Liberating Spaces

Not long time ago I was at the table, having dinner with my family in Barcelona. My uncle, a youthful sixty-five year old man, responded to my call for “change in the world” with a “you can’t change people, you may change yourself, and from there people may change, but you can’t change people”. This same thing was said many decades ago by a wise man who changed and keeps changing the world.

Be the change you want to see in the world – Mahatma Ghandi

Change is in ourselves. All starts with an exercise of self-awareness, a self-realisation of our immense possibilities and, yes, our boundaries. From there we can “establish new behavior patterns” to “form habits”. Slowly, gradually we change ourselves. This was reminded to me just a couple of days ago. This is the only real and durable change. People around us will then start to realize their own potential, their own boundaries by seeing our own change. This is a long process, in which patience is important. It is a process not free of pain and suffering on the way, but the rewards are far greater…

Through constant familiarity, we can definitely establish new behavior patterns, using our tendency to form habits to our advantage. If we make a steady effort, I think we can overcome any form of negative conditioning and make positive changes in our lives. But we need to remember that genuine change doesn’t happen overnight. – Dalai Lama

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In the WikiRebels (previous post), an excellent documentary on Wikileaks and Julian Assange, an interesting figure has called my attention: Christian Whiton. Not because he is brilliant, or particularly original, quite for the opposite. He happens to represent what’s wrong with our current system: “we, the citizens, do not need to know what elites governing our societies are doing with our resources, and sometimes with our lives, to defend the so-called ‘national interest’”.

So according to what this person represents, “elites” (aka “a few people using their power on us”) are legitimated to hide from us what they do for the sake of a supposed national ethos they represent. We have no right to know they participation, either by knowing, permitting or even using, in Shell’s control of Nigeria. We have no right to know that Pfizer ‘used dirty tricks to avoid clinical trial payout‘ in Nigeria. We have no right to know that public officials, aka diplomats, work basically for the interests of big (and wealthy) private companies (e.g. Visa and Mastercard) with taxpayer’s money.

No, we don’t have this right, because they work for the national interest. The same national interest that has bailed out for millions and millions the financial crooks that live in the top of the tall buildings overlooking us. The same national interest that is pushing more and more people into marginalisation by cutting social expenditure, increasing indirect taxation and reducing corporate taxes. The same national interest that brought us to a deadly invasion (Iraq), a lost war (Afghanistan) and protects trade of weapons that kill innocent people by the thousands every day.

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It is some time since last I went jogging. I need to find again my past routine when I went 4 times a week. When I run, I feel healthier and I want to keep that disposition when eating and doing other things. Action begets change. By doing something, our mind gets into a different context and changes the content of thoughts and wishes. When I run regularly, my mind feels healthier and wants to keep that going by eating light food.

I believe it happens in all what we do. For example, if we drive our cars to work, we’ll be different persons than if go walking or taking public transportation. We might become more environmentalists in other activities. Action begets change.

If I use open source software, I will think differently about my work, about what I am doing with it, but also about how I should treat information. My perspective will be more open towards liberating information and data, increasing the effect of my first belief that brought me to use open source software in the first place. Action begets change.