Thoughts for Four Years.Go. Mobilizers

Mark Bachelderto 4YGJan 10th 2011

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I am writing this as a participant in the great catalyzer of the Great Turning known as Four Years. Go. I am writing as a participating individual, not as a leader or particular authority within this initiative. I am writing as my self, with my own insights.

I am sharing it here with the Mobilizers, as a Mobilizer, because I think it illuminates what we are up to.

What we are creating here is a meme. A meme is a unit of cultural information. Cultural information tends to live within us at a deeper level than merely written or spoken conversations — we tend to live from it, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps deliberately, but usually without having to think about it. It just becomes us — part of our behavior, maybe part of our worldview. A meme has the potential of traveling and recreating itself throughout our society on its own. What we often these days call going viral. That is what we want — a spontaneous, self-replicating knowing of and commitment to creating the Great Shift. And knowing that we have secured the probability of its success with in these four years.

Four Years.Go.

Three words. Two sentences.

We want this meme, this inspiration to, go everywhere. We want every person who has a commitment to a better world to have the chance to embrace it. We want every organization working for a better world to have the chance to align with it. We want the commitment for our transformation to become unstoppable, long before 2014 is complete.

The meme does not need to have the "4YG Brand", but we do want it to have the four year urgency. 2014.

Saying thank you as an automatic expression of gratitude is a meme. Driving on the right side of the road is a meme (sometimes). It’s not ok to have body odor is a meme. Tipping in restaurants is a meme. The notion of CocaCola as a refreshing beverage is a meme (they worked hard to the get that). Celebrating birth and passing is a meme.

That we can and will secure the course of history, that we will deliberately choose and cause a very desirable future for all humanity — is a meme. We are creating that meme.

We are still figuring out how to speak it: As ones committing to 4YG, we declare ourselves.

My current favorite definition of leader is someone who causes something to happen that would not otherwise happen.

Everyone who fixes their name to the commitment we offer on our website becomes a leader.

And even more so, all of us early responders, the very first Mobilizers that we are — get to be pioneers in finding this speech. We get to find out how to speak this so that it picks up on its own two legs and travels on its own. Or grows wings and flies on its own. The wings are a more apt metaphor.

What our society needs to do — the contemporary, dominant society on this planet, the one that is killing the planet — needs to do is transform from being the over consumptive caterpillar that it is, and transform itself into a butterfly. Most of us on this blog realize that we are in the middle of this transformation, or that at least we have begun it. We have no certainty that it will be successful — at least there are few outward indications of such an outcome, and we are in this transformation nevertheless.

The work of Four Years. Go. — the articulation and propagation of this meme — is the very stuff of this transformation. That is exactly what we are up to. We are calling for the transformation of our society from the predictable, and terminal caterpillar that it is now, into the unpredictable, miraculous butterfly that we know it can be.

And we are declaring that it can be done, and that the time is now.

But calling our work a meme may not go deep enough — because we are not merely reaching into our unconscious and automatic behaviors (the stuff of memes), we are calling forth the very spirit of humanity itself. We are calling forth the commitment of our brothers and sisters, a commitment that comes from the very deepest places of who we are. We are calling for that which comes from the very deepest and most fundamental aspect of our humanity — our unconditional love for one another and all that lives.

That is the work of the Mobilizers.

That is the opportunity that we offer in inviting people to sign the pledge on our website.
It could be seen as a trivial activity, but we say that it is not.
It could be said to be gestural, but this is no invitation to make a gesture.

What we are offering is the opportunity for each of us to declare ourselves, to declare who are, to declare our innate passion for and commitment to a world that works for all.

I want to speak to some reasons why we do this: One — it is very powerful to declare one’s elf publicly — it creates a foundation for one’s own activities to be effective — in the context of having declared who are in the matter.

It it calls us forth — knowing that we have been seen and heard as committed — calls forth our selves. It calls forth a new level, a new opening for us to show up in — we discover more of ourselves than we knew we were.

And it creates a foundation and a reinforcement for everyone else who is committed.

But there is more than that to be said: There is something that only individuals can provide for this call of life, that no organization, no government, no corporation can provide — and that is commitment. Only individuals can commit to a desirable, compelling future. Only individuals can commit, period. We as committed individuals can aggregate our commitment and will in organizations, in responsible businesses, in governmental services — but only individuals can commit to a new and unpredictable future.

So that is one reason why we offer this declaration on our website.

Because committing is powerful. Because declaring one’s commitment is even more powerful, and because the act of committing and declaring one’s self allows for creates an opening for possibilities actions and effectiveness that would not be available without it. Committing is a beginning. We are offering a declaration of that beginning.

So! Now I am committed! Now what! What do I do? What are we going to do? What are the answers?

We (4YG) doesn’t have the answers. Even if we did, it may not be our place to "give" them. Exactly what to do, and how to do it needs ultimately to be sourced by each of us, in whatever way that we get is absolutely authentic for us. This transition, this transformation will not succeed with anything less! We must be absolutely authentic — It is that authenticity that will carry is forward.

There are untold volumes of information on what must happen next for humanity to succeed beyond the perils we have created. There are reams of information on what I might do as an individual to change my own impact on the planet’s living systems. And there are literally millions of organizations around the world, working on making this a better place.

There is no scarcity of ideas about what to do.

The authenticity will be our guide. It is by looking into our own personal experience and finding the authenticity there that we will find our way.

No one has ever done this before. Humanity has never transformed itself as an entire society for the good of all before. No one knows how to do this! Our own determination of our authenticity will be our guide posts in this untracked territory. We may have little else for a long time.

I say — begin it now!

"What if I don’t know what is authentic for me?" That my be a very authentic statement! So — begin something, now. Begin it with all your heart, share it with someone, anyone, many. If this is not truly authentic — the next most authentic thing will show up. Don’t worry about that. Begin it now.

Some say that we are being called by life itself.

We are calling forth the very best in us all, and saying "it is now time to come forth, it is now time to show up and be the very best that we can be." Now is the time.

So! Back to us as Mobilizers: what are we saying and how are we saying it? We don’t know all of that right now! And that is perfect because that is where we are at right now. We as Mobilizers get to make it up, we get to create it, we get to experiment. This is the work to do right now. It might always be thus. We are figuring out how to say it, and most especially us "early adopters". We are in new territory. It is ok to explore: how to speak about the Four Years. Go. Invitation in such a way that people get it, embrace it, declare themselves, and that they then in turn spontaneously do the same. And that this conversation goes on and on, accurately, and as if it had a life of its own.

It is as if we are giving the call of life its own voice. Or maybe that is what we are responding to, and life itself is speaking through us.

At any rate, we have work to do, and that is to figure out how to speak that. Begin it now!

And: we are committed to communicating with 20 million people this year in a way that they have the opportunity to commit to the invitation of Four Years.Go.

And: we are committed to causing over 1 million people to declare their commitment to securing a transformed future by 2014 — making that declaration this year in a way that we can measure and point to, on our website. And: we are committed that at least 80% of these incredible human beings choose to take further action with the propagation of this meme, in a way that we can recognize, collaborate with and track.

It is a privilege to be in this great adventure with each of you.

Thank you
Mark Bachelder
Four Years.Go.

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