É possível mudar o Mundo?

Estar Vivo é poder Mudar

Eu não posso mudar o Mundo

Só posso mudar-me a mim próprio

Observando cada vez mais o Mundo

Como ele realmente é...

I cannot change the World,

I can only change myself

looking at the world

as it actually is,

actually; more and more...

- Eheh, some guy just told me that you cannot change the World!

- Well, I seem to agree!

- Are you crazy?, everything I do changes something. Even these very words. If I could not change the world, I’d be dead. In fact that seems pretty much the definition of being alive: you can change things around you!

- Well, you can play with the world, you can communicate, showing desires and expressing inner states, and you can also apprehend the inner meaning that is expressed by the outward look of things... but you cannot certainly change the World. Let me make a comparison with a game or a program. You certainly can play a game, or use a program to write a text, but that is not the same as changing the program or the game. You can only do what the program allows you to do, you can only make certain movements in the game, make certain options, and for each option, the game will provide you with a certain predetermined reply. You cannot change any of that. You cannot change the rules, you can only play by the rules. You can make a lot of things in the World, but the World will just continue to be the World, no matter what you do, no matter if you live or die, or are happy or unhappy, things will just continue to be the way they always were, always will be, even before time begun...

- You’re crazy! This is meaningless, I mean, obviously I can change the world. I do make a difference, and every single day of my life I will be making a difference. That is why I make such efforts, can’t you see? I sacrifice, I make plans, I have goals, all this in order to change the world, to make it a better, or at least a different place, a place more according to my desires. What you are saying, is completely meaningless. Obviously, I do make a difference, if you reply you will prove precisely that, because you will be replying to what I just said, proving that I have made a difference in your behavior! What simpler and more obvious thing could there be?

- It is true you can interact with the world. You act and the world also acts in return. You’ve made a statement, and now I’m making mine. It’s all obvious and clear. You say you sacrifice. Many people do, they sacrifice things that they judge not important for things that, in their eyes, are more important. For each sacrifice we make we are also making a statement: we are saying what things we consider to be important and what things we consider to be relatively unimportant. For instance, your father is dying, he needs to eat a lot, so you kill a goose to feed him well. You are making a statement saying that, to you, your father is more important than a goose, probably the goose would feel otherwise. The world provides you with plenty of choices, plenty of knobs and buttons, to express your choices, to say who you really are, but, each time you are doing one such choice, you are only speaking about yourself, you are showing what is important to you. And the World, just like in a game, replies to your choice. It allows all sorts of choices you can think of, but those choices are already imprinted in the structure of the World. You are not changing anything regarding what is possible or impossible, or what the consequences are for each choice. Since the beginning of time the world opens up, implicit in its structure, the exact same possibilities; more and more became visible, explicit, as time goes by, and it is likely, given what we know about the Universe, that more and more will become explicit in the future. But those possibilities were there, you cannot change them, you cannot change the World.

- You’re crazy nevertheless, because, what does that mean to my life? I cannot change the World, but I can change whether there is food at my table, and whether my children will be laughing or crying. And that is the only thing that matters!

- Yes. And for them you are willing to sacrifice!

- Yes!

... ... ...

- Well, just suppose for a minute that you could not change the world. What would you do then?

- Well, then there would be nothing left to do, would there?

- You would be able to do anything you are able to do now, but knowing that it would made no difference in what really matters.

- Well, it would be the same, I could do anything, but nothing would matter. ... It’s an ugly world it would seem... Why would I want to live in such a world? I can’t imagine a single reason... What would you do?

- Well, obviously, being nothing there left to do, I would do what is left: I would Observe... and, by observing, I would change myself...

- (laughing strongly and in high pitch...) You are a crazy nuts! ^_^