Awesome comic by the good folks over at Buttersafe–you should click to see their site!
For this meditation on how to become a superhero, I wanted to share this little Buttersafe comic. (Go ahead, check them out!)
Why did is this appropriate for a superhero alert? Because maybe popsicles can stop global warming.
Yes, one shouldn’t make light of important issues, bla bla bla, but sometimes its the little things that make the biggest change. Just sharing something small like ice cream can really incentivize people to do what’s right, and change, and be kind.
Sure, it takes more than that. Giving hotdogs to homeless people every Tuesday doesn’t have a very high success rate for saving them from addiction, in my area in Ponce, at least. But sometimes that little step can be a gateway to a bigger step, if you follow up. Sometimes you get the chance to again and again offer the medical addiction services. Sometimes you get the chance to help someone in a crisis. Sometimes you’re one of the last people to hug them before they die forgotten in the shadow of a gas station.
I’ve been there, and it sucks, because it’s never ENOUGH to do the little thing. A superhero is someone who goes beyond the little thing.
But you gotta start somewhere.
Good guys need to think like bad guys more. What’s your “gateway drug” to lure people over to health and happiness?
What do you offer, in small, free doses, to light the spark that leads to a flame of change?
Not everyone who takes marijuana will try a harder drug, and not everyone who receives small doses of love and kindness from someone on the other side of the political aisle will drop their hate.
But little doses of kindness sure are a heck of a lot more effective than the SJW tactic of shame and guilt, and the conservative tactic of anger, and the EPA’s tactic of punishing people for hurting the environment (rather than offering financial incentives and tax breaks to reward good). On the superficial level, these fear-tactics seem effective, but under the surface they’re creating pockets of hate just waiting to burst over in rebellion and backlash, and that’s what we’re seeing right now with this last election’s turmoil. It’s like black magic: the more you control people by fear, whether you’re conservative or liberal, the more you’re setting yourself up to pay a HUGE price later. Black magic always comes with a price.
To conclude, my Superhero Peeps: it may be EASIER to be feared than loved, but actually in the long term it isn’t BETTER, Machiavelli, for your descendants–because fear only lasts so long before it becomes anger (thank-you Yoda). I used to intern as a therapist for autistic kids, and one of the basic scientific principles of applied behavioral analysis is that POSITIVE reinforcement is more effective and ethical than negative reinforcement. It’s one of the reasons ABA is the ONLY scientifically, clinically-studied, randomized-trial proven therapy method to help kids on the ASD spectrum. Consistent positive reinforcement works.
So tell me. How can your popsicles change the world today?
