Your choices matter. There’s a story I once heard about a Vietnam veteran by the name of Colonel Hall. Specifically, he was a prisoner of war (POW). Conditions in the North Vietnamese prison camps were terrible. POWs were tortured and starved as a matter of course. This particular POW lived in a 7.5 square foot cell. That kind of confinement is enough to drive most men crazy after a while. Not Colonel Hall though. The officer was a lover of golf and to keep himself sane, he trained his mind to visualize himself playing a full eighteen holes of golf every day. He visualized everything from where to hit the ball to even putting his socks on before getting to the course. When he was finally released in 1973, he managed to play a game of golf. He scored his handicap, even though he hadn’t so much as picked up a club in over seven years. In case you’re wondering, no, he didn’t spend time getting back in shape either. He basically walked out of a tiny box and six weeks later golfed the game of his life.
The mind is a powerful thing. While it can’t literally reshape reality, it is the first tool we use in doing so. Every intentional action, good or bad, begins in the mind. We conceive of something we want or want to happen, or a problem we want to solve and then act to make that conception a reality. The best ideas, the best conceptions are the ones that just don’t leave us alone. Those are the ones we catch ourselves daydreaming about, the thoughts that cause us to lean back from the computer and stare at the ceiling. Or as a kid, we might have stopped paying attention to the teacher and instead stared out the window. Today, as always, we need that impulse. We need the people who daydream.
Why? No doubt you’ve noticed that there are a lot of problems in the world that need solving. Some, bigger than they have ever been. Yet, all most people ever do is yell about it, point fingers and get mad, usually at all the wrong people, the ones who can’t or won’t do anything. But the daydreamers, the ones who see the problem and stare out the window until they think of a solution, are the people we need. Those are the people who can and will come up with creative solutions that can really make a difference.
Already, these dreamers are bearing fruit. It’s been known for some time now that there are certain bacteria that can actually eat plastic. Once we learn how to best use the microbes, they could go a long way to reducing the microplastics in our oceans. Speaking of plastic, another dreamer has begun using plastic to build roads. This process keeps plastic out of landfills and oceans, while also helping build roads that need less maintenance.
Another fine example of this kind of creative environmentalism is the Plastic Bank. This initiative was begun both to reduce the amount of plastic garbage littering the third world and provide an economic resource to people in that same area. People bring in plastic in exchange for money. That plastic is then fed into 3D printers and used to make products such as belts that can then be sold around the world.
This is what we are talking about, dreamers with creative, out of the box thinking that are helping to solve real problems. We need everyone to spend a little time daydreaming, to sit back and imagine what they might be able to do to build a better world. And then, take those ideas out of their imagination and work to make it a reality. Maybe that’s making a breakthrough on solar panels, maybe it’s just sharing your data through TARTLE so others can use it to help solve problems. The choice is yours, but choose you must.
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