It’s One Absurdly Beautiful Life Campaign
The Absurdity of our collective tendency to cry. Soure: http://themenblog.de
Absurdity. Our world seems to be permeated by it from end to end. It can be both inspiring and crushing, depending on where we are in the cycle and where we are coming from.
Take Steve Jobs, for example. Isn’t it absurd that a young man like him, who dropped out of college and audited calligraphy classes, went on to create Apple Inc, a company that changed the world? Even more absurdly, that same man was fired from his own company by the board, but rather than be crushed by the experience, he went on to create two new companies, NeXT and Pixar, which became pioneers in their own right: Pixar produced Toy Story, the first fully digital animated feature length movie, and NeXT was in due course bought by Apple Inc, giving Jobs a way back to his brainchild – and the rest was iNcredible. Isn’t it just fantastic?
Having said that, isn’t it completely absurd that millions of people cried when Jobs died? Not that he didn’t deserve their tears – on the contrary, he was an inspiration to the whole of humanity, a beacon and benefactor in the true sense of the word, fully deserving the sympathy he got. But isn’t it just absurd that millions of individuals cried for the death of one person alone, while far fewer people cry when millions in Africa die of malnutrition every year? (The image that first raised the issue is above)
The above example, although extremely unsavory and on the backdrop of an inspirational person’s demise, is kind of true, illustrating our total and utter outrageousness in the way we operate as a conscious organization. Our absurdity seems to permeate every aspect of our development, applicable as it is to all aspects of human life, and we appear to be bound by some pretty crazy parameters.
Yet this is not a bad thing in itself. There is more to our absurdity than meets the eye. Good and bad can be found in all things we do, in the general way we live and function, on the one hand enabling us to create impeccable monuments against all odds, surpassing every limitation ever conceived, on the other leaving us wondering what the point to all this is in the first place, in the aftermath of having realized that somewhere along the way we may have strayed from our path.
Stay Hungry And Foolish, Not Starving Or Callous
Having said that, and in line with reality, it is time to focus on how we deal with this horrifying contradiction. Rather than accept it callously as part of the way society works, we can now turn around and address it as quickly as possible, offering a helping hand to those in need. We can do so without feeling stupid or guilty for having felt something about Steve Jobs. Feeling sorry about the loss of pioneers is not mutually exclusive to addressing the world’s problems. No one can worry about everything at the same time and address every issue out there and fix every injustice, nor is it one’s place to do so.
So let us put things in perspective again. Let us shed a tear for Jobs and for every other pioneer that passes through this life, and let us do it without shame. Let us also shed tears for the starving children of Africa, Asia, and the world in general. More importantly, let us embrace both of them: the pioneers of the world for the things they have done for society; and the starving children of the world for the things they don’t have, the things we shall provide for them.
The first embrace is easy, we can do it on the spot. But the second one is tricky. How do we go about helping people thousands of miles away?
Here’s a working approach. The One Life Campaign, a group of young and fresh individuals interested in helping others, have this totally crazy idea they can change the way everyone views people in need. To do so, they have created videos that redefine our perception of how to come together to help others. It is the start of an informed, coordinated campaign that aims to make its mark and help millions of people.
As parting thought, let us thank goodness for the craziness of the world. Let us thank absurdity and its outrageous effects, which, like in the case of Steve Jobs, went a long way in improving the world, only to come full circle through the actions of mutually-inspired absurd people with absurd ideas that achieve amazing results, and the cycle continues, not perfect, not without paradox, lacking the power to make everything right at the click of a finger, but giving it a shot, giving it more than that, making things possible, one step at a time. All together, to each their own, with the sky as limit. May there be more Jobs out there for people to praise, and more One Lifers for people to listen to, and more absurd go-getters to make things happen, and the horrifying contradictions will diminish, or, at least, become more palatable, making our development a little smoother in the process.
Sources:
Video from One Life Campaign: An Introduction
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