591. X is for X Factor

For the month of April I am participating for the ninth time in the annual A-to-Z blogging challenge, writing a post for every letter of the alphabet. My theme this year is the world, the world that is always with us, that we must not keep out and cannot do without.

Looking back at my recent musings on the state of the world and our local relationship to it, I find myself wondering, in each case, whether there is an X factor that points the way to a solution.

The X factor is defined as “a variable in a given situation that could have the most significant impact on the outcome.” (Here it is in a sentence: “the youth vote may turn out to be the X factor in the upcoming election.”) For example, in my piece on the importance of global literacy, I recall the student who had identified the Aha! moment when she really understood the concept of a global perspective, and wonder how we might encourage that perspective in our own town. Re-reading my piece on human rights, I wonder about the role and efficacy of the Human Rights Commission in my own small town, and what it would take to infuse a greater sense of urgency into our community regarding violations of human rights beyond its borders. Revisiting my posts on languages and on Queequeg in Moby Dick, I wonder what might overcome the resistance of so many Americans to accepting the multilingual and multiracial nature of U.S. society. Going back to my piece on empathy, I recall the 2015 photograph of the drowned toddler that turned the tide of European public opinion in favor of Syrian refugees—for a time, at least—and wonder why the viral photograph of the Salvadoran father and two-year-old daughter drowned while crossing the Rio Grande did not have the same humanizing effect on U.S. public opinion. Our local poet Martín Espada eulogized their deaths so powerfully in his devastating poem Floaters, the title poem in the collection that won the 2021 National Book Award. If only one could identify the X factor in each of these situations, and then duplicate it elsewhere! But perhaps I am thinking about the problem all wrong.

In every situation there are numerous interwoven factors that drive it. It is important, in every personal struggle or public campaign, to reflect on these factors, in order to determine what went wrong and how it might be better handled or set to rights. Perhaps it is true that there is sometimes one factor that holds the secret to its successful resolution, an element that turns the tide of public opinion or breaks through a stubborn resistance to open up new possibilities. But in doing an internet search for more definitions of X factor, I found a different one that, upon reflection, is more accurate than my first: “ a circumstance, quality, or person that has a strong but unpredictable influence” (Merriam-Webster). As much as we might like to find one silver bullet—that simple and seemingly magical solution to a complicated problem—we are engaging in magical thinking: in the vast majority of cases there is no single solution.

I personally have found that, in any endeavor, the success lies in giving it my all. If it’s important to me, then it demands no less. I must not be under any illusion that I can solve the problem at hand single-handedly, but merely toying about at the edges of the problem will never do anything to shift it. Sometimes I must push everything else aside and tackle it. But solving every complex problem, especially intractable global problems—requires the concerted efforts, physical, mental, and creative—of many people from different interdisciplinary perspectives.

  Intelligent and concerted effort (Green Mountain Club, VT)

What does it take to bring urgent attention to a seemingly distant global problem? Five, ten, a dozen people, bringing different perspectives to the problem and giving it their all can work wonders. There’s no substitute for hard work, but hard work in a diverse group with a shared purpose—now perhaps that gets as close as I can get to the X factor.

Here’s Pete Seeger putting it better that I could ever do, in Step by Step.

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