PREFACE
Have you ever asked yourself the general question, Why I am doing all this? or, What's the point of human struggle? Is there more to living than money, food, drugs and sex? Our essential purpose is to survive, so it stands to reason that we must meet those basic needs through social and political systems that are nondestructive and therefore sustainable. We have the potential to do this gracefully, or continue on our current exacerbating course to demise. It is most important for humanity to share a purposeful objective, so we travel in harmony to enjoy the journey, with pride in collective accomplishments, and without the extensive suffering we cause when seeking selfish interests.
Keep in mind that many of us are not consistent between the our ethical standards and behavior. One may talk a good game, one may preach a good example to children and commiserators, yet some of us will go to a job that ultimately lowers the quality of life, or causes one's performance to become a bit ruthless for the sake of accumulating dollars. If you are a paragon of virtue, and there are a few, what have you done personally to halt and reverse the unhealthy trends of the past? We are all connected to this fate in the present, passengers traveling together into the future, and collectively responsible for global affairs always. How would you grade humanity at this point in time? Are you satisfied with the quality of your life, the average standard of living in America, and the average global standard? I'm angry about it. Are You angry? Complaining is fine, but it has never solved a problem. When I think about the amount of non-productive time I frittered away as a critic and a whiner, it probably totals in years, and makes me think about the results of investing that amount of energy as a positive advocate for social and political health. We have run out of time.
We have allowed so many issues, we created, to get so far out of hand, that we are now forced to function in crisis mode. I say we face a long list of emergencies.
American life has become extremely taxing in every regard. I'm not just talking about monetary taxes in all their forms, many without proper representation. but the demands on one's time to make sure the government, corporations and contractors fulfill their commitments to us as the public they claim to serve. This is a regular struggle! As quality of goods & services steadily decline and legal loopholes steadily increase, one doubts that things operate on an ethical basis. Just watching the news will send chills down your spine. That is not to say that all is rotten in human affairs, yet headline issues keep us focused on dysfunction and failure, they are a day late and irrelevant to the source of cyclical problems. If we are such an intelligent species, why do we not learn, or permit the same destructive actions to occur day after day, century after century?
We have created a hostile, artificial environment, that encourages selfish interests abrasive enough to create unbridled disease and the desire to escape through isolation, or some form of drug. It begins by placing our children into controlled learning facilities with archaic curriculum that has very little of true value to offer. So the child swallows the twelve-year sentence and tries to negotiate life with a rigid mind-set, that does not have adequate knowledge of the 'real-world' to negotiate life with grace, nor the passion to heal the home, the nation, or the global village. Western culture pushes a method of individual-competitive-performance that brings us to this precipice, so it doesn't take much to deduce that this approach has failed, and continues to do so. It is much easier, lots more fun, and more productive when people cooperate as a group. How many people does it take to play a game of basketball? How many people did it take to place Neil Armstrong on the moon? How many people does it take to run a federal government? How many people does it take to orchestrate a glorious quality of life for everyone on the planet?
All human suffering (excluding natural disasters) is a result of irresponsible behavior. Our struggles are not new, and we have not conquered them because they are us. There is also a dominant tendency to externalize our problems without taking full responsibility for the role we play in creating them. It is possible to be victimized, yet why would we allow that scenario to happen more than once? Why do we allow any form of injustice? Why are some people victimizers or criminals, is a better question. Who is responsible for breeding generations of individuals compelled to live outside the law? If "absolute power" corrupts, then why would we allow anyone to have that either? Civility is an honorable objective, and civilized civilian behavior is requirement of civilization by default. It is not civilized to treat some people as disposable, nor can we afford to sponsor that idea in any regard, for any longer. In order to survive without total social and ecological breakdown, humanity must adopt higher objectives and improve our performance exponentially as a species.
We have the power to make the nation and the whole world a grand place to live, yet we can not get there without facing some simple facts, and establishing a higher purpose that all people can share, without conflict of location, religion, ethnicity, or gender.
The following sections offer assessment and suggestions about key factors to our success. I am inspired by great doers such as; Confucius, Mahatma Ghandi, Maragret Sanger, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu = Mother Teresa, Wayne Dyer, Fraklin D Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, R Buckminster Fuller, Carl Sagan, Arthur C Clark, Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, James Watson, Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright, Wernher von Braun, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, George Carlin, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, Neil Young, Shawn Colvin, The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, John Lennon, James Mallord William Turner, Claude Monet, Pablo Picaso, Bill Moyers, Robert Redford, Stanley Kubrick, Charles Boisseau, Robin Lewis, and my Mother, for their models of caring, thinking beyond the status quo, and intentions to imrpove the quality of life.
Although I write as an inhabitant of the United States, I am first and foremost an Earthling - a global citizen. It is highly disturbing to witness the gratuitous flag waving of politicians, year after year after year, when nationalism is obviously anathema to planetary health on every level of consideration. I do not advocate the burning of flags, nor the dissolution of nation states, but suggest that countries can no longer think of themselves as more special, more valuable, more powerful, or more deserving of resources than any other. The needs of the many are the needs of the one! The needs of one are the needs of the many! They are not different.
STATES OF MIND
There are many books about the human brain, our mobile, biological, super-computing-libraries of infinite creative processes, in addition to all its involutary duties. A pretty amazing thing as I perceive it.
POINT OF MENTAL DEPARTURE
MOTHER EARTH
The primary meaning of life is to survive and sustain individual life long enough to reproduce, which is not necessarily easy, This is true for all animate forms of life, such as plants, animals and single-cell-organisms, which depend on local resources for sustenance, in a natural state of existence that is self regulating. However, we humans have developed technologies that create the false impression that we can transcend this inherent limitation without boundary, when ultimately it is not possible.
MISINFORMATION GLASSES
Television advertising makes everything look so prosperous and appealing
CONSTANT EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE
INTERDEPENENCE
REAL COSTS
NO DEATH
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS INDEPENDENCE
There is only inter-dependence.
REDEFINING FREEDOM
Freedom is the opportunity to improvise life within the boundary of Love.
THE EXPERTS SAY
ARTIFICIAL ECONOMICS
Unless I am mistaken, the fear of being without enough money is the primary driver
SOCIAL FABRIC
The sum of human activities is choking life on the planet to the point where it cannot survive in a regenerative state of normalcy. In other words - we are killing ourselves.
So why deal with all the greed, cheating, deceptions, scams, legalities, murders, taxes, pollution, poverty, competition, arguments and wars,
OBJECTIVE
Our shared mutual purpose is to cocreate a healthy society. It not matter if we make mistakes building a path to health, but
positive journey in a direction
– – Mark Smollin |
