Who Will Save Us? We Will! (Two Five Zero 010)
[Sorry: this 250-word piece is 444 words long. I couldn’t cut it any more …]
I was up in the night, not to pee every two hours but because I was having an idea. Used the 3x5 cards by my bed again — a milestone. The New Year is a milestone.
My nocturnal idea started with people whose work I deeply value — Greta Thunberg, Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes), Grace Lee Boggs, Oliver Sacks, Rebecca Solnit, Joana Macy, Caitlin Johnstone …
People who have forged their own paths and dedicated themselves to their deepest inclinations for the sake of a better world (Who’s on *YOUR* list?) Others we’ve heard of and many we haven’t; how many would have done comparable work who didn’t get the lucky break or the encouraging word?
The idea: Recruit and support the next round of such people — call them “innovators” — to help us face an increasingly unfamiliar world ever-more filled with unprecedented challenges. They’ll lead and innovate in all the ways: political, communal, educational …
Everything’s starting to change. Can you feel it? We’re nearing an inflection point: more and more people are coming to believe we’re facing big and permanent change.
For example: Three missing and feared dead and 991 structures destroyed in the Boulder fires. Tahoe was inaccessible, before that Vancouver. “Don’t Look Up” is number one on Netflix worldwide (Adam McKay’s one my heroes). Of course it’s not just climate.
This inflection point means we’d best be prepared when the time to get really serious really comes.
Create an investment fund and infrastructure to find new innovators and give them money, encouragement, and guidance — because they’re the people we will need the most. Investors pay in and later share a modest percentage of the innovators’ increased net worth. Hire people (real jobs, living wages, etc.) in every zip code to find them, others to support and coach them. Solicit famous rich people (Adam McKay, Emma Thompson, Mark Ruffalo, et al) with a “you and your fancy friends” pitch for seed money and initial buzz; get Winnie Wong et al to help design the logistics. Tens of thousands donated to Bernie with no hope of a return besides a radically transformed political future. Investors in my idea will receive a monetary return *and* a radically transformed future. The processes to find and support the innovators will be so good that the pooled net return will be substantial. The point is not to increase net worth but their work would resonate so strongly it’ll be unavoidable — they’ll be so perfectly suited for their times — or a step and a half ahead. Like many of my ideas, it’s almost as effective as a screenplay if you can get it made and seen. (See links to my “The New Relevance.”)
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -> PS “The New Relevance” on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paul.stark.104/posts/10165042171220254
“The New Relevance” on Medium dot com: https://paulstark1959.medium.com/because-we-are-definitely-notdeadyet-59fc804ee93
Here’s Bill Watterson’s illustrated journey to a radically altered personal future — to the benefit of countless millions …
