Change The World 101

Again Hello World! It is amazing how the default WordPress title from the first post works so well with this site.  First I want to welcome everyone to Change The World 101, and invited you to bookmark the site or subscribe via RSS, which you can find a link to on the sidebar. 

Further, I would like to invite everyone to participate in the conversation here about changing the world.  To get us started I am going to give a little background on the reason for this site and some ideas on making change possible.  Then I will ask you to please share how you have personally done something or seen someone do something that you feel has had a large impact recently.  It does not necessarily have to be something large, as you will soon come to see small things can have tremendous impact too.

First, a little background I decided to start this site after a conversation with my friend and former partner Tim Linden about a website named RIPhoto.com (Now split in two: RIPhoto.com and RI-Photo.com/RIFoto.com).  When we were conversing about the situation he told me I was acting like I had changed the world with it.  After that I got to thinking you know maybe I didn’t change the world in a big way with it, but I certainly had an influence in my small corner of the world.  In fact I believe sometimes things are actually memorable and change inspiring in large part because they are initially small.  

Then I thought that while this is a major set back it can also be a great opportunity to launch new sites and continue with my vision of communicating and sharing both photographically and in writing the many historical and cultural facets of Rhode Island, The United States, and the World in general. 

Rhode Island is in fact a very small part of the world, maybe about 1,000 square miles, but yet Rhode Island is very influential and a real player in the New England area.  In fact its close proximity to New York, Harford, and Boston, makes it very important in many ways.  However, it is also important for history; that is a history of being fiercely impendent.  In fact the impendent man sits on top the state house and is one of the major symbols of Rhode Island even to this day.  Rhode Island is one of the unsung heroes in the foundations of this Nation.  A little known fact is that the first fighting of the Revolutionary War broke out here, in what is known as the Gaspee incident.  Later along the historical timeline Rhode Island became the birthplace of the American Industrial revolution, which began at Slater Mill in Pawtucket.  While Rhode Island is yet again in desperate need of change today, it has a history of quick and rapid change.  We see the Dorr Rebellion in the mid 1800’s and the government was virtually changed overnight.  Then again during the Green Revolution in the early 1900’s T. F. Green (for whom Rhode Island’s major airport is named changed the government literally overnight.     

So changing the world is not only possible, but has been done numerous times before and will undoubtedly be done again.  Even if these changes were only done in small ways we must never forget that the vast majority of change happens from the inside out (even on the rare occasions when changes happen from the outside in there are often key roles that we can play in the facilitating the change).    The key is making the lasting ethically upright changes, and that is done through a number of a way always from within first.  As historian Will Durant has said: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”  This is true not only on a governmental level, but also on a small community and personal level.

Welcome to Change The World 101.  Stay tuned to for ideas on how to change the world.