Under a Blanket of Ash and Fire

After three days of inspiration and discussion, the seventh annual Skoll World Forum winds to a close. Except for the pesky fact of the Icelandic volcano which is pouring ash into the sky and has indefinitely closed major airports around Europe. Looks like this social entrepreneurship party ain't over yet.

As frustrating as it is for those trying to return to their normal lives, the shut down is actually quite apropos of the whole tone shift in the event. This Skoll Forum tried to upend the debate about entrepreneurs as individualistic heroes versus catalysts of complex movements once and for all, stating in the clearest terms they ever have that social entrepreneurs are just one of the heroic type of key actors who operate within and indeed, catalyze larger contexts.

The content planners of the forum reinforced that point with the speakers they chose to feature, exemplified by Paul Farmer's opening keynote, an exultation to the social entrepreneurship community to ask what it could do for Haiti. Later sessions included discussion about the work social entrepreneurs were doing to fight climate change, end conflict in the Middle East, and more. In each case, the efforts discussed represented a drop in the bucket, but a drop which would lead to other drops and eventually -- hopefully -- a transformation.

The central tension -- in this movement and in fact, in the very human condition -- is the tension between our profound agency to impact, create, and shape the world around us contrasted against our profound smallness and inescapably humble role in a vastly complex human society and a vastly complex physical environment. Even the greatest among us are paragraphs in the tome of time and flecks of dust in the wilderness of the world. Understanding that this does not mean withdrawal but in fact suggest we must all work harder to build a better world for those around us and all who follow is at the essence, I believe, of what it means to be human.

How appropriate is it then that this ferociously optimistic and energetic bunch of social entrepreneurs sit here grounded because of forces so monumentally beyond their or anyone else's control that there is nothing to do but buy another round of drinks and keep the conversation going.

How appropriate is it that hundreds and hundreds of transatlantic jet liners, one of humanity's most profound symbols in its ongoing conquest to reach beyond our nature in order to do more and move faster, are now stuck on silent runways, for fear that tiny bits and particles of unfathombly old rock and dust, shot up from the center of the earth at the whim of nature, would cascade and overwhelm our brilliant flying machines.

But just as those tiny bits of rock and dust can, with the right set of factors and the right critical mass, fundamentally shift the patterns of so many people, so too can people fighting for justice and opportunity come together to change the world. Or at least, that's the hope.

Signing off from Skoll 2010.

Photo credit: fridgeirsson