Get yourself a macroscope

Even though getting involved in a local civic initiative project can give us a sense of hope and drive in our everyday lives, these projects can seem so small and local that it’s difficult to see how they can influence the enourmously complex social challenges we are faced with today. That’s why we need to practice having a “macroscopical” view of the world.

A macroscope is like a reversed microscope. While a microscope can help us look at things that are too small for us to see with the naked eye, a microscope enables us to zoom out and see what the sum of many little actions look like.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a pair of “macroscopical binoculars” that can present us with the big picture. But we can train our own “macroscopical” view of the world by noticing how our little everyday actions, projects and communities influence social developments at large.