Just the other day I was traveling by train and happened to overhear a conversation this fancy finely dressed lady was having over the phone. She was quite extensive in her defending of a position she had taken in an issue they talked about. One particular statement she said caught my interest: “It is like this ecology and recycling, they are kinda nice things as long as they don’t concern me.”
She was honest.
Obviously she was for something else than ecology. Some people are not interested in advocating anything, but most of us have at least one bigger thing we want to drive forward. However, one can be a real activist in his / her life in only one or two things. We really don’t have the power nor the interest to advocate many different things – not particularily passionately that is. Hence we have this other category I call the “supporting thoughts” category. It comprises of every cause we kinda like and kinda support, but don’t really have the power or interest to do anything about.
And its not like we lie or anything. We might really view ourselves as supporting some cause, somewhere in the background. Its a feeling we have, we kinda “take part” in a cause in a thoughty, smiley sorta way. The category adds to our self-image. Not only is it supporting because we support the causes, but also, because those things support our self-image and give it some structure and variance. Some might say that it’s like taking the “hot spicy” food in McDonalds, which ain’t that spicy at all and thinking that youre into spiced food, but its more than that. We do draw from that category from time to time in discussions and when provoked by others. However, It’s not pro-active. We fall back to these thoughts only when we get an outside motivation to do so.
I would hope that ecology would come away from the “causes list” completely and join some other lists we do normally without any second thought. But we are not there yet and I have to admit, it’s still more in my supporting category. What is your core cause and what items belong into your supporting thoughts -basket?