Motor Messiah

I was behind one of those protest vehicles yesterday.

You know, the old car that has more bumper stickers on it than rear windshield.

Where the purpose of the vehicle is less vehicular than communicative.

Though very different than grandma’s broach you love so much, this kind of vehicle is itself a statement piece.

The particular protest vehicle I was behind said “White House.”

No wait, it was “WHITE HOUSE.” Below that “10am - 2pm” and then a phone number.

Most of us realize how ridiculous it would be to call the White House, let alone to entreat other strangers in their non-protest vehicles to join this enterprise.

Cause it’s not just Quixotic, it’s useless.

The man of La Mancha may have been crazy, but at least his adventures were grand.

Yet someones somewheres believe this is the way to have impact.

Mamma Mia

My mom was anything but cliche.

But bless her soul, she may have been a tad stereotypical in that 80s mom sort of way.

So she would do things like call the county transportation department if she thought an intersection needed a stop sign. (Funny, I never heard her asking them to remove any.)

And she would actually write the odd ‘strongly worded letter.’

While all of this may have relieved some of her Irish temper from the transgressions of a nonconformist community (not to mention a hostile universe), I think she truly believed she was performing a service to society.

She was the nun she’d once sincerely considered becoming.

Saving the largest and smallest of God’s children, one speed bump at a time.

Micro in the Cosmos

Except—and you know by now with me there’s always an “except” coming…

Except, what a monumental waste of effort!

Noble? Yes.
Tiny in significance? Also yes.

You know this. I know this. But wait, it gets worse.

I think this stuff is an inherited trait.

Like, along with some members of my family who pop readily into mind, I spent way too many hours on supposedly “noble” causes that had atrocious ROI.

Many successful people come from good families. And good families tend to instill in their youngins some integrity. Character.

This can manifest such that you are always seeking to do the right thing. Which sounds great on its face.

But the result is that we might just do a good thing because it’s there. The deed that needs doing is in plain sight. It’s a void that will persist unless we, the superhero in this movie, fill it.

So we own it.

And while repairing this most trivial of cosmic glitches, we don’t evaluate all the other things we could be doing.

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In Short

This is not a case against ownership. Nor am I saying that you should just ignore society while you build your empire.

Sometimes, we need to be the one to step up.

But usually “Who’s got this if I don’t?” is the wrong question.

The better thing to ask is, “Where can I have the most impact?”

After all, we might not seeing the big picture.

And many times we’re mainly serving ourselves.

❤️ Andrew

† You may see I’m taking more liberty with long passages now. I’m reading Dostoevsky lately. And although so far I find him tedious and performative, he’s having an effect on me. When in doubt, blame Fyodor.

Outro

A protest song if there ever was one 🤣:

For anyone predicting an Abba song here from Mamma Mia the musical, too bad: Abba objectively sucks. And I’ll die on that hill ;)

That’s one thing war is good for.