Reading Paul Rogat Loeb's inspiring volume of short civic engagement essays "The Impossible Will Take a Little While," I came across a piece by Danusha Veronica Goska which struck me as especially poignant. In it, she describes her own struggles with perilymph fistula, a condition that strikes its victims without warning. One day she is fine, another day she is literally paralyzed, unable to move. Although it can be cured through a relatively simple operation, that operation costs money, money Ms. Goska did not have.
As her essay opens, she recounts a conference participant's sense of helplessness regarding her efforts to bring about social change. She quotes her as saying that she lives with the despair of her own powerlessness. "I have so little power," this frustrated would-be activist observes. "I feel so paralyzed." This comment elicits a Vesuvius-like eruption from Ms. Goska, who comments that she struggles with intermittent bouts of paralysis herself, but this is not metaphorical paralysis, it is literal paralysis. Some days she can move, some days she can't. But..."the difference between being able to walk across the room and not being able to walk across the room is epic." The issue, Ms. Goska observes, is "not that we have so little power. The problem is that we don't use the power that we have."
If we can walk, if we can talk, if we can write, if we have a voice, we have the power to bring about positive change. It is up to us to make the most of that power and to recognize that its potential for influencing others and for bringing about social transformation should never be underestimated.
No comments:
Post a Comment