08 June 2005

Natural Change

Sometimes concepts emerge after a studious process, often called "analysis" or "creativity." Other times concepts are discovered like gold nuggets in an oft-visited stream. One such gold nugget is the realization that part of what The Jenius has been talking about in these posts and on His radio show is the notion of "bottom-up," individual innovation.

The concept is not new: Nature has always been innovating from the bottom-up, with individual changes adding up to collective momentum. On the opposite side of Nature is Government, a void that believes that "top-down" thinking and planning will actually make a difference. Big Business often makes the same mistake. The end result is that real change hardly ever comes from the "top-downers" for the simple reason that real change is not imposition, but evolution.

By proposing personal responsibility, the need to act and small groups over waiting for tidal change, The Jenius has been reiterating the natural way to create change. It is not a magical formula, nor is it a secret. It doesn't require massive inputs, but with consistent effort, produces massive results. So if it's such a great concept, why is there so little real change?

The often-brilliant Dave Pollard suggests a reason: "I think it's likely that people with good ideas are just disconnected from those with the skills and resources needed to implement those ideas." The Jenius agrees: disconnects exist at many levels. But as Pollard also points out, in these days of ever-increasing connectivity, the old excuses are moot: "Where there's a will, there's a way. It's a question of priorities, of combining energies, and of collaborating in a focused, informed and urgent manner to fix the disconnects and make it happen. We have a responsibility to make it happen. We certainly have the money, the ingenuity and the organizing technologies to make it happen, so what are we waiting for? We need to get past our learned helplessness and start talking to each other about things that matter, things we can fix, and enrolling ourselves to do so."

One person can lead to two, two can lead to four, then eight, sixteen... It is individual changes leading to collective momentum; true change done naturally. We don't have to be brilliant, just focused and consistent. It's up to Us.

The Jenius Has Spoken.

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