Good ideas can inspire action

November 10, 2010
By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS (Guam)

"A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history." - Mahatma Ghandi

Some people seem to be able to recall a million facts and bits of data. The harder job of intellect is to do something with those bits. Imagine, wonder, inquire, interpret, compare, relate, analyze, assess, calculate.

The bits of data are information, not knowledge. Learning is limitless, but learning can also require "unlearning."

Importance of thought

People naturally engage in patterned behavior and reproductive thought with little energy or effort.

Patterned behavior and reproductive thought imprison men in a vicious circle: To do the same thing over and over, with a predictable outcome.

Breaking away means entering a new mode of behavior and productive thinking: Do what has not been done before; think critically with the goal to understand, relate, determine alternatives and select the best option; and think creatively through imagining and generating new ideas, improving on them and generating still newer ideas, until a "breakthrough change" occurs.

In reproductive thinking, the intellect is asleep. In productive thinking, the intellect is alive and active.

The great thing about the human brain is it can be taught to think better. Some would say that in today's world, what we know is less important than how we think.

Power of thinking

Positive thinking helps render life better in the family, at work, in the community and in the world. A positive mind makes us strong spiritually and physically, opens doors to new things and different views, and provides opportunities where a negative mind sees only difficulties.

The Dec. 5, 2008, British Medical Journal reported a study that showed happiness is contagious -- more contagious than unhappiness. Your own actions, behaviors and thoughts can make you happy, but your chances to be happy are increased by 15 percent through connections to happy people!

Recall the saying, "Live with cow, sleep like cow; live with parrot, fly like parrot."

The world can be a stressful place. International economic conditions have brought hardship to many. Though we live longer, eat better and have more material things, many people are basically unhappy. A positive attitude, backed by better thinking and imagination, can help us deal with life's problems, which can be solved, and deal with life's predicaments, which can be coped with.

Those who respond to a difficult challenge with an offhand comment -- "pigs can't fly" or "a hyena does not give birth to a lion" -- do not inspire fighting dictatorships. Think instead of Nelson Mandela's determination not to be broken when he was in jail: "I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul"; and a 13th century England warrior, whose motto was: "Rise and rise again until lambs become lions."

Words on a poster in my college dorm room more than 40 years ago read: "You can blindfold me, you can gag me, you can close my ears, you can chain my hands, but you cannot prevent me from thinking." That's positive, better thinking!

The 'Monkey Master'

The 14th-century Chinese fable, the "Monkey Master," cited in Dr. Gene Sharp's "From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation," is worth retelling.

An old man used monkeys to pick fruit from the mountains. One-tenth of each monkey's harvest had to be given to the old man, or the monkey would face a hard flogging. The monkeys dared not protest.

One day, a small monkey got other monkeys to talk. All monkeys agreed -- the old man didn't plant the fruit trees, hence, the fruits didn't belong to him. The monkeys could take the fruits for themselves; there was no reason why monkeys must serve the old man!

So the monkeys tore down and destroyed their place of confinement, took all the fruits in the old man's storage, took off for the woods and never returned. The old man died of starvation.

The moral of the story: When monkeys were enlightened and awakened to the nature of the old man's injustice and ruthlessness, the old man's rule ended. Likewise, a people enlightened and awakened can end dictators' rule.

Power of ideas

Just as a rock thrown into a pond of still water produces a ripple that expands into larger and larger circles, a good idea, however small, can inspire people, who will inspire still others, into action. The first rock and the first person can make a difference.

Recall Newton's first law of motion: "An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion, with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force."

Great painter Vincent van Gogh said, "Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together."

When asked how she determined where to begin to help others as there's so much need and injustice in the world, Mother Theresa replied: "Do the thing in front of you."

So, do it now. This is the moment you have, your moment. Don't lament missed opportunities; tomorrow is yet to come.

Robert F. Kennedy explained how human history is shaped: "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope." India's Mahatma Gandhi, pronounced: "A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history."

Then, you say, "Yes, we can!"

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.