The Status Quo Always Dies Hard!

Many are incensed that Barack Obama received a Nobel Prize for having accomplished little or nothing "tangible". After all, it's just rhetoric and intentions! And rhetoric and intentions don't change anything!

Oh really?

Being a cynic myself, I would concur that rhetoric and intentions rarely do anything useful, but are they always futile? Here is a consciousness raiser: being that the status quo (which often is or becomes harmful to society at some point in its life) dies hard, how are we ever to move beyond the most dangerous ones? By paving new and untraveled roads.

Because the status quo is so entrenched in the mindset of a society, rhetoric and intentions must be sufficient to sow the seeds of change. Since Homo sapiens seem motivated predominantly by reward, how then do we pave the way for change? By rewarding and honoring rhetoric and intentions! This will then attract others to travel these new and untraveled roads. Over time, the status quo relinquishes its unshakeable grip and tangible changes ARE accomplished!

The BIGGEST of all questions is, which status quos have overstayed their welcomes and which have not? A tempting question to be sure, but this is not what I am addressing here. I am simply addressing WHY it is or at least could be beneficial for society to REWARD rhetoric and intentions alone.

If there was never incentive to change the status quo, how would it ever have changed?

To Be Or To Believe?

Why does one need to believe anything? Why can't he just be? The “real” person seems ultimately to be what he or she does, not what he or she believes. So might it be irrelevant to get encumbered in beliefs?

I would much rather somebody forgive me than tell me he believes in forgiveness! It might be pointed out that one needs to believe something. But so much of the time we fail to act according to our beliefs anyway. Furthermore, I don't think failure to act in accordance with a belief necessarily means it is not believed. This is why belief is ultimately futile.

The essence of one's being, who he really is, is the true test of what he “believes”. In this sense, there is no need for him to believe anything. It is just to be. And this being will manifest itself as doing which is ultimately the only useful purpose of any belief.....to coax us into doing it.