A review of One Can Make a Difference. How Simple Actions Can Change The World. (Adams Media 2008)
So here we sit, watching our retirement funds attenuate like trees do their leaves this time each year. The Earth's climate seems out of whack, kids are starving on one side of the world and obese on the other, and religious conflicts continue to plague humanity. What can we do about it? Well, you'd be surprised what one person can do to change the world. A cliche, for sure, but after reading One Can Make a Difference by Ingrid E. Newkirk, you might be inspired to live the cliche. "Hold on," you say to yourself. "'Ingrid Newkirk?' Isn't she the leader of those crazy animal rights people?" While that qualified thought is fodder for another discussion, yes, Ms. Newkirk does happen to be the cofounder and leader of PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. But that quite honestly has very little to do with this collection of essays that she's put together, authored by a group of friends that could make a Facebook fan insanely jealous.
There are 54 contributors, and their stories are packed alphabetically into a slim, 256-page volume, each introduced briefly by Ms. Newkirk with an explanation of her relationship with the writer and why the person was chosen for her book. The writing is not always top-notch, but none of these folks is an author by trade, and it's somewhat refreshing to think that these are, in fact, their words, not filtered through an editor's pen.
Some of it is expected: The Dalai Lama discusses the necessity of love and compassion, Kevin Bacon explains the responsibility of celebrity, Paul McCartney reveals his musical roots, and Dennis Kucinich talks politics. Others are unexpected. Moby does not write about music but instead asks the reader to contemplate this: "(W)hat do you want to remember when you're on your deathbed? That is a question that should guide all of our actions and choices." Martina Navratilova does reveal the first time she held a tennis racquet, but most of her essay focuses on the evolution of her status as a champion for diversity.
And then there are stories from people less well-known, and those may be the most poignant and thought-provoking.
Aimee Mullins was born without fibula bones, so both her legs had to be amputated below the knee. But as Mullins explains, she rejected the notion of having a congenital birth defect because "I didn't see how wearing prosthetics was quite so different from being born with flaming red hair in a crowd of black-haired babies, or being of a different religion from that of every other child in your area." She has since inspired a revolution in the world of prosthetic legs and feet. The man who's credited with the maneuver that bears his name, Dr. Henry Heimlich, also invented a chest drain valve that saved hundreds of lives in Vietnam. Filmmaker Rebecca Hosking's trip to Hawaii inspired her to encourage the town of Modbury to become the first in England to go plastic-bag-free. Sue Coe explains how growing up next to a slaughterhouse influenced her sometimes controversial art. "To witness shocking events," she writes, "is to be traumatized on some level, and what artists do who depict these scenes is retraumatize the viewer."
Robert Young writes about how he had "no interest in becoming a martyr to a cause," until he read an article in a newspaper about elderly Native Americans who had frozen to death on a reservation. He now runs a successful organization that helps with housing on reservations, yet he concludes that "there is nothing special about me or what I have done. Anyone can do it, anyone at all." With infectious optimism like this, One Can Make a Difference ends up being a comforting, hopeful read for seemingly helpless times.