Making It Better

Practice makes perfect. Maybe sometimes this is true. It didn't work for me, especially with piano and violin lessons. I wanted to make music. And I had some talent, but not enough want. So practice became odious. The sounds from the instruments did not improve. Sour notes invented themselves with some help from me! And rhythms. Chords appeared without theory or pleasing harmony.

So I stopped. Learned to sing instead. And that has remained with me for a lifetime. Practice in this case has made it better. But not for instruments in my case.

Relationships are also tricky. They require a lot of work. A lot of selflessness especially when very little is present! Those are the worst times to do the needed work, but then that’s why it is called ‘work’.

Anne Frank wrote in her diary from a hidden space in Amsterdam:

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

These words were written by a Jewish girl hunted by the Nazis. They did find her eventually. They yanked her from her hiding place and killed her. Anne Frank knew what she was writing about. The world was a hideous place. It was dangerous. It was much unimproved. It needed a lot of attention.

So it was wonderful to her that improvement was so easy to do. So little had to be done to make it a better place. Each and every person could that if they wished to. All they had to do was wish it.  Anne could wish. But she couldn't do much about improving the world. It was the world searching her out to eliminate her. To improve the world so they thought. Kill Anne Frank.

And thus she is important to us, the survivors. All these years later.  Anne was born in June of 1929 and died in March, 1945. Her story is the story of the world community in the early 1940’s. Her story unfolds amid evil. It unfolds demanding solutions by strangers from far away. Because those nearby could do so little. Or chose to do so little.

Anne was correct, though. Wasn’t she? Things were so bad only a little thing needed to be done to make things at least a little better. Plant a flower in a bombing field amidst the broken glass and mud? Wear a smile to replace the look of stark fear?

Her days were very dark. The Holocaust was and is dark. A blotch on history – the story of mankind on the planet. We did so poorly then. The world did respond eventually. Too late for Anne Frank. But not too late for millions more and for mankind in the long haul.

Perhaps we say these words too soon. Perhaps there is the need for improvement yet today? That depends on who is doing the looking and the discerning. That relies on a consciousness of more than one person.

On the other hand this quote is a jarring reminder that consciousness is not dead:

“The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do.”        ~Author Unknown

Too little too late? Perhaps not. Thinking we can change the world is the first step in doing the changing. Anne Frank was right. It is easy to change the world. You just have to want to. To see the world as it is. To not accept that that is as good as it gets. Things could be better.

And we can make a difference.

But will we?

May 20, 2014