iThink...thereFore, iAm

I had dinner yesterday with a good friend, “inelchan”, and thought about our meeting as i pondered through today. One of the reasons why we’re good friends is that we’re both deep thinkers, both very open to debate and discourse, both philosophical and we both articulate thoughts well. The differences that keep us as good friends is that i’m more of a pessimist-realist, while he tends to be an pragmatic-optimist, and while emotions and logic often form a dissonance for me, it gives him what he calls an equilibrium between the two.

So we had long wonderful conversations over a great deal of topics, varying from religious faith (I’m a christian, he’s not), to generational issues (he takes it in his stride while recognizing the problems and i’m just plain cynical about them), to personal stuffs. Something that really crossed my mind when we were talking was that we came for very different backgrounds, but yet still managed to form the same trains of deep thought, often cumulating in smae conclusions (but often different reactions to them). And it was comforting to know that one other person on the face of this earth is similar to me in this aspect that we think deeply to the point that maybe other people would say we think “too much”.

Now i have an ambitious streak in me - I want to make a difference in the world, and I believe it can be done. But recently I’ve been paranoid and cynical, primarily due to personal recent events. I thought I was one of the few who could see the problems going around, because no one seemed to be doing anything about them or even blatantly refusing to acknowledge them. In a non-arrogant way, I thought I could be the lighthouse and shed light on things to people, and it was killing me because I had no energy to fight my own battles in my recovery. It reached the point where I was thinking to myself what’s the point in saving people who don’t want to be saved? What can one man do?

A dinner with inelchan religned me; I was not alone.

You see, I think one man can change the world. It’s not easy, but it’s becoming easier. You have the internet, the phone lines, blogs (hey you’re reading this). And to be honest I do know a few people who think like me. I won’t say I’m ahead of my time, though I’ve been told that enough to believe it, but that’s not a label that I’d gleefully take because I think it also entails a great responsibility. Blame Peter Parker for that mentality.

I was reminded, that if he could think the same as me, then there are other people like us too. Like us.

Maybe one man can’t change the world. Maybe he can.

But if he can’t, i’m reminded that there isn’t just one.

Maybe there is hope for us after all. Maybe we can be who we were meant to be.