Because moving at a snail’s pace is still m-o-v-i-n-g

This message is to remind all you peaceniks out there that moving at a snail’s pace is still m-o-v-i-n-g.

I’d like to start off with the preface that I am a HUGE advocate of dreaming big. Yet as age sets in and I become more and more of a pragmatist, I’ve noticed that occasionally I dream so big I become paralyzed before taking my first step. Take saving Darfur for example.

How is it that 62 years after the Holocaust, we, so-called humanists, have stood by and watched 7 additional acts of systematic genocide occur? We said “Never again.” But we’ve never agained again and again and again and again and again and again and again – seven times over. By standing by in Bangladesh, East Timor and Cambodia, Guatemala, Bosnia, Rwanda, and in present day Darfur, we suffer, in the best of circumstances, from widespread dissociative amnesia and are found guilty of, in the worst of cases, being accessories to murder.

I want to save humanity from itself. I want to save Darfur. But before my graduate school course on the history of modern Africa, I didn’t know where to find Sudan, the largest country in Africa, on a world map (another confession: I still can’t locate East Timor).
In our quest to save the world it is imperative that we recognize change takes place one act at a time. Each respective act builds upon the last giving us greater courage to persevere with every micro movement taken.

This one is for the snails, the sloth, the tortoise, the whale and all other unhurried creatures. Because finishing anything, whether one’s migratory pattern or lifelong ambition, starts with one.micro.movement.

I’m not asking you to save the world today, but I am asking you take one step toward creating a more peaceful planet. Tomorrow is not promised and moving your finger along the map towards north east Africa to find Darfur, Sudan or further south west towards Australia to locate East Timor, is certainly an admirable start.