One Can Make a Difference (2 page)

The first person to remind me of this was a nurse named Sue. Years ago, Sue was living with her mother and father in Delaware. One day, soon after PETA started but long before it became a household word, I received a letter from her. She wrote that she cared a great deal about animals and that the ways in which they are cruelly treated upset her. “But,” she went on, “I feel helpless to have any impact. I've looked, but there is no group here for me to join. I am in the middle of nowhere.”

I called Sue that evening. Sure enough, she was a deeply caring person who was willing to volunteer a few hours every week to help animals even if she had to drive many miles to do so.“Sue,” I said. “If there's no group where you are, don't sit around waiting for someone else to start one.You must start one yourself.” It took a little work to convince Sue that she could overcome her fear of public speaking and that like-minded souls would come out of the woodwork once things were rolling. The short version of the story is that Sue took a deep breath and did just that. Within a few months, her knowledge and her files grew like bamboo in a rainforest. After putting up notices on bulletin boards announcing her new group and after setting up a few literature tables at the local mall, she soon became the “go-to” person for local media calls and school talks on animal issues. Sue not only awakened and engaged a whole community, but she felt useful and fulfilled, finally doing what meant a great deal to her. Her life had new meaning, and, by extension, others' lives were slowly changed as well. What started with a small wish to contribute ended up nurturing a plant whose tendrils today reach into every junior high school from Wyoming to Winnipeg with materials Sue helped develop.

This example is about someone who wanted to help animals, but the crux of it pertains to anyone hoping to change the status quo. There are as many worthwhile ways to make a mark as there are people. Sue's worries simply reflect the ubiquitous “who am I?” question. Who am I to make a difference in a world in which huge corporations control the marketplace; massive empires run the media; the government turns a blind eye on the poor, the indigent, and the elderly; the environment is being laid to waste; animals are kept in chains to “entertain” us in circuses; children go uneducated and often uncared for; and excess food is discarded in one part of the world while millions starve in another?

Such discouraging observations can form a never-ending list, but they should be no deterrent! There is a saying I love that does away with that list of horrors. All you have to do is look at society's “impossibilities”—like, aptly enough, the collapse of the Berlin Wall—that became possible, sometimes overnight, and know this saying is as true as it is wonderful. It goes like this: “If you bang your head against a brick wall long enough, the wall will fall.” And once you start banging your head against that wall, others will join you.

In this book, you will discover essays written by people who have harbored a variety of desires, faced the accompanying challenges, and been spurred into action, borne into action, or found themselves inching forward into a new role that now fits them beautifully. Each essayist—and I have chosen a deliberately diverse group spanning ages and interests—invites you to peek into his or her psyche. Fueled by enthusiasm (a feeling the ancient Greeks regarded as a holy state), optimism, and determination, and often armed with nothing grander than their own beliefs, each has pursued a course that beckoned to them. Through their essays we are permitted to see what was and is inside their hearts, to hear of their personal evolution, to learn what pitfalls and high points they found on the journey to helping themselves overcome a fear or problem, from which we can take a lesson, or in carving their name on society's rock. Some of these names will be familiar to you, others will not. By including both the “known” and the “unknown,” I hope this book illustrates (a) that even those we admire from afar invariably face obstacles and have to find ways to keep their belief alive and (b) that you don't have to be a household name to make a difference, to become an example to others; you just need to have conviction. Hopefully, their stories will inspire you to find your own path, just as the influences I encountered in my youth inspired me to be true to myself.

I wasn't born fearless, but in no small part due to my father, who took great risks in his adventures, I soon became so. My father drove across the notorious sinking sands of the Indian desert known as the “Little Rani of Kutch,” braved landslides and typhoons, took his small boat out at the first sign of a squall in the gulf, and climbed ice mountains in ordinary shoes!

And while much of this was work related, he categorized it as pleasure. Under his tutelage, I grew to be fearsomely opinionated about anything that mattered to me, from the “right” way to spit cherry pits to how people treated their dogs. If I turned my vigor toward my family with some impassioned plea to not eat chicken or let me take up the piano instead of the violin, my weary mother would say, “Dear girl, I think you would argue with Jesus Christ himself if he walked into this room.”

During my childhood, I was inspired by the adventurers who dared traverse the Sahara Desert on foot, though it was commonly accepted it couldn't be done. Or the brave Sherpas who climbed Mount Everest in flimsy shoes and cotton trousers, without the benefit of supplemental oxygen. If they had listened to their insecurities, rather than to their powerful hearts, they would most likely have never left home. During this time, I also wanted to be a ballerina like Dame Margot Fonteyn or a great pianist like Chopin, but I had such poor balance I toppled our pyramid during the school gym class presentation for parents' day and I couldn't stretch my small fingers all the way to an octave and I'm almost tone deaf. I do believe, however, that if either of these had been my passion, the way moral values came to be, I would have applied myself with the diligence, desire, and fortitude that have helped me champion animals' rights.

When I was sixteen, I met a disciple of the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, who rejected the material world in favor of service to others. I was moved by his profound connection to nature and his encouragement to share what you have with others, in particular the poor. Tagore became my hero. His words still rest upon my desk today:

I slept and dreamt that life was joy
I awoke and saw that life was service
I acted and behold, service was joy.

In my twenties, I was deeply inspired by Sojourner Truth. Sojourner was a black liberationist who stood up to white men who not only mocked her, but even tried to set fire to the buildings in which she spoke. When she was ridiculed for daring to address an assembly of “learned” men, she said, “If your jug holds a quart, and mine a pint, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my half measure full?” Those words convinced me that everyone deserves a voice, even those who have none of their own and must let others speak for them. Her actions spurred me to gather five like-minded friends together to form PETA and so give the animals the voice they deserve.

Perhaps Sojourner Truth was born fearless, but more likely, she overcame her fears because her empathy for others and her loathing of injustice were so great. Courage can be found. One of the things my heroes taught me was that the present moment is extremely precious. Perhaps you will live a full and long life. Or perhaps you will only have a short time to leave a positive footprint. Either way, it's worth remembering the adage, “If at first you don't succeed, try and try again.” Who cares if you don't do things exactly right the first time? Think of Robert the Bruce, sitting in a damp cave in Scotland, eons ago, believing he could never roust the English king from his lands. Deeply dejected, he sat watching a spider try and fail, once, twice, six times, to attach a thread to the cave wall so as to build her web. On the seventh try, she succeeded! Inspired by this tiny insect's tenacity, Bruce went back into the battle, determined to defeat the invaders. And win he did.

Everyone cares about something bigger than themselves, and everyone can make that cause a vital part of their lives no matter who they are. Someone “ordinary” was the first to step up to the plate and champion rights for blacks, for orphans, for people with disabilities, for animals, for women, for prisoners, and for humanity. Some of the most indispensable inventions and delightful distractions came about because someone, somewhere, dedicated countless hours to whatever interested or intrigued them, a problem of life and death perhaps, or tinkered about with, say, a musical instrument, a style or even something to eat. Think William Wilberforce, Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, Leo Fender, Johnny Appleseed, the Flying Wallenders, Florence Nightingale, Margaret Mead, Amelia Earhart, Lord Sandwich, Edward R. Murrow, George Washington Carver, Georgia O'Keefe, George Allen, and Mother Teresa. Their names live on for good reason. Perhaps yours will too.

I hope that this book brings you hope, courage, and inspiration, that it helps you examine your own ability to bash through those brick walls and encourages you to cast aside any doubts, hesitation, or perceived limitations you may be harboring. May it prove to you that you are bound by nothing at all and that the future, and your life, can be what you make it.

BARBARA ADAMS

Head in the Stars,
Feet on the Ground

Bobbie (Barbara) Adams earned her “fifteen minutes of fame” when she turned
up for jury duty in Little Rock, Arkansas, dressed in her Star Fleet Commander
uniform. The trial: Whitewater. Over the past decade, she has inspired
thousands of people by stretching her fifteen minutes out into the galaxy. She
has appeared in three documentaries about
Star Trek
and its followers; on
National Public Radio and in newspapers internationally; and in Norway,
where fans held a “BarbaraCon” convention in her honor. She still hears from
people from all over the world who thank her for “being brave enough to be
yourself.” And although she just shakes her head and says that it had never
occurred to her not to wear her uniform, “just as someone in the U.S. military
might wear theirs,” she is glad if her “small act of individuality” has inspired
others to be true to themselves.

I am inspired by her total lack of hesitation in being true to herself. That
quiet courage is reason enough for me to want to share her thoughts with
you. And, should you think otherwise, Bobbie is far from the stereotype of an
obsessed fan. She's not that interested in the actors who appear in
Star Trek
or the gossip and palaver surrounding the series. “I'm not pretending to be
someone on a ship, not pretending to be in space. I'm just me.” What interests
her, and has since the show started (when she was two years old), are the Star
Fleet's values and how people in this century can become mature enough to
eventually embrace them. In an age where people's eyes seem to be melded into
their computer screens and we are more comfortable text messaging one another
than conversing in person, Bobbie's sense of not only individuality, but also of
community service, respect, inclusion, and reliability can serve as a worldwide
template for our generation. You might say that she inspires us to go, if not
where no man has gone before, to a place where we can happily be ourselves.

A
lot of science fiction, certainly the first
Star Trek
series, allows us to look at what we are doing today as if from the future. This, in turn, allows us to be able to look more honestly at the progress we need to make to become truly civilized. This sort of distance provides a comfortable way to critique our times and our behaviors. I was too young to understand then, but I know now that during all the turmoil of the 1960s many people took comfort in the ideas that
Star Trek
put forth: that humans had managed not to sink and destroy each other, but to make it into the twenty-third century, that they had survived. That gave people hope. Not only that, right from the start there was total integration of sex, race, and species. It was a model of inclusion. No one questioned putting a female, a black female, on the bridge, for example, even back then. That appealed to me.

So did their practice of respect for others, no matter how different from us they might be. My parents were nonjudgmental and that's how I grew up.You made sure that you had all the facts, that you weren't reacting badly to someone or something without realizing that perhaps you didn't know everything you should. We were living in Brooklyn, where there was almost every possible ethnicity and culture; different foods, other languages you couldn't necessarily understand. On
Star Trek
, communication comes in all sorts of forms, too. Not every life form speaks the same language or has the same customs, but all must be respected. I remember being upset that my niece was often laughed at for how she looked. She had a big tumor on her nose, so the others laughed at her. But she couldn't help how she appeared, and it was several years before she could have surgery to remove the growth. I was also made fun of because I was, and still am, very short. This sort of disrespectful behavior has always seemed wrong to me.

The law within the United Federation of Planets is that you do not interfere with other cultures by trying to impose your own.You promote awareness of activities, but you do not force change upon others. In other words, lead by example. Know that humanity in the twenty-first century is like a little child that has yet to mature. The more we learn about others, about animals and humans and nature and science, the more we will evolve to be more understanding and inclusive. Laws that were written a century or two ago were relevant to their time, but times change and we improve. Another important thing
Star Trek
emphasized is taking responsibility. At this stage in our society's development, we still seem to find it easier to place blame, to sue someone if we trip over our own feet, for example. We have to learn not to place blame.