Words are powerful. They can motivate the best in people, organizations and society.
That truth informs my career and many others’. It’s why the First Amendment devotes more than half its text to speech. The wordsmiths of 1787 knew that the free exchange of words would be the central axis for working through turbulence.
Yet after weeks of pain, loss and heartbreak, I doubt I am the only one who feels words aren’t enough anymore.
What use are words when they come and go so rapidly that they are rendered vapid and meaningless? What use are words when they are swiftly deployed to turn tragedy into a weapon, scoring points against “them” in a cycle of algorithmic, money-fueled outrage?
In this moment, every word we consume is feckless unless we can derive from the best of them the motivation to act.
As President Russell M. Nelson put it: “If we have any hope of reclaiming the goodwill and sense of humanity for which we yearn, it must begin with each of us, one person at a time.”
It’s time to put down the phone, turn off the TV, touch grass, and then in the spirit of American individualism, find our change.
Marcus Hardy
Saratoga Springs