In the morning, I saw a post that gave an excerpt of a speech Shonda Rhimes made at Dartmouth. I later read a longer version of the speech and found that most of it resonated with me.
However, two things about it struck me.
1- She talked about dreaming of something and doing a thing to achieve it as if they were mutually exclusive.
For example, she dreamed of being a Nobel Peace Prize winning author like Toni Morrison. She ended up writing for television, and never dreamed that is what would end up happening.
And why does it sound like she assumes that’s what people do, in her speech? Is that true – do people tend to dream but not do things to get the dream they have in mind?
I find more that people fail to dream, or to plan, and let life kind of happen to them. And I believe this isn’t from stupidity, but a general ignorance in our culture about how much control we can have over our lives.
We’re a lot more powerful than we think we are. And the vision of what we desire is a lot more powerful than we think it is IF we combine it with even the slightest push in the right direction.
Plus the fact that it’s so much harder to even get to the dream phase if you’re just trying to survive the day all the time.
Still, I am hesitant to believe that humanity as a whole is that unaware. It always scares me to think I’m one of the lucky ones. Because if I am? There’s a lot more suffering in the world than I am prepared to bear the idea of, by the factor of at least 100.
Am I really an outlier for believing that dreams are just the first step to doing?
Or was I just raised really well, to have made that connection from as young as I can remember?
2- She talked about how a hashtag doesn’t do anything, which I kind of agree with, but not the way she put it.
Here’s how she put it, incidentally:
Find a cause you love. It’s okay to just pick one. You are going to need to spend a lot of time out in the real world trying to figure out how to stop being a lost loser so one cause is good. But find one. And devote some time every week to it.
And while we are discussing this, let me say a thing. A hashtag is not helping. #yesallwomen #takebackthenight #notallmen #bringbackourgirls #StopPretendingHashtagsAreTheSameAsDoingSomething
Hashtags are very pretty on twitter. I love them. I will hashtag myself into next week. But a hashtag is not a movement. A hashtag does not make you Dr King. A hashtag does not change anything. It’s a hashtag. It’s you, sitting on your butt, typing into your computer and then going back to binge watching your favorite show. For me, it’s Game of Thrones.
Volunteer some hours. Focus on something outside yourself. Devote a slice of your energies towards making the world suck less every week. Some people suggest that doing this will increase your sense of well-being. Some say it’s just good karma. I say that it will allow you to remember that, whether you are a legacy or the first in your family to go to college, the air you are breathing right now is rare air. Appreciate it. And don’t be an asshole.
And so here’s where the “kind of” comes in when I say I agree with her. While it’s true that a hashtag ALONE doesn’t do anything (duh again), the little the action of using the hashtag, if that’s all one can do, helps, should not be thrown out with the bathwater.
If you’ve ever run a nonprofit initiative or tried to help raise money, awareness or spark action from outrage, you know what I’m talking about: we still need those so-called slacktivists in order to be successful. Those who care but can’t or won’t do, lead us to the people with the power to make change happen.
Technically, in the case of #bringbackourgirls especially, there are cases where starting a hashtag IS doing something, something extremely useful.
Sometimes a pivotal “something useful”.
If the women in Nigeria hadn’t started the hashtag when they did, how fast would the rest of the events followed? That hashtag is sparking the #takebackNigeria movement. That movement could actually change the world, not just the continent of Africa. In 100 years, that event may be seen as important as any world leader’s initial spark to run for President.
Is our response to what was one of few open avenues available to them really “shut up that doesn’t do anything?”
Because out of context, a lot of what is being said about social media is coming across like that to people in other countries who we say we want to help.
Which I’ll go into more detail on Medium, another day soon.
What I’m seeing for the here and now is magnified by the video I just watched. At the end of the day, it is one that is more aligned with my inner “well, duh”.
Have a look at this 62 second video, then at the end I’ll tell you what I got.
It’s as dangerous to dream and do nothing as it is to do something that didn’t start with a dream.