words about things

I read a lot of blogs.

Some are about relatively lighthearted topics (fashion!  interior decorating!  cooking!), but most are about social justice.  About what's really awesome in this world, and what's heartwrenchingly terrible about it.  Blogs with magnificent writers who refuse to look away from the horror, and instead face it head-on, fully experiencing and showcasing the despair and the pain and the glimmers of hope. 

This world is full of so, so, so much despair and terrible.  

And I deliberately expose myself to the knowledge of the terrible.  

I've been asked why I do that.  Why would a person choose to feel awful, to despair about the world, to sink occasionally into depression or rage?  Wouldn't it be easier to just avoid looking at the terrible?

Yes.  Yes it would.  It would be much easier, and probably much more pleasant. 

But I can't do that.  Something in me demands to know, to look at it, to face it.  I absolutely cannot simply go about my first-world life, blissful in my ignorance of the marginalization and oppression and violence that goes on in the world and in my name as a white, straight, cis USian.  I refuse to hide from reality.  I refuse to simply tolerate the terrible all around me.  I refuse to disable my empathy.  

I have so much to learn, and I'm awkward in dealing with some topics, and I mess up.  And I will keep learning, and I will seek to get better, and I will continue messing up.  Because it's what I can do.  I may not know many things about where I'm going and what I want and what's possible, but the very least I can do is look.  And see.  See the suffering, see the injustice, see the terrible.  Acknowledge it.  

It may not seem like much.  And part of it, maybe, is a little self-centered.  Hey, look at me everybody, I'm bothering to pay attention!  Aren't I the greatest?  That's a really shitty perspective that at the very least presupposes that simply not being terrible is prerequisite enough for decency, and it's not. 

Because it’s no longer enough to be a decent person. It’s no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself.  ---Joss Whedon 

For me, this is about integrity, and growth, and decency.  I can have all the good intent in the world, and it's worth precisely jack shit unless I express it thoughtfully and responsibly.  On some deep level I really need to connect with people, to see them, to understand, to appreciate the good stuff and own up to the shitty stuff.  To lean into my discomfort instead of running away from it.  Even if it's not something that has a measurable impact on the world, it's what I can do to improve my own mind, my own little corner of the universe.  And maybe tell a few other people about stuff, and maybe they'll get it a little and see what's going on and feel.  

And that's not nothing. 

It's a tiny little step.  But it's my teaspoon, and this is what I know I can do right now.  Maybe I'm wildly unrealistic, and maybe my tiny little stance in my tiny little corner of the universe is ultimately inconsequential.  But I choose to believe that this matters.  And that's my choice.

I realized in college that one of the core tenets of my being is the need to be somehow useful to the world.

I realized a few months ago that another basic component of who I am is the need to connect.  To truly see people.  To interact with my world.  

Hello there.  I see you.  I get you.  I care. 

Learn with me.

repost: why I declutter

Metapost: my first attempt at the newfangled blogging thing ended when I decided I no longer identified with the name I'd chosen, and thus The Organized Geek was abandoned.  However, there was some good stuff in there, and I'll be reposting a few selected entries occasionally, so they don't get entirely lost to oblivion. 

Originally posted on 05.11.12.

---

Stuff is a part of life.  Stuff is accumulated, it serves various purposes, it's an indicator of wealth (did you see how big his flat-screen television was?), it makes us happy.  We need stuff, and over the course of history, most possessions have been valuable, scarce, and often important for survival. 

But that was then.  In the 'developed world,' at this point, stuff is cheap.  Ridiculously cheap.  Most things are essentially disposable; clothing, electronics, furniture, and even vehicles are all purchased with the expectation that they'll break, wear out, or fall apart in a relatively very short time and need replacing.  Where our grandparents would save up for and treasure a good winter coat for many years, we offhandedly own twenty that are all shoddy.  But it doesn't matter, because even before their short lifetimes are up, we'll probably get bored of them and buy new ones out of pure whim.  

Minimalism isn't really about not owning stuff.  It's about identifying value.  

At first blush, it might seem that the root cause of overconsumption, rampant consumer waste, and an actual topic and audience for the TV show Hoarders is over-valuing our stuff.  I can't possibly get rid of any of my twenty winter coats despite the fact that live in the tropics because I love them.  I need them.  They give me a sense of worth, and I would be losing something valuable if I didn't have them.

But let's think about this.

Is this really value?  What is value?  Is it what someone else would pay for the object, or some quantification of the pleasure or usefulness that you personally derive from it?  It's in your possession, after all.  Are you truly happier with many cheap, flimsy things than you would be with fewer really spectacularly well-made ones?  How do you know?

If you're deriving neither use nor happiness from the item, regardless of what you paid for it or what its 'original price' was, it is worthless. 

Are we, perhaps, actually under-valuing our stuff?  The phrase 'materialism' is generally used to indicate the hoarder-like behavior of accumulating stuff for the sake of accumulating stuff.  But what if we could forge a better relationship with our possessions, and genuinely care about them?  This is a fundamentally different approach.  Appreciating, taking care of, and really enjoying the things in our lives, rather than being ruled by them, seems to me to be a better form of materialism.  If you fell in love with an excellent coat, wouldn't you want it to last for years so you could go on enjoying it instead of throwing it away after a season?  Disposable culture has redefined our relationship with stuff, and not for the better.  Perhaps the problem is that we're not materialistic enough!

When I was little, I participated in the pog craze.  In case you skipped that one, it was technically based on a game developed with milk caps but turned into a pre-teen consumer frenzy in the mid-90's.  Kids bought, collected, hoarded, and traded these little cardboard discs with pictures on them.  Very rarely was the game actually played; it was mostly about the collecting process.  We'd set up little trading posts with each other, and proudly display our expansive collections.  It was quite the phenomenon.

At the time, I had some good friends who lived just down the street.  I'd go over to their house, we'd each claim a corner of the room to set up the pogs we were interested in trading, and then go visit the other 'shops' to haggle and barter.  My little mind was struck with a notion that seemed to have some merit.  My shop instituted a 'quantity for quality' policy, wherein I would encourage my friends to offer their good pogs and in exchange I'd give them piles of crappy ones.  I even made a sign.  They thought this was a wonderful deal.  They were getting ten pogs, while only surrendering one!  What a chump I was!

After a few weeks of this, my friends noticed that I'd accumulated all their high-quality (this is relative, of course.  Fundamentally they were all just silly little cardboard discs.) pogs, while they were left with piles and piles of really cheap, lower-quality ones.  They got sore about it and stopped trading with me.

If what you value is having many things, you will surely wind up with (metaphorically speaking) large piles of low-quality pogs.  Perhaps it won't be a deliberate or conscious process (my friends certainly didn't think to extrapolate the situation beyond each individual trade), but over time actions will align themselves with core values.  Then all the stuff will weigh you down

So what happens if you value good things instead?  If you can appreciate having a smaller number of things, but everything you own is your favorite thing?  Where moving is easy, and there are no piles to trip over, and all your possessions bring you joy?  Wouldn't that be marvelous?

That's why I talk so much about getting rid of things.  Not really out of any ascetic drive or sense of self-deprivation, but out of selfishness.  I want to love all my things, instead of being annoyed by how they're in the way and dusty and taking up so much space.  I want the freedom to take a job across the country and move into a smaller place.  I want to spend much less time thinking about, stressing about, and cleaning my stuff.  I want good stuff that actually enriches my life, dammit!

I'm in no way unique in this, of course, and there are many out there who are on the same journey. 

On one of the above-linked articles (I forget now which one), one comment in particular struck me:

"I don’t want to be rich, I want to be free. And freedom is worth more than stuff."

Yes.

look at stuff

"Take a look at the standard way of the world. Everybody goes to school, then they go to college, then they get a job. Does that fit your life or are you just doing it? Take a look at stuff. It’s possible to take this whole life and shape it so that it’s something that fits you as opposed to trying to fit so hard in to it. That’s the root of it. That’s the real reoccurring theme of the record , fucking doing what you want, because it will lead to happiness."
--Stef Alexander (via Gala)

Living an unexamined life is giving away your power.  It's given away to habit and cultural expectations and 'common knowledge' and autopiloted scripts into which we're supposed to pack ourselves.  The only way to fight against this is to take a good hard look at who you are, where you are, and what you want.  To 'look at stuff.'  To figure this shit out.

I, for one, want out of the cycle.

today I love...

...Leo's recent post about savoring life.

Sometimes all that's needed to re-center from a state of frantic distraction is to take a moment, really pause, and really be where and when you are.

It's something I desperately need to learn, and am working on embracing.  Leo, of course, articulates it incredibly well.


Every Wednesday(ish), I write about something I love that day.  It doesn't necessarily have to be remotely related to anything; it just has to be fabulous!

thinking, and new directions

I've been thinking a lot lately.  This will likely get fairly rambly.

About the world, about my life, and about this little corner of the internet that I have staked out for myself.

There are many directions I could go with this space, and I've come to the definite conclusion that I am completely unsure of where this blog is going (see what I did there?).  It started off as a simple platform to get me writing, and to provide some measure of accountability for personal goals and projects.

Heh.  Yeah, about those resolutions and goals.  The ones I'm constantly thinking up and then abandoning.  It's not too encouraging.  And about that blogging schedule I haven't kept to, largely out of not feeling like I have anything pertinent to say.

However, maybe that's not the point.  Maybe the point is that I have this space, and I can say whatever the heck I want to say within it.  Even if it doesn't fit into my preconceived notion of what my topic is or should be.  So I'm going to go on an adventure.  I'm going to write about whatever is on my mind, whether it seems relevant or not.

Wow, when I write it out like that, it seems much less momentous than it did in my head.  I'm going to blog OFF TOPIC.  So brave.  But hey, small steps, right?

So,  first topic.  Feminism.

Yep, I said it.  Dropped the f-word.

You see, I'm a feminist.  I always have been, but it was in the lazy, non-introspective, inactive way.   Perhaps it's because I was so involved in my studies, but I never really bothered to poke my nose out into the world and see what was going on.  I didn't actively deconstruct problematic cultural messages, and I had never heard the words 'kyriarchy' or 'intersectionality.'  I pinned buttons with cheeky feminist phrases on my purse, but I didn't know, in a real way, that feminism had progressed past the free love movement of the sixties.

In other words, I was a complete dunce on the subject.

But in the last year or so, largely in response to unidentified feelings of ennui and quiet rage, I've really started immersing myself in the literature and connecting with some of the truly amazing folks writing about this stuff out on the big bad internet.  People like Melissa McEwan, Ana Mardoll, David Futrelle, and Libby Anne, to name just a few.

I've come across so many different perspectives, many of which make me breathe a huge sigh of relief. Finding safe spaces was a revelation.  I hadn't known that such thoughtful people were out there doing the work of identifying subtle double standards, of explaining tricky problems, of inspecting and dismantling rape culture.  People who expect more.  I got a huge awakening to what was going on in the world, and a call to examine some of the shitty messages I've internalized over the years.  Boy, can that stuff be unpleasant to unpack and really look at, especially when it comes to addressing one's unexamined privilege.  But it's also profoundly important, and I'm willing to put up with a little discomfort in order to become a better person.

I guess you could say I'm a baby feminist.  I've got a whole heck of a lot to learn and grok and incorporate into my goal of becoming a more thoughtful human being.

So let's just say that I was deeply and pleasantly surprised by what I found out there when I finally got around to looking, and immersing myself in the feminist blogosphere has rapidly become my main free-time preoccupation.  It's increasingly becoming a critical part of who I am.  This is something that I'm passionate about, and something I need to write about.  So perhaps this space will take on a whole new direction, or maybe it will just become a more representative sample of my thoughts.  There are no internet police to say I can't have privilege-deconstructing posts alongside sock-folding posts, after all.  They coexist in my head, so why not here?

My space, my rules.  Would you like to come along for the ride?

thoughts on resolutions

Metapost side note: I've been away for a while for a number of reasons.  Here's a rambly set of ruminations on the most recent holiday.

-----

I've never really done the new year's resolution thing.  Oh, I probably parroted a few lines occasionally out of a general feeling of social obligation, but it never really meant anything to me and I never really followed through on any resolutions I might have made.

Last year I started blogging, and made a few monthly resolutions, thinking they'd be more tractable than year-long projects.  I think I got as far as March.

On the one hand, the new year is undeniably a time of renewal, and the desire for a fresh start deserves to be honored.  Deciding to make a change in one's life is a big deal.  It usually involves seriously nontrivial amounts of work (or else why bother with the fanfare), potentially represents a significant improvement in some facet of life, and can be really hard to follow through with.  Not to mention that figuring out what change to implement in the first place can be a hell of a project unto itself.

But compressing this process in a one-line throwaway gesture that no one really expects to happen can be not only useless, but genuinely counterproductive.  Taking a really important personal mission and summing it up into a sound byte might be useful in clarifying the goal itself, but it also might trivialize a very real and relevant quest into a silly exercise in pointlessness and frustration.

So I'm not sure how I feel about all this.  Leo says that having no goals is awesome.  Scott says that defined goals are key to accomplishing really cool stuff, and he's a guy who knows all about accomplishing really cool stuff.  I suspect that the ultimate answer is intensely personal and individual.

I'm in the middle of what feels like a rather important period of change, even if it does seem to drift aimlessly sometimes.  For now, I think I'll spend January without any lofty goals or aspirations, and see where it takes me.

finding passion, part 7: flow

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #7: When was the last time you were in a state of flow, in the zone and totally lost track of time? What were you doing?

To be quite honest, I'm having a difficult time remembering the last time that happened on any significant scale. Perhaps that's a sad commentary, but it's been quite a while since I was so into something that it absorbed me completely.  I find the current lack of that in my life rather disquieting.  

But the question is not asking how long it's been; it's asking what the activity was.  So I shall attempt to summon an answer. 

Editing, I suppose.  As in part 6, I can easily get into a sort of flow regarding the editing/typesetting of documents.  Also, I used to become absorbed in math projects/research/homework when in school, and I do still get some of that same excitement and engagement when one of my grad-school friends asks me a crunchy math question.  

And, of course, dance.  For sanity maintenance I go out dancing once a week, and usually have no idea what time it is until they call for the last song.  Dance is a huge part of who I am.  It rejuvenates me, it makes me happy, it connects with me on a very visceral level. 


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude, part 4: skills, part 5: heroes, part 6: obsession.

finding passion, part 6: obsession

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #6: When was the last time you massively over-delivered on something?  What was it and why did you work so damn hard?

For work, I think this would have to be a recent powerpoint presentation I had the opportunity to put together for a long-term project.  I spent days obsessing over very specific animations and tweaking everything to deliver the information in the best possible way.  I got completely absorbed in the design of the thing, and even spent a lot of my own time at home and on my commute working on it, and I was inordinately proud of it. 

Why did I work so damn hard?  Because it was fun.  Because for whatever reason I intensely enjoy reformatting data into digestible forms and designing visuals to succinctly convey information.

The last personal project that I remember becoming completely obsessed with was when I was rewriting and reformatting my résumé.  I'm a huge fan of LaTeX, an incredibly powerful typesetting system, and wrote my own style file for my household's résumés.  Again, I spent tons of time at home and on commutes working on it and tweaking all the fiddly bits.  I'd spend hours researching online about effective résumé presentation guidelines and principles.  I'd look up and hours would have passed while I was absorbed in the project.  

Why did I put so much work into that?  It wasn't really because of how important a résumé is in one's professional life, though that's a perk.  Fundamentally, it was because of how passionate I felt about presenting the requisite information in the most effective way possible.

Hmm.  There seems to be a trend here.  


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude, part 4: skills, part 5: heroes.

finding passion, part 5: heroes

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #5: Who do you look up to?  Who are your mentors?  Who inspires you?  Why?

Aaaaaand we're back.  I've been a bad blogger about updating for a while now, and it's time to pick up this thread again.  

In no particular order, these are the people who I feel admiration for today.  The list might change tomorrow.  These are the people who make my heart catch in my throat if I imagine that I have the opportunity to sit down to lunch with them.  

• Robert, the best tango instructor in the universe.  Maybe in other universes, too. 
• Don, my kick-ass math tutor and friend from my undergrad years.  He was in the military, and then decided to study math.  'Cuz it's fun.  He helped me to truly grok a lot of the higher-level coursework, and we had so many great discussions.

• Melissa, my feminist blogger hero.  She has so much strength, the ability to beautifully articulate so many important sentiments that can be so darn hard to express, and has put so much work into making her blog into a safe space for everyone.  I admire her from the very depths of my being.  

• Leo, of course.  All bloggers everywhere admire Leo, as far as I can tell.  For his success, for his eloquently simple and peaceful perspective on life, and for his ability to cut out all the noise and focus on what's really important. 
• My grandfather.  He's incredibly strong, kind, and perseverant.  With a snide sense of humor so subtle that it can take days to even realize he'd made a joke.  But it was a damn good one.

• Gala, for being unabashedly fabulous, glittery, and in love with herself. 
• And of course, Nikola Tesla.  For being an amazingly radical scientist whom history seems to have largely overlooked.  Also Barbara McClintock.  Same reason.

Who inspires you?


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude, part 4: skills.

finding passion, part 4: skills

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #4: What are you ridiculously good at?  What are your precious gifts?

Hoo boy.  These certainly are getting to be trickier.  I don't know that there's anything I'd describe myself as being ridiculously good at.  So let's drop the modifier for now.

What am I just good at?  No matter how silly or seemingly irrelevant it is?

• dancing, in various forms
• working with some animals (mostly horses)
• cooking
• writing
• proofreading/editing/typesetting
• presenting
• throwing parties
• planning events
• grasping abstract mathematical concepts
• seeing patterns
• listening to people
• DDR (yes, really.  Silly but true)
• touch-typing
• giving massages
• being a student
• making lists
• memorizing things

It seems that I'm good at physical expression, learning, planning, and working with words.  Hmm.  This... will have to do for now.  Next!

What are you good at?


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude.

finding passion, part 3: gratitude

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #3: What do people thank you for?

This one was exceedingly difficult.  I am generally rather unobservant when it comes to myself, and so at first blush I couldn't think of a darn thing in answer to this question.  I'm sure it's happened, but I don't seem to have remembered any instances of it.

After chatting with a few people and doing some deep introspection, I came up with this marginally satisfactory assortment of items:

• listening/discussing life issues
• emotional support
• cooking
• hospitality (throwing parties, having people over, etc.)
• helping work through problems
• being a sounding board/devil's advocate

Most of these items seem to pertain to conversations.  There is likely to be some serious sample bias base simply on what I was thinking about today and the interactions I've had in the past short while.  However, it's still an interesting result, and hopefully will yield further insights down the line. 

What are you thanked for?


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility.

finding passion, part 2: invincibility

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #2: What do you do that makes you feel invincible?

Invincible, in this context, I take to mean guaranteed of success, unable to fail.  Feeling so good that nothing could possibly go wrong.  This isn't a feeling that I'm especially familiar with, outside of the bliss of losing oneself in a dance with a great partner and a great shared dynamic.  But let's see what I can come up with.  As with all of these questions, I'm doing my best to not over-think the answers, and just write down whatever comes to mind.

• dancing
• climbing to the top of a mountain on horseback
• massive decluttering
• editing
• writing, to a lesser extent

...I'm not entirely sure what conclusions to draw from this particular list.  Hopefully it will all come together further along in the process.

What makes you feel invincible, dear reader?


Previous question: part 1:happiness.

finding passion, part 1: happiness

The other day, I stumbled upon Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  To stop being mediocre.  To release other people's dreams and find their own.  Good stuff.

If you sign up for their email list, you get a bunch of nifty pdf resources.  Normally I resent content being held hostage for my email address, but I feel like this one may actually have relevant and useful emails.  We'll see.

Regardless, the free-but-with-a-catch documents are remarkable, and I'll be working my way through some of them in the coming months.  Today I want to embark upon a beauty called 27 Questions to Find Your Passion.  As you know, my sense of dissatisfaction and ennui is the driving force behind this blog, and I need to get serious about figuring out what I am actually here to do.  Passion-finding resources seem like a good place to start.

So, we have question #1: What makes you happiest in your life?  What excites you?

Without thinking too much, I made a list.  Much on it is silly, some is obvious, and some seems strange.  It's in no particular order, unless you count the order in which items occurred to me as I was writing.  It's incomplete and changing and comprised of the things that I happened to write down one afternoon.  Here goes.

Things that make me happy:

• dancing
• cooking
• good food
• cloudy, gloomy skies
• good company
• hot baths
• stretching
• sweet-smelling flowers
• acceptance
• fuzzy socks
• cuddles
• reading a good book
• music
• creating
• making a positive impact
• wearing fabulous hats
• feeling exhausted
• the smell of horses
• spontaneity
• fresh air
• cold drinks on a hot day
• planning
• going new places

I find it interesting that most things on the list have nothing to do with material possessions.   Presumably as long as I have enough socks, hats, and a kitchen to cook in, I'll be perfectly happy with my stuff.  Interesting.  My happy list is mostly about doing things, getting outside, traveling, and being with people.  

Presumably, the questions will get progressively more challenging to answer.  I'm endeavoring to not read ahead too much, and to just address each question.  

What makes you happy?  

be the change

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."  ---maybe Ghandi, but definitely a nice-sounding bumper sticker

I have issues with embarrassment.

I'll often be furtive about or even completely hide some things I do from view, because of fear of embarrassment.  And no, I didn't mean that.  Get your mind out of the gutter.

I'm talking about little things.

• I time my afternoon walks such that I can slip out and back while people are at lunch.  There's no work-related problem with my taking these breaks; I just for some reason choose to be subtle about it and avoid the topic with coworkers.  
• When shopping, I pick up travel-sized foods like easy-open cans of beans and packets of nuts that are on sale, and then make little packets to give out to the homeless I drive by in my city.  I can't simply ignore them, but I hate the impersonality of just handing over a few dollars.  I like being able to provide something a trifle more thoughtful, something that might offer a little decent nutrition in a lifestyle that probably doesn't afford much by way of real food.  Besides, I buy the stuff on sale when I'm at the store anyway, so it's a dirt cheap little hobby.  But I hide the packets under the passenger seat, and won't stop to hand one out if anyone else is in the car.  
• When out walking by myself I automatically pick up any litter I run across, but if I'm walking with company I'll usually walk right by it, pretending not to notice. 

There's no sensible reason to feel ashamed of these actions.  I'm not claiming they make me an awesome person, but they're certainly not shame-worthy.  So why do I go to such ridiculous lengths to hide them?  Because I'm afraid of a discussion about why I do them?  Because someone might think I'm weird?  Because I just lack strength of character?

Recently, I found myself hoofing it through a city with several family members when vacationing.  There was trash everywhere.  I walked past the first few pieces, while lecturing myself to get over the embarrassment and just pick it up.  I argued to myself that it would be weird, it would slow us down, it was silly.  Finally I bit the bullet, swooped down, and snagged a styrofoam cup as I walked past.  I carefully didn't look at anyone and put on my best impression of nonchalance.

Then the most amazing thing happened.  Suddenly, everyone was stopping to pick up bits of trash!  We had handfuls of it by the time we got to a bin, and my husband even pointed out a few on my side that I was in danger of missing.

Rather than earning criticism, my insignificant little act of bravery spurred more action in turn.  And that one stretch of sidewalk was made that much more pleasant.

This is a silly little example, and just illustrates how strangely my mind works.  But imagine what could happen if we all did exactly what we felt was right, without the fear of judgement.  Where might it lead?  Who knows, but it would probably make the world a little bit better.  Every bit certainly helps.

For me, I'm going to work on banishing my fear of embarrassment and behaving the same way whether I'm watched or not.  It won't be easy, but I think it will be worth it.

The challenge: do something you're afraid of.  Even if it's silly.  See what happens.