music, Netflix. Recent forays into actual efforts toward working and/or arguing for consequential improvement have ended in cries and tears of frustration and anger and sadness and warnings from varying constituents about my heart and my health; i.e. all encouragement to filter through momentary me.

If no one around me hears me, if everyone around me refuses to act according to what they know, how do I help to move us forward? Is effort seemingly only for the sake of effort worthwhile? Though constantly looking, I've not found an answer. Perhaps it truly is simply that easy is popular. And my thoughts, my suggestions, my sense of urgency, my insistence, my frustration and anger and sadness, is all agonizingly difficult; about as far away from easy as you can get. Yet if we all on some level know that it is necessary to work hard beyond the momentary me…?

A large majority of us continue to vote for easy; whatever in the moment will get us most comfortably to the next moment. Perhaps some stray thoughts toward maintaining a comfortable status quo for a few moments beyond, but no serious effort toward true generational improvement.

I have said previously that it is “much easier to be told than to think. Much easier to belong than to be ostracized. Much easier to be defined than to define oneself. Much easier to accept a truth than to fall short of Truth. …It is much easier to pretend to be happy with division, certainty, convention, bureaucracy, [than to struggle toward] Beauty, Truth, Wisdom, Justice.”

I have also said, “In recent years I have become more afraid of the consequences of knowing than I am of the constancy of uncertainty. And perhaps it helps to understand that the constancy of uncertainty will lead us closer to Beauty, Truth, Wisdom, Justice. And perhaps it helps to understand that the constancy of uncertainty is critical to our survival; and ultimately to our salvation. And perhaps it helps to understand that the constancy of uncertainty is the Will of God.” Whoever your God may be. But the constancy of uncertainty is agonizingly difficult and a large majority of us continue to vote for easy.

So again, for all the difference I am making, it appears I have given up. I asked above, “Is effort seemingly only for the sake of effort worthwhile?” The word I hang onto here is ‘seemingly'. Perhaps my thoughts and my efforts are underground, lying in wait for their moment. Perhaps I am yet to contribute in some small way to future improvements. We can remember and honor those who came before us. We can glory in the nearly 8 billion moments here today. But species survival requires that we recognize, acknowledge and work for the generations to come. As a species choosing easy, we are doing a poor job.