I am responsible.

For my actions, for their impact, for righting those actions if their impact is not what I intended, for my life, for the world.

My place in this universe is the sole responsibility of one person: me. The kind of world I live in also belongs to only me. How could it be otherwise?

With so many people on the planet, how can this be? The cumulative working of billions of individual actions creates the world. By taking responsibility I actively and consciously shape the effects of my actions. These actions affect others and shape their actions in response. More importantly, I shape the actions of those who do not consciously choose their path.

There's the key- consciously choosing your path.

Think for just a moment- how many people's live do you affect with every one of your smallest actions?

When you purchase/don't purchase the meat, when you start the car/when you ride a bike, when you flip on a light switch/when you dine by candle light, when you take someone else's word for it/when you learn something new, when you hold your tongue/when you speak up and out?

Once each of my smallest actions has flown from my hand, how does it unfold? Am I the architect of animals suffering in mills by the millions, paying for their continued mass use as food products? By driving when I could walk or bike, am I engineering the socioeconomic situations producing suicide attacks by airplane? When I place my faith in the hands of those who would dictate right and wrong, am I blindly following tradition rather than a course which makes sense now? By not speaking up do I share responsibility for the actions of talking head politicians in a post-literate culture?

Think for another moment- how is your life affected by the mere thoughts become action of people you do not personally know?

Here is my definition of activism: envision the world you would live in, bring it into focus, define it. Compare it against the one you currently inhabit. What needs to change?

Start changing it.

Work down the chain from the largest features to the smallest actions needed to make them real. Begin with the smallest actions and keep working until where you're at looks like where you want to be.

Activism means practicing what you desire. It means communicating the instructions for how to change in a thousand different ways to a thousand different kinds of people. It means creating incentives for others to change even if they don't understand the reasoning behind it. It means explaining the reasoning behind it. It means explaining the reasoning behind it again.

It means proving your assertions. One way to do this: walk the walk. When you don't fall down from doing so, others will start walking with you.

It means sharing your vision of the world with everyone you come into contact with. Not forcing it upon them... sharing it.

It means carrying the world with you, always.

It means never stopping until your work is done.

All living organisms require constant support to continue. A world, like dreams and lives and clear thought, is a living organism. Activism means never stopping, because the work of caring for a living organism is only done once it is dead.