the danger of good intentions

"they know what they want. i just help them. i facilitate and organize them to get what they want."

that was my friend said. he was a community organizer.

then i just thought, what if the people wanted to achieve something that good in a short run, but becomes bad in the long run. "that will be our next homework then," he said to me. but i believe, working on a long run would be much harder when the people are only concern for the short run, in which they gain benefit from.

thus, these are, i think, our biggest problem in our community. people tend to see different in time scale. the environmental issue demands people to see in wider scale of time and place. yet we are dealing with many things in our everyday life that demands quick decision on a shorter time scale and a narrower space. in fact, we were evolved this way. quick decision, or you are perished. humankind would have extinct long ago. and i wouldnt be able to write these words.

but we are living in so much different time. we have shaped the planet so vast it would never be the same again. we changed the face of the earth in so short time compared to life gains so many little variabilities that shaped the life we know today. we life in a different age that demands different world view. a wider time scale. a wider space.

our demands of a goodness we gain in a short term, could be devastated for others in a long term, or in somewhere else. no matter how good our intentions are.