A mantra for our times . . .

‘Yes’ is a word of acceptance. It suggests seeing things as they are, whether or not what we see is to our liking. It intimates owning up to our role and responsibility in what we observe and experience. Wallace Stevens wrote, “After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future of the world hangs.” It seems that many of us spend our lives saying ‘no’, denying the reality of suffering around us, much of it self-inflicted, all of it ultimately shared. Of course, the irony is that this denial is killing us. It must yield to a liberating ‘yes’ that takes us through and beyond our fears to a greater place of strength and wisdom.

As for ‘we,’ this is clearly our time. Much is to be made of the self-actualized individual. The age of Enlightenment gave birth to wonders of thought that lifted some of the darkness of ignorance and led to certain riches. It would also seem that our hyper focus on the individual has come at the expense of some members of the human and planetary family, and brought us all to a very delicate point. Our primary challenge is to see the whole. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from his jail cell that, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” We know this to be truer than ever, from our growing awareness about climate change, to our recent experiences with the global financial crisis. The promise of the future lies in our ability to understand this truth, to see ourselves as part of a dynamic living whole and to tap and develop our collective intelligence.

The Old English root of the word ‘can’ is ‘to know.’ In other languages, the word is more directly connected to the notion of ‘power’ (pouvoir, poder). Knowledge is power.  This does not simply mean knowing facts and techniques, but also ourselves. It is inner knowing that is critical to the most effective use of information and tools, that gives life to our technical know-how. And knowing ourselves is a gateway to knowing others, to seeing ourselves in them, and them in us.

And so for me, ‘Yes, we can’ is simultaneously a courageous affirmation of life in all of its dimensions, an authentic appeal to our collective nature, and a call to deeply know ourselves and one another, so that we might discern how best to move forward together. 

Curtis Ogden
Senior Associate
Interaction Institute for Social Change

Curtisogden@yahoo.com