Waiting for the great leap forward.

I know he's not actually writing them - or maybe he is, but if so he's certainly not sending them. It's still a little unnerving to see "Barack Obama" in the "from" column in my email though. {Insert image of Obama sitting down at his MacBook, opening Gmail, clicking "compose" and entering my name in the "to" line. Haha.}

Last night I sat 75 feet from a brilliant musician who has been a huge influence on grassroots political movements worldwide for the past 30 years. (No, not Bono. This was better than Bono for me. Sorry, Con.) He spoke of the optimism he has for the upcoming election and the change for the leaders of the western world to do something right for a change. There was no misinterpreting the double meaning to his words - do something right for a change, and do something right - for a change.

Then he played a bunch of awesome songs intermixed with hilarious or poignant or interesting stories of tours or politics or Woodie Guthrie's obsession with Ingrid Bergman, with the occasional jab at the younger crowd ("one day you will all get sick of us geezers going on and on about how f'ing great the Clash was") or the older crowd (noting that half the crowd - the "his generation" half - didn't laugh when he playfully riffed a few lines from a White Stripes song).

And here's where I get all high and mighty for a moment: I paid $10 for "standing room only" to the show (I sat the whole time so not sure what that was about). I think others who bought tickets in advance paid a little more than that. In all there were maybe 500 people in the audience, probably less, and this man spent 3 hours with that teeny crowd who paid a teeny bit of money and put on one hell of a show. Let's see Bono do that. End of HAM moment.

Anyway, near the end he talked about how cynicism is killing the world, and how musicians/artists can't fix things but the audience can be the vehicle for change and spreading the message even wider, and I'm just going to butcher his sentiments but essentially this man who has spent 30 years fighting the good fight basically said "I can't do this - I can plant the seed, but this is your responsibility."

I left happy but wondering what else I could be doing... What else I should be doing. I recycle, I vote, I support various causes financially. Is having 38 leaves on the "I am green" Facebook application worth anything? What about the Obama sign on my window facing the parking lot of the building across the way? The money I give, the volunteer time I spend, the jobs I've had that have a people/better world focus - does it in any way make up for the people who don't do anything, ever? Can't I leave the actual activism for people with the energy to do that, and feel like I'm doing enough with what I'm currently doing? I mean, if everyone in the world was an actual activist, can you imagine how crazy (or how boring) life would be?

I thought about it in a business context today, with the whole "needing all kinds of people to make a successful team" concept, and that helped to lessen the guilt a little bit. So yes, those folks can do the day-to-day and I will support them wholeheartedly, with my money or my referrals or my envelope-stuffing skills or my organizational namedropping in social settings or whatever helps the cause.

I'm a terrible salesperson anyway. This is all for the best.