To convince the world, you must first convince a single individual. Convincing the world of something – the action – is comprised of many small instances of convincing individual people of something.
That is the atom of the act of convincing: to convince the world, first, start with a single individual.
Many such acts are atomic.
To inspire the world is to inspire many individual people. You can’t inspire the world without having inspired a single person.
To entertain the world is to entertain many single individuals.
To teach the world is to teach many single individuals.
To save the world is to save many individual lives.
But not all acts are atomic.
You can love the world without ever truly loving a single person.
And you can hate the world without ever really hating any one specific individual.
Love and hate aren’t atomic; they’re layered. You can love or hate the complexity of a sum of parts without ever loving its atomic components. And left unexamined, we all do. At some point.
Perhaps most damning of all, you can matter to the world without ever mattering to any single individual. Left unexamined, we may confuse one for the other.
Scars →