This post was mentioned on Twitter by NotAProBlog: It’s becoming one of my favorite blogs: @JustinKownacki We’re All Trolls: 11 Ways We Can Stop Being So Damn Divisive! http://bit.ly/bO6B7Y...

http://www.alternet.org/story/.....age=entire

I forget who linked it on twitter recently, but thanks to whomever it was.

I wasn’t making excuses. But I think that passion is hard to keep ahold of. Whether in personal relationships or caring about the issues. Most people can’t focus on one cause forever. Hate has a tendency to burn itself out, it’s hard to keep a laser-like focus on changing things for an extended period of time. We get discouraged, or we actually accomplish something, yet those accomplishments aren’t quite enough to spur us to keep going even further. It would be cool if we could set up some sort of a ring, a confluence where our best efforts could converge, branch, and re-converge, to pass our torches, so to speak, to others who have new or renewed passion for changing things.

I ran into this myself when I took it upon myself to fight Red Light Cameras in the City of Canton, OH (before they could put them up). I fought locally, when they were a danger of sprouting here, but haven’t carried my efforts any farther. I wish the others the best of luck in deposing these accident-inducing traffic terrors (like in Toledo, Cleveland, and the like) but haven’t remained active in the fight against them. The people exerted enough pressure on the City Council that the motion to create an ordinance to allow the issuance of civil violations was defeated 11 to 1.

I was all set to launch a petition to place the issue before the voters, should it have passed. No camera enforcement measure has EVER stood up to the scrutiny of voters in the U.S. when they have had a say.

I hope to find renewed purpose in volunteering for the inaugural PodCamp Cleveland this year, and have my eyes open for somewhere I can make a difference in the near future.

Or, the least pleasant possibility: we’re all just too lazy and don’t give a damn.

I’m not suggesting anyone care about anything, since I’ve previously posited that caring is entirely your own choice. But if we *do* care about something, why don’t we (or why can’t we) do something about it? Excuses seem like conveniences on the way to escapist consumer bliss.

My best bud Eric and I often get into heated discussions, but we don’t take things personally. If I recall correctly, during one such discussion, he accused me of always needing proof, of never committing myself fully to a side of an issue unless there was ample evidence to back it up.

We humans have a bad habit of manufacturing conflicts where none are particularly necessary. If we could focus our energies on verifiable incremental change, there’s no limit to what we could accomplish as a species.

The thing is, there is too much money to be made by keeping people ignorant and agitated (look at the entire lobbying industry). “Empty Causes” as the Bad Religion song posits. If we could somehow attack the root causes, then that would free us all to advance personally, and socially.