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Tuesday, 03 October 2006 17:48 |
| | Janese Johnson |
Over the years, many platforms of political candidates have been flowered with a lot of great ideas and promises for positive change that they can accomplish if we only vote for them.
Of course, we want to believe them and we vote for them, and often feel disappointed in what they really do.
This leads to a rather cynical and jaded attitude, often sounding quite negative with similiar rhetoric. Over the past few years, I have found my rose-colored glasses of enthusiasm for our political system and its process becoming very dusty with very little hope or ability to envision a better future ÇƒÓ that is until recently.
Two
weeks ago, I listened to Doug Jones, who is running for the N.C.
House, District 116, give quite an inspirational speech. Doug Jonesë
speech was quite impressive I could see that he genuinely cared about
some of the issues that are at stake in this upcoming election. Jones
is a schoolteacher with a family. He cares about education, heath,
mental heath, environment and the working class. I was surprised by how
his speech resonated with my feelings about politics and social change.
Upon reflection,
I examined how my negative political attitude has been detrimental
towards improving the future. I thought about the "Hundredth Monkey
Theory," which, if correct, could ignite a paradigm shift for society.
That is, if enough people come together and want the same thing.
The "Hundredth
Monkey Theory" was the result of 30 years of research conducted
Japanese monkeys that lived on the island of Koshima from 1952 to 1982.
In the
experiment, scientists gave the monkeys sweet potatoes. The monkeys
would drop them in the sand, making them less desirable to eat. An
18-month-old monkey named Imo found that the potatoes tasted better
after washing them. She then taught her mother and her playmates to do
the same. By 1958, all the young monkeys and a couple older monkeys
were washing their sweet potatoes before eating them.
The theory goes
on to say that theoretically.when enough monkeys are washing their
potatoes, there comes a turning point when all the monkeys
automatically wash their potatoes.
In reality this
does not happen. What does happen is that all the young and a few older
ones wash their potatoes. After the young teach their children, then
all the monkeys wash their potatoes. In the real research experiment,
the young had to actively participate in creating change, it did not
just happen to all the monkeys through consciousness. If that were the
case, the older ones might have changed too, yet most of them did not.
How does this
relate to politics? It is my belief that if enough of us are acting,
talking and sharing about what our clear vision about what a healthy
and thriving community looks like, then it is truly possible that the
younger generations, similar to the monkeys, would make our vision a
reality
Doug Jones comes
from that younger generation. He has clear vision of the future. We can
all get on the same page together and work for a healthier tomorrow.
It has really
happened. It can really happen. If the monkeys on the Koshima island
can do it, there is no doubt that we can, too.
ï
Janese Johnson
has been doing intuitive counseling nationally for more than 20 years.
She may be contacted janesej-at-buncombe.main.nc.us.
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