“The act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life.” Madeleine Albright
It’s hard to scan the news and not feel sadness of the latest display of man’s inhumanity to man unfolding in Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. Russia’s war is not the only display of cruelty and senseless destruction happening in the world, it is just the one that seems to resonate most deeply. Why that is says a lot about us as well. I have come to realize over the last four weeks that the specter of this war, in its raw display of evil, has cast a pall over my mood, outlook, and daily interactions with others. In an odd kind of way, I find that comforting because indifference, individually and societal, is close to the moral equivalent of being the aggressor.
It is with this backdrop that the above cited quote from the recently passed, and truly great American, Secretary Albright resonated so profoundly with me and helps make sense of why doing the work we do here at APCC matters. No matter your priority, and there are many from which to choose, we have an individual and collective obligation to try to do better. That obligation manifests itself in different ways for different people. Some are motivated by a sense of equal justice. For others motivation originates from a sense of connection to nature. For some it’s an article of faith rooted in religious beliefs that command decency toward others. And there are always the truly good people who just want to do good and leave things better for having been here. In the end I suppose it doesn’t matter what motivates as long as you are in the game.
Another way to say it comes from Shawshank Redemption: “Get busy living or get busy dying.” So yeah, don’t look away at the horrors in the world, but don’t allow them to rob you of the resolve to do better for something, someone, somewhere. Pick what you want to do and where you want to apply your energy, just as we here at APCC have, but do something. You will feel better for it and someone that you may never meet will benefit.
