Synopsis (Recap), 18
Point four: commitment and its ratio
If you realised you have enough reason to take these decisions, then you’ll probably realise as well that your resources – presence, energy, time, etc. – are not infinite, and therefore you cannot afford wasting them but you should make some choices, and commit yourself to issues in ratio with how decisive they are, of how much depends on them. This begins by making some space within your visual range for those issues which are definitely decisive, but still outside of it. The huge crumbling dam above the valley you live in does concern you, even though it can’t be seen from there.
Point five: intention and persistence
Be aware that the secret is persisting, and persisting despite everything and everyone. Acknowledge that you may have to implement those points despite everything and everyone, yourself included: against all ostensible evidence, and against every objection and personal inclination, starting with yours. The probability that what is right and necessary seems impossible or inappropriate where human faults are intensively cultivated by those who exploit them is expectably very high.
Point six: friends and help
It is obvious that no one lives for him or herself alone, that no one survives alone, and that no one is saved alone. It is obvious that life is a group effort that is based on mutual love, help, honesty and justice, and that life as a whole cannot afford apathy, irrationality, stupidity, ignorance, selfishness, dishonesty, destructiveness and evil. If it weren’t so, we wouldn’t be here anymore: by dint of tearing each other to pieces, by now we would have died out.
But obviousness is not always assumed; at least, not for everyone. Good is good and evil is evil because life as a whole depends completely on the fact that good is stronger than evil; if evil prevails, life is doomed, and that’s all. The more individuals there are who can’t love and be loved, help and be helped, the more we are all doomed.
So the degree all this is obvious to you is very important, as important is also that you take care of, and cultivate, this point of view.
And in doing so, you may notice that the world is full of friends who each one handle some specific aspect of the general situation, trying to improve it, fix it, or even save it, and that we must all of us become aware that we’re all on the same side, that we must handle things in ratio to their importance in the situation, and therefore that while we handle our specific aspects we must also put up a united front on the basic elements underlying all the others.