Language is a funny thing. With it, we can tell all kinds of stories. Some are just views on episodes of life. Some are fiction. And of course, many are both.
Some are fiction. We can talk about things that were, that never were- fictitious stories about what happened, like the Life of Brian (the Monty Python movie.) And we can talk about things that aren’t happening right now, like modern-day spy novels. And we can talk about things that haven’t yet happened, like Star Trek and Dr. Who.
And, we can talk about failure. The truth is, there’s no such thing as failure. Failure is a judgment we make about an episode in life. We say someone tried to accomplish something, they had an intention to create a future and failed. It’s a trick of language that we speak of failure as a thing. So it seems like a thing, and things are real to us.
If I pick up a rock and show it to a group of people and let them touch it and see it and feel its surface and heft, they’ll agree it exists and it’s a rock. Agreement adds to its reality. Similarly, we can agree about failure.
Failure doesn’t exist. It’s a story about a viewpoint. It’s a side-effect of language and the way our brains are trained to understand the world of things. Maybe failure sort-of exists as an idea or a judgment or a declaration, but there’s no such thing as failure.
PeopleCount.org is young. It’s small. It’s the beginning of a huge change in the way we govern ourselves, in how we communicate with ourselves. It’s the beginning of real people-centered power.
If agreement adds reality to ideas and judgments that are spoken or written, what will happen when we all vote on issues and see the areas of broad agreement? The realness added by agreement won’t magically make things happen. But it will be the beginning of wondrous new efforts and projects. It will make things happen.
I read up a bit about Mahatma Gandhi. He worked on Indian independence from 1915 to 1947, 32 years. For many of those years, the movement seemed like it was failing, making no progress.
PeopleCount.org is up to a transformation far greater. It will take years. On the other hand, Gandhi didn’t have the web…
Please register on PeopleCount.org. If you’d like to do more:
- Donate $2
- Invite some friends, and follow up to ensure they voted
- If you are an American citizen or resident, complete the Demographics profile.
Another truth: there is no such thing as success. But if we can get many to participate in PeopleCount.org it will create agreement that we can transform government and politics. By participating, we can make the possibility real and powerful. Together, we can create truth, just as we can create our future.