How Small Can We Be?
by Tim LeRoy
The problem with ripples is that it’s the mighty waves that get all the attention. Waves have awe-inspiring and visible impact, but we never seem to notice the butterflies’ wings that start them, or the tiny pebble that begets their power.
But the most important ideas always start small. Tiny whispers perhaps. The best ideas’ strength is their simplicity. Tiny pebbles that niggle you with ‘what if?’
We live in a culture where our politics and philosophies are served up in tiny palatable morsels. A world driven by soundbites, slogans and strap-lines. Life is far too complex and far too nuanced to be reduced to a trite three word command, so I prefer long and loquacious sentences, full of exploration and possibility, and too many commas.
Maybe that’s protection and insulation from the awkward reality that, usually, it really can be that simple.
The craft of the copywriter is to take a big idea that might seem too much to swallow whole, and to reduce it down to a tiny sugared pill that can take root deep inside. The issues we’re fighting or the injustices we’re seeking to right seem like mountains too tall for us to even contemplate climbing alone, but it’s never true. Look around, there are a million perfect cliches that, like all cliches, are loaded with the reassuring truth that you can.
“If your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you’re not thinking big enough” sounds too epic, too huge, but really translates as “plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”
From tiny acorns, mighty oaks grow.
Teach a man to fish …
Just do it.
Looking for seismic shifts? Maybe we should ask, how can I be small?
Seeking independence for your country from a tyrannical invader? A small Indian solicitor went for a walk.
Need the whole world to wake up to the imminent apocalypse of climate change? A Swedish school girl bunked off class and sat down with a cardboard sign.
The most successful behaviour change movement in the world was started by two provincial doctors who realised that the cure for their own battle with the bottle was simply the support and fellowship of a small group of anonymous friends, taking it one day at a time. Two pebbles whose ripples have helped millions find and retain their sobriety.
Tiny habits, world-shaking change.
Two years ago a brilliant musician took his own life and we, his friends and fans, grieved for him because he can’t have known how important his songs were, and how huge their effect had been. Rippling around the world.
And you know when it’s all gone, something carries on
And it’s not morbid at all just when natures had enough of you
When my blood stops, someone else’s will not
When my head rolls off, someone else’s will turn
You can mark my words, I’ll make changes to earth
And while I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to earth.
[Scott Hutchinson. Frightened Rabbit. Heads Roll Off.]
I have a childhood memory of camping next to Coniston Water, waking early to see the dawn break. The lake was millpond flat, like a mirror five miles long by half a mile wide. I skimmed a stone; a perfect pitching seven-bouncer, dribbling to ten or eleven.
I watched the ripples fan out but couldn’t see where they stopped. I didn’t think about it much, then. I do now.
