Doing the work

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

From the Bill Moyers series on Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth:

Joseph Campbell believed that everything begins with a story, so we begin this series with Joseph Campbell with one of his favorites. He was in Japan for a conference on religion, and he overheard another American delegate, a social philosopher from New York, say to a Shinto priest, “We’ve been now to a good many ceremonies and have seen quite a few of your shrines. But I don’t get your ideology, I don’t get your theology.” The Japanese paused as though in deep thought, and then slowly shook his head. "I think we don’t have ideology,” he said, “we don’t have theology. We dance.”

Am I a progressive? Am I a liberal? Am I a centrist? Am I center-left? Am I a moderate?

Yes.

The words we use to describe ourselves, to explicate our core beliefs, both reveal and hide. They are, at some point, insufficient to meet the task. 

That quote from the wise Shinto priest has been with me since I first heard it in the conversation between Moyers and Campbell. What the priest realizes is that words often get in the way of truth. That words obfuscate as much as they enlighten. That words, ultimately, are meaningless without action to match them.

In my younger years I was as tribal as they came. I defined myself with words, with slogans, with mottoes. I didn't care about practicalities. I cared about beautiful phrases which denoted me as a Very Serious Person. And I was attracted politically to people who were the same; I didn't care about their efficacy—lack of results was just another indicator that The System was powerful and needed to be lashed rhetorically even more.

The old adage is that you're a liberal as a young man or woman, and become more conservative as you age. Now, I'm still the liberal I've been since I became politically aware. But what I have become is results-oriented.

I don't care how much camera time you get. I don't care how many bromides you sling. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido. Great. But how are you going to unify the community, and use that unity to push for real reform, for real benefits to the community? If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, and so on. Don't tell me how bad things are and how they need to get better. How are you going to create effective alliances to make good change? Because if it's you and a couple of other people, that's not going to cut it.

As a librarian, I'm on the spectrum of getting things done. What can I bring to the community I serve to enlighten them, to show them something they hadn't seen before? How can I empower my community through my work? They want the services I can provide, and the guidance I can impart. They don't care about slogans, and neither should they. The community I serve is neither wealthy nor powerful. It needs tangibles, not sloganeering. It needs the dance, not theology. And in that, they're no different than most people. You can do the work and show the results, or spend all your time in front of the cameras. The two really are irreconcilable. 

Of course, one must outline a vision for the future. And this involves, yes, flapping your gums. But if that's all you do, then it's worse than doing nothing. You're promising the moon and the stars, but not putting any scaffolding in place to build the structure. You will eventually be judged on your effectiveness, as in all aspects of life, and woe betide you if you come up short.

Talk less. Do more. And always, always dance.