Boom! it's over

We all live as if we had an infinite number of years ahead of us. Well, I'm here to tell you: another one just passed you by, and you have no idea how many you may have left. Let me let you in on a little secret: it's not nearly as many as you think, and regardless of how many there are, they are all going to go by faster than want to admit.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not here to put a damper on your end-of-year celebrations. I think you should celebrate. Go out and imbibe, smoke, shoot off fireworks, bang pans ... whatever it is you do to mark the transition. Have fun. Celebrate. Live it up. Life is short. Shorter than we want to admit. Maybe too short to do all we think we'd like to do. Definitely too short to do what needs to be done.

Yes, another year has slipped by. Is your life better now than it was a year ago? Are you richer? Do you have more money? Did you get all the gifts you had hoped for? Do you feel safe? Have you escaped death and taxes? Are you satisfied with yourself? Do you know in the meantime what's important to you and why you're even here on the planet?

My guess is that most of your answers to the questions above were somehow "negative". That's no reflection on you, it's just how things are. Those of you who are reading this have more than you need to begin with; you're far better off than you most likely want to admit; but you don't want to admit that you're not doing your part to make the world a better place.

No, we won't be around forever. Most of us have relatives and friends who are younger than us. When we're gone, they're going to have to deal with the world we leave behind. So, for me, here at the end of the year, when so many love to get sappy about the past year, I have to ask just what you've done to ensure that the world will be better when you leave it than when you entered it.

You don't have a lot of time left. You've spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about yourself and your needs. You have complained about the politicians you voted into office, the bosses who don't recognize your true value, the nefariousness of others cultures and religions. You have overvalued what you have, underestimated how badly your are being deceived by those you trust, and have become just a little bit more bitter, more dissatisfied, more unhappy, but you're going to act as if nothing has happened and everything is fine. Well, it's not.

We have advanced to the point where everyone on the planet could have enough to eat, have a roof over their heads, have access to healthcare, enjoy a modicum of peace and satisfaction and feel safe and secure enough to look forward to tomorrow: not just us and those we know, but everybody ... every single living human being on earth. But it's not that way, and each and every one of you has contributed to ensuring that some have and others have not.

No, no ... you haven't done it actively, you haven't gone out of your way to ensure that others suffer. You have closed your eyes, turned your head, rationalized your thoughts, ignored the facts, and spouted inanities in defense of your actions.

As long as there is unjust inequality, unwarranted suffering, ruthless discrimination, cold-hearted oppression, unfair business practices, calculated deception and unjustified oppression, you haven't done all you can do to leave the world a better place than you found it. You've lost another year to do your part. Just how many years do you have left? No matter how many you think it is, it isn't enough, unless you stop talking and start acting.

And now it's passed

Well, the big day has come and gone ... again. Oh, I know, most of my American friends already have the tree untrimmed, down, set out by the trash and the decorations all put away for next year. At some point, those shedding needles have to be shown where they belong. For me, the season is far from over. In fact, it has just started. (For those of you who may have missed it, go here and then read the following four or five posts for the whole story.)

I'll admit it: I love this time of year, I love this holiday season, and I love everything it's supposed to stand for. And, I'm sad about what's been made of it, I'm unhappy about what most people do about it, and I find it depressing how little most people know about it all to begin with.

Today is a holiday all over Europe, in fact. I'm thinking only the Americans don't have time for a second Christmas day. Of course, it's not about the days one might get off work. Americans dismantled that "tradition" a long, long time ago. No, for me, it's about being able -- regardless of how briefly -- to stop and reflect on how good most of us have it, how more-than-I-probably-deserve good I have it, and how we managed to develop a social and, above all, economic system that ensures, that guarantees, that actually judges its success by how badly others are doing.

We've made a lot of technological progress and are in a position to produce more than enough food to feed the world -- even with its overbloated population -- three times over, but nevertheless we allow 50,000 people a day to starve to death. That's something to be proud of, isn't it? It's not about lazy takers in some heathen corner of the world. Some of those starving live within 50 miles of your own home. But we all know that because there's enough for everybody, there's no reason why those without couldn't have more, if they'd only get off their lazy bottoms and work harder, work longer, or simply work at all. Yeah, if the amount and intensity of work were the key, Somalian mothers would be the richest people on the planet. As it turns out, those who actually do the least have the most to show for it. How perverse is that?

Well, I know that I'm one of the few who is willing to call it what it is: perverse. We don't need to get into a religious or theological debate, the system we've thought up and imposed upon the world is, in a word, inhumane. End of story. We don't need crazed Islamist extremists to strike terror into our hearts, an honest look in the mirror and a moment's honest reflection would do just as much. Pogo was right; he hit the nail on the head: We have met the enemy, and he is us. It really is that simple.

But, I don't want to disturb any of you while you're getting back into the swing of things and seeing to it that you get more of what you don't need or want at the expense of the rest of the world. Let's face it: Christmas is about us and how good we've got it, and now that we've got it out of the way for another year, we can get back to doing what we do best: ignoring those in need and praising ourselves for how great we are.

An un-Christmasy message, I know. But sometimes, you just have to get it off your chest. I've now got it off mine, and I'm going to stop and reflect and think about what I can do to help others to get more of what they deserve, whether they meet your standards of effort or not.

The big day's almost here

It certainly won't be long now. The long awaited climax that began on the marketing side over five months ago has almost arrived. It's hard to believe how quickly the time has passed, and what is even more remarkable is how little this year's Christmas is going to be different than last year's or most Christmases before that. Apart from individual catastrophes and unexpected blessings, we're every bit as divisive, argumentative, confrontational, unyielding, insistent, aggressive, and, yes, violent as we ever were. This is true nationally, politically, communally, and individually. If all of us were better people than we were before, the world would be in better shape, but it isn't.

In spite of all the marketing hype, Christmas is about reflecting, being thankful, caring, and sharing. It is season in which Love, Peace, and Hope should abound, but I'm seeing -- and feeling -- very little of that this year. Oh, we've got our houses decorated, we're going to make another big family meal, we're going to eat too much, drink too much, and, before it's all over, complain too much and get upset too much.

I, for one, am not willing to trade the holiday in or much less give it up just because so many folks just "don't get it". I can't repeat it often enough: it is time to recognize just how much all of us (not just us in the West, I mean ALL of us) have in common: you've got family members who are more challenging that you think you can handle, well so do they and so do I; you have self-serving, out-of-touch political "leaders", well so do we; you're being made to work more and more but less and less to show for it, well, the same's true here; you are sick of the lack of commonsense and decency around you, well so am I; you wish there were more peace and less war on the planet, well so do I; you wish other people could be more like you, for then there would be fewer problems in the world, well, no, it doesn't work like that.

Christmas is the biggest Christian holiday we have (though why it's not Easter still makes me wonder, a lot). Yes, over the years it has been secularized and commercialized beyond recognition. There is not, nor has there ever been, a War on Christmas. In fact, the very notion of a "war" in relation to this particular holiday is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard, and insisting that others celebrate like you do is, well, simply narrow-minded and unreasonable.

In the West, this holiday has been the high point of the year for the last two millennia. This holiday is Christian because almost 2 billion people the world over believe that Christ, their redeemer and, as they believe, the world's salvation, was born on this day. This individual (and whether he really existed or whether he was actually born this day is so irrelevant that it's not worth mentioning) spent his short life preaching, teaching, and healing. He cared for the outcast, the downtrodden, the abused, the sick, the needy, the infirm. His message, evidenced not only by words but by deeds, was as simple as you can get: love whomever you meet as much as you love yourself and show it by helping and caring. What is so difficult about that?

The message in itself makes sense, regardless of whether you believe he was the one G-d sent to save the world. Why you act this way is completely and utterly irrelevant, so it doesn't matter how others greet you for the season. If you're offended by someone saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", you simply don't get any of it at all. It's not what we say that makes a difference in the world. Talk is cheap. What matters is what we do. The person's birthday that is the reason for the holiday rejected no one, was offended by no one, and was willing to help and heal anyone and everyone he met. It's this story -- whether true or not -- that is the reason we should be stopping to think and reflect just what kind of standards we have in our own lives, and that is why we should try so hard to make others' lives happier at least once a year.

Christmas is a good thing, regardless of why we celebrate. Too bad so many of us don't even get it just once a year.

Is there such a thing as "Western culture"?

If I take my own "definition" from last time seriously, the answer would be "no", but that would be a bit short-sighted.

The factor that stops us is the first one -- Language -- for we in the West certainly don't speak a single tongue. In the narrower sense of the term "language", this is true, but we need to step back a bit and look at the bigger picture. Linguistically, most Western languages (Hungarian, Finnish, and Basque excepted) are at least loosely related. The number of Greek and Latin-based words that have found their way into all Western languages, often in their own language-specific forms yet they are still often recognizable (e.g., the differences between philosophia-philosophie-philosophy-filosofia, etc. are not all that extravagant). Very often, key concepts are shared, even if the words themselves are different (e.g., notions like "holiday", "illness", names of body parts, etc.); that is, there is often almost a 1-to-1, word-level translation possible. Keeping in mind my admonition to look for what connects rather than what separates, we need not dismiss language outright.

Similar, but perhaps not as obvious, comparisons could be made in regard to the other factors I identified, but what interests me most is what is not obvious at all, what is so taken-for-granted, that we don't think about such things at all. This is particularly evident in the Beliefs and Customs areas: for example, that marriage is between only two people and is generally done in a ritualized manner in front of witnesses; that the roles played by men and women are asymmetric; that the individual is special; that the notion of "property" held in very high esteem; that a scientific, objective approach to problem resolution is worthwhile; that reason is a good thing; that we have at least one holiday honoring our home country and that most of the other holidays have Christian roots. When I was young, however, much of this was much more apparent and, consequently, taken even more for granted. But there are indications that the underlying cement of Western culture is starting to crumble.

Our beliefs and customs most often found their expression through the medium of religion, and that's what's changing most quickly and most deeply. Even though Christianity is anything but monolithic (i.e., three primary divisions: Catholic Protestant, and Coptic; two flavors of Catholicism (Roman and Orthodox, the latter breaking down into a growing number of subgroups); Anglican, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Pentecostal Protestants, the latter three having split into innumerable specific denominations, as well as special-cases like Mormonism. What binds them together is much, much less than what makes them different. In times past, most people were either unaware or unconcerned about the differences, but these days, they are playing an increasingly important, decisive, and divisive role. Couple this with a dramatic rise in the number of individuals declaring themselves atheist (whereby, the vast majority of these are, I believe, merely agnostics), and a growing number of people who more or less reject religion altogether in favor of a much less clearly defined "spirituality", and it soon becomes rather obvious that what made us in the West a WE is rapidly losing its cohesive strength.

As is so often the case, these factors, trends, and developments are neither good nor bad, but that our thinking make it so. The current attempts to unify the West religiously to combat what is perceived as a more monolithic religious threat (e.g., Islam) clearly show just how disconnected we've all become. Maybe it is time to finally drop the notion of a "Western culture" all together. The world is getting smaller by the day, so perhaps it is really time to starting thinking more about what we can and do share and stop worrying at all about what makes us different. Deep down, we're hardly different at all.

What, then, is "culture"?

Nations are new. Cultures are as old as humanity's presence on the planet. There are, indeed, various kinds of cultures: tribal, local, regional, corporate, national, or transnational even. When we think and speak of "culture" these days, we almost automatically think of a "national culture", but only because we are often ignorant of all that history, anthropology, ethnology, and sociology may have to offer us. I'm not going to try to fill that gap, I'm merely going to point out a few salient features of "culture", because our ignorance is causing a lot of misery in a lot of lives.

In simplest terms, a culture is the language, customs, beliefs, and actions of a given group of people who feel bound together because of those four things.

1. Language is a strong component, to be sure. This is why one often speaks of the Anglo-American culture (which also includes, oddly enough, the Australians, and for some, the South Africans, but not necessarily (or at least not consciously, the Belize), or the German culture, whereby the language is spoken as well in Austria and parts of Switzerland, and these are included in the concept.
2. Customs describes "the way we do things around here". It includes holidays, like a big, family meal at Thanksgiving, or Santa Claus (or whoever brings Christmas gifts); and sports (baseball, football, soccer, lacrosse); and little things like whether people shake hands when they meet, and more.
3. Beliefs include the stories and myths that a particular group holds dear, be it the Pilgrim Fathers, Charlemagne, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. These may be religious in nature, but they can also be secular and profane, like owning guns is a fundamental right, or all persons are created equal, or property rights trump personal rights.
4. Actions are what really defines a culture, though. These are the things a group does, not only because that's the way they do things, but because they believe they have a right to do them. It's not only the way a group acts towards others, but because they have always been able to act that way. In other words, the customs and beliefs often drive what a culture thinks it's OK, good, right and proper to do.

I would be the last person to say what a given culture says, believes, or does is good or bad or right or wrong. All I know is that there are a lot of different ways to slice the reality pie. What I also know, however, that there are way too many cultures on this small planet which think that however it is that they have decided to slice that pie is the "right" way, the "proper" way, the only "reasonable way" to slice it. My only response to that is, well, "bullshit".

Beneath, behind, and beyond whatever we think our culture "entitles" us to, we need to recognize the simple, unalterable fact that everything any of us, individually or collectively, say, believe, and in particular, do has effects on others; that is, anyone other than ourselves or our (cultural) group. We forget that all too often.

Whatever we think is good, right and proper is only what we think is good, right and proper. Some values are universal (not harming others, for example), but even these can be relativized once we start thinking that "our" culture is "better" than "their" culture. Unfortunately, that's where we are today.

We believe we are the good ones, and those "others", well, they're the bad ones. It turns out, however, that they are merely the others whether we like it or not, whether we want to admit it or not. Knowing what that otherness is and understanding what we have in common rather than what separates us are the true marks of the cultivated, civilized person. No more, no less.

Is there culture beyond yoghurt?

Our English word "culture" derives from the Latin cultus which means more or less "tilling, cultivating, tending". The very roots of civilization can be recognized as it was when humans first learned to systematically till and cultivate the soil, to farm, that they initiated what we today refer to as "history": the story, the narrative of where we as a species have been. That, of course, is the most general, all-encompassing view of the situation.

There are individual, isolated and particular histories as well. At the other extreme we have individual histories, which we no longer call such, but rather call biographies. Just about any geographical region that you can name, has its own, often oral history. And, since the late 17th century, we find the development of national histories as well, many of which are intertwined. The history of the United States in unthinkable without the history of Great Britain, and its history is tightly interwoven with that of the Portuguese, Spanish and French, all of which were greatly influenced by the history of Rome and Greece, and voila we've got the makings of Western Civilization.

These histories don't only describe what this or that person or this or that group have done, they also describe means of expression (statuary in Greece and Rome, painting in the Renaissance, music in the 18th and 19th century, just to intimate some readily recognizable motifs), rules of interaction (e.g., Roman law), and institutions (in the West, primarily the Church) which have left an indelible impression on how we do things, how we express and how we organize ourselves, and, not the least, what we believe.

When we stop to reflect upon such things, they come into much sharper relief than usual. Our everyday mode of interaction with them is on the contrary subliminal, unconscious, assumed, or simply taken-for-granted. Whatever it is that makes a culture, however, takes time, long periods of time. There is never just one thing that distinguishes one culture from another, that's for sure. They consist of an amalgamation of traditions, legacies, stories, works of art and language, and more that operates so far beneath the threshold of consciousness that we have difficulty saying what they are. And many of them sit so deep, so firm that we have trouble recognizing them even when they are specifically pointed out to us.

What appears to happen, though, when someone, like Mdme Thatcher, rips the heart of the economic-political-social-religious-cultural matrix is that the entire edifice collapses and we end up with an every-person-for-themselves situation: John grasping firm to the political, Joan to the cultural, Jane to the religious, and Jim to economic. We become like the blind men describing the elephant, as a tree (if all you can feel is a leg) or a snake (if you happen to be holding the trunk) or a rope (if you've got the tail). We've got all of the pieces but no keystone to hold it all together.

How does a "we" become a mere "me"?

Although it has been a while, I've dealt with the notion of "Advent", what it's about, how it not only marks a change of seasons, but also what it means in a yearly sense.

There's no real need to rehash old themes. This year is not all that different from previous ones: there's too much trouble, pain, strife, war, death, and suffering going on out there; the greedy still can't get enough; the poor are still looked down upon, if they're not outright despised; the first salvos in the so-called "war" on Christmas have already been fired; and my own desire to hear a collective voice of reason in the hectic remains unfulfilled. Too few people care ... about any of what this "season" should bring; and even fewer are willing to budge even an inch out of their own self-righteous comfort zones to fill the season with any kind of reason.

Margaret Thatcher, the Female Godhead of Neoliberalism, maintained -- and her acolytes and adherents proclaim -- that there is no such thing as society; it is merely a collection of individuals. That is unchallenged dogma in the meantime, and even the briefest glimpse at anything calling itself news confirms its "truth". But, religions -- and neoliberalism has taken on this mantle -- cannot exist apart from cultures, so that is the next falsehood that must be destroyed, and all of us worldwide, though more markedly we in the West, are rallying to the Call for Destruction. Just like the often illiterate and ignorant destroyers of culture known as ISIS, even we non-military, supposedly peace-loving, non-violent types are just as effective as they are at destroying common history as well.

Without a society; that is, without some kind of social grouping that views itself as "us", it is difficult to imagine a culture forming. A culture, in this sense, the linguistic, artistic, musical, literary, and value-oriented backdrop that provides the context in which a given group can function. In certain regards it is all those unspoken rules, guidelines, customs and mores that let everyone knew "how things are done around here". That group will then organize itself in relation to other groups in civil (political) and economic (commercial) ways. Politics and commerce are, by their very nature, unable to support culture. Given the influence she enjoyed throughout the West, when Mdme Thatcher conceptually eliminated "society", she did as much to destroy our culture as Muslim radicals do when they go around blowing up cultural heritage sites or chiseling facades off of walls. We readily recognize the one, and deal very ineptly with the other.

Though only one example, it is indicative of why we find ourselves in crisis these days ... and everything has become a crisis. Whatever it was that made us "us" has been so weakened, so debilitated that we're left primarily with ourselves. And individuals are never a sound basis upon which to build.

An iceberg sunk the Titanic, and it could happen to us

The thing about icebergs is you can't see most of what they are, but they're there anyway. The thing about prejudices is that you don't know where they come from, but they're there anyway. The thing about stereotypes is that you don't know why you believe them, but you believe them anyway. The thing about myths is that you don't know where they come from, but you believe them anyway as well. Just like we don't know how to account for 75% of the mass of the visible universe, we can't account for the motivations for most of what we believe and what makes us act the way we do.

Truth be told, we don't know what we're doing, nor why we're doing it most of the time. Why is that?

Sigmund Freud, G-d bless him, opened Pandora's box at the turn of the last century. We can think what we want about his theories on how the mind works, but one thing you can't take away from him is his insight into the fact that the unconscious determines much more of what we do and how we act than we would like to admit ... well, more than we are willing to admit. No, Siggie didn't get a whole lot right, but in that regard, he hit the proverbial nail smack on the head.

Just because we "know" this, doesn't mean for a second that we've done anything about it. Most of us are still driven by our unconscious. More of us are Mr. Hydes than we are Dr. Jekylls, whether we want to admit it or not. Why is that? Well, quite simply because we are (truly) afraid of shining the light of day (or knowledge or truth) on the dark (that is, unknown, unconscious, repressed) part of ourselves.

We like to think we are good, upstanding, and humane, yet, at night, when we turn off the lights, in the twilight prior to sleep, we are plagued by the ghosts of fear (of others), hate (of Muslims, or ), uncertainty (about how we're seen by others), guilt (perhaps someone has seen through our personal facade), and simple trepidation (how do we continue to keep up appearances). Our problem is that what we proclaim to be good, right, and proper is based on unconscious assumptions and beliefs that most of us don't even know we have. In other words, we have our own (personal) myths that we hold to be true.

In some cases, these myths tell us that we are the "good guys", that what we do is for the best of all, that our history is one of benevolence and enlightenment, that our intentions were always pure and that our actions, even when they fell short of their goal, were unselfish and noble. Yes, that is what we would like to believe, but for those who have taken the time to look honestly and intently in the mirror, we know that the reality has fallen rather short of the desire.

We in the West are not alone in this. It is, it would seem, a universal illness of our age. We like to think we are informed, knowledgeable, enlightened, even wise. And so our myths get a bad name, because we accept them blindly, without thinking, without consciousness.

Myths, however, are real, and they are true in that realm in which they operate. What we also need to know is that we must engage them as they are, and unlike the unmovable and unbreakable iceberg that sunk the world's mightiest ship, we can reshape and remold them into those stories who unfortunately tell us who we are, but mercifully, can show us who we really want to be.

We can't stop terror

Tomorrow is the second of the four Sundays in Advent. It is also St. Nicholas Day, and tonight millions of children throughout the German speaking world will be putting out their shoes in hopes he'll stop by with treats. It should be a day of peace, reflection, joy, and togetherness, but it won't be in much of the so-called "Christian West", for the simple reason that the terrorists are winning the fight for our hearts and minds. How sad is that?

Sure, we feel for all those who were ripped out of life in the attacks in Paris. Sure, we feel for those who were killed by the shooters in Colorado Springs, Savannah, and San Bernadino. We find ourselves asking "why" again and again, but we simply refuse to acknowledge what we all know is the answer to our question: we've become what we hate; we're complicit. And that's why we can't stop the terror.

Oh sure, we like to point to the turmoil in the Middle East and look down upon those uncivilized souls who simply can't stop fighting with one another and the world. We love to point our fingers in disgust at those who our misconceived religious fanaticism says we're justified in despising. And we overreact, both blindly and wildly, to the least bit of provocation from "them", whereas in truth we know that we are not one bit better.

Our reaction to 9/11, an alleged attack on our freedom? The Patriot Acts and more restricting and even eliminating many of those freedoms which had been attacked. Our reaction to the Paris attack, the latest attack on our freedom? Declaring a state of quasi-martial law and placing unrelated, environmental activists under house arrest during the recent climate summit; that is, restrictions on those freedoms (free speech, assembly) that had been attacked.

What do we abhor about terrorist attacks and mass shootings (which are, whether we want to own up to it or not, acts of terror)? The killing, the bloodshed, the violence. But how do we react? With even more violence. We started an illegal war in Iraq which directly and indirectly has caused the death of over a million innocent civilians. We aided and abetted terrorist organizations when they suited our purposes. After 14 years of violence, bombing, and killing in Afghanistan, the Taliban (a CIA creation) holds more territory and has more supporters than when we started. ISIS is a product of CIA intervention and years of funding and supplying by our so-called allies (Saudia Arabia, Qatar, Turkey), yet we say we are fighting them. We're supporting other "moderate terrorists" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) to oust a legitimate head of government in Syria, even though no one can explain to me how we acquired the right to decide who other nations select as their leaders. By what right do we inflict such violence on others? Imagine for a moment some foreign country would be doing this to us? There would be fanatic violence from every corner as every gun-owning American and others would be violently reacting to the violence inflicted from without.

Of course, when that same violence comes from within (the attackers in Paris were European citizens) but they fit our propagandized profile (Middle-Eastern names will suffice) it's terror and the reaction is more violence to "them". When the same violence come from within but they're more like us, they are mere individual psychopaths. But, they aren't. They are the products of the veil of violence that covers all our actions and reactions. All we know anymore is violence, be it in sports, competitions of any kind, politics and political campaigns, family disputes, communal security or foreign policy.

We've become what we hate. We can't stop the terror. We could, if we changed, but we won't.

You become what you hate

This is a special time of year in many regards. We're between holidays that are not so important anymore and perhaps the biggest American holiday and the universally Christian holiday of Christmas which is right around the corner. It is fitting, I think, that these all occur when they do, here at the end of the solar year, after the harvest, and in preparation for the retreat before the winter. This is a time of turning inward -- or it should be -- a time of reflection upon who we are, what we believe, and what we are doing.

There's an old mystic's adage that is particularly appropriate given all that I've been posting about lately: "You become what you hate."

Yes, speaking of hate at this time of year seems a bit incongruous, but only at first glance. The world seems to be full of hate these days. It's directed toward all kinds of "others": immigrants, political opponents, particular lifestyles, adherents of other religions ... you name it, there is a good number of people ready, willing, and able to stand up and decry just how evil all those others are, even if loudly decrying, and hating generally, are values we (and more often our religion) proclaim not to have.

Hate -- and it is actual hate in most cases -- is a dangerous emotion, not only because it is inherently destructive, but because of its insidious power to change us in such a fundamental, essential way. Someone who hates invests a lot of time and energy (and given the short spans of our lives, rare and precious resources) in that hate. The object of one's hate plays an essential and central role in our thought, speech, and actions. We are offended by the slightest of details which we come to see as ever more proof of the rightness of our hate. We end up knowing more about what we hate than we know about ourselves.

In the wake of WW2, it was the Communists who reaped our ire. Those God-hating, atheist oppressors and suppressors of freedom. But who is it these days turning on whistleblowers, passing legislation to rescind basic rights and persecuting dissenters? Oh, we still claim to love God and can't reaffirm enough our religious values, but ignore every precept which that rebellious Nazarene carpenter put so much trust in. We hate Muslims, those bellicose terrorists who want to turn the clocks back to the Middle Ages. But who is it that places religious values above so-called democratic ones and who worship a constitution that is centuries old itself? In place of the KGB which we held high as the prime example of suppression of freedom, we have the NSA and CIA who can't pry broadly and deeply enough into our own lives. In the place of humane values of community and cooperation, we have raised the values of competition and money to religious ideals.

It's not surprising, at least not to me, that we have come this far. And, it is even less surprising that most people I know would argue that I couldn't possibly be speaking to them. But I am. The change from one to the other is slow and subtle, but it's apparent nonetheless. The mystics were right then, and they're still right today: you become what you hate.

With God on our side ...

... a message from the Ol' Master himself:

Oh my name it is nothin’
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I’s taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that the land that I live in
Has God on its side

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side

Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
l’s made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side

Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don’t count the dead
When God’s on your side

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side

I’ve learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It’s them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we’re forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side

Through many dark hour
I’ve been thinkin’ about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side

So now as I’m leavin’
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feelin’
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war

Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music
Available online at http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/god-our-side

Some things are worth repeating

Yes, here we are again at my absolute favorite holiday. Yes, it is about the food, too, regardless of what I might have said elsewhere, but it's also about family, and whether we like it or not, whether we realize it or not, whether we've managed to deal with it successfully or not, family is something we should invest more time in.

This year, Thanksgiving is a bit more special than usual. Not only have we moved and have more family closer, we're getting more visitors than usual this year -- extended family in the best sense of the word: "adopted" children and extended-family in-laws. Oh, I can hear the hair rising on the back of some necks, but I wouldn't have it any other way. No, our extended family get-togethers are not nearly as interesting or exciting as the Griswolds (cf. "Christmas Vacation"), but they are every bit as intense, and that's a good thing.

Thanksgiving is one of the two times each year (Christmas is the other) when I don't mind getting up earlier than usual (usually about 5:00 am). It's one of those rare times in the year when I get to spend the following seven hours (at a minimum) in the kitchen, and not alone: everyone in the family, or whoever else is there, stops by at least once, and most folks more than once. Most importantly, though, it is a day in which practically every conversation, every exchange of observations, every sarcastic and insightful quip has to do with how good we have it. Yes, I am eternally thankful -- and I believe all others as well -- for absolutely everything that we have and what we are blessed enough to enjoy. I will admit that we live in decadent abundance. Life has been good to us. We are fortunate. We have more than enough so that we can share with others. Our adversity has kept itself within limits. Our calamities are more like inconveniences. Our disasters are, by comparison to others', distractions. And it is not only today that I give thanks for all I/we have, but it is today that most of us have the time to stop and think about it.

I would be remiss if I did not note at the same time, however, that there are too many people in America (only because this is the big holiday there) who have not been as fortunate as I have, who have not been blessed as we have, who don't share in the abundance that we too often take for granted. All of these people -- without exception -- don't deserve that fate.

I don't care which politics you think are right, and I don't care whether you consider yourself religious or not. The fact remains that if the joy of the day is not tinged with the sadness, is not made the least bit bitter by the fact that an increasing number of people -- not just in the USA, but worldwide -- are having difficulty finding reasons to be thankful, then you haven't truly understood what it is you have.

As one of my heroes, Bucky Fuller, pointed out: there's more than enough for everyone on this planet; and as another of my heroes, a humble Nazarene carpenter brought home: if you're not ensuring that the least of us have enough; you're missing the whole point ... of everything.

Today's the day. Wake up. Get real. Get the point. The real point of giving thanks is in the giving. You've got more, so give more. It is really that simple.

There but for the grace of God ...

The events of the last week or so have brought out many folks' true nature. One of the (dis)advantages of being involved in modern, social media is that you get a glimpse of everyone's foundation of life. Oh, I know, this is not what most people think, but it is nevertheless what is. Even if I don't place a lot of faith in what people "say", since I'm much more concerned with what the actually "do", social media is one of those "places" where the "the truth will out" and what you post says more about you than you may like to acknowledge.

Most of my social-media "friends" are American, but not by much. The vast majority, of course, find their roots in the "West"; that is, western, post-Enlightenment, Judeo-Christian, ever-increasing secular culture. In short, they're "Westerners". This is not bad, in and of itself; indeed it is merely an observation of fact. What most of my friends don't know, or are not aware of, is that belonging to this particular group brings with it a number of significant advantages, and at the same time, a number of disadvantage as well. How could it be otherwise? After all, this is life that we are talking about.

Before we examine what these advantages and disadvantages might be, it would do us well to reflect upon how it is that we ended up here in the first place. I don't know about you, but I just "woke up here" one day. I mean, there came a time when I became conscious of the world around me, and, lo and behold, I was the first son of a striving-to-be middle-class family in the so-called richest (not to mention, freest and bravest) country in the world, at a time when striving to be middle-class meant something. To the best of my knowledge, I was not involved in that particular decision. It just happened. It was a purely random event. I had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Like I said, though, I was "lucky" by our Western standards. The family I grew up in wasn't rich, but we weren't poor. We always had enough to eat and my life was as good as free from crime and violence. I had lots of opportunities and I was able to take advantage of them. I believe, as well, that most of you reading this ... most of you ... had a similar experience, but not everyone, and certainly not everyone else on the planet. The vast majority of humanity doesn't have it nearly as good as I did. The vast majority. Their lives more likely resemble Hume's struggle of each against all, a struggle for survival, more often than not.

Why? Because they're ignorant, uncivilized savages? Because they are violent by nature and love fighting and killing? Hardly. Regardless of where I have been in this world, I have found that just about everyone I meet wants pretty much the same basic things as me: enough to eat, some family, a roof over their heads, some time to spend with others, a feeling of security and to live their lives in peace.

What we fail to remember, what we love to repress is the simple fact that we were born where we were by the luck of the draw. Some lives have been easier than others, and most of you reading this, for all the pains and travails have had, by comparison, easier lives. I certainly don't begrudge what you have, but I do have a problem with you thinking that in some way you "earned" what you have, that you somehow "deserve" what you have. You were lucky. That's it. Damn lucky. For, there but for the grace of God ...

Fear will be our undoing

FDR's "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" is one of those quotes we learn about in school and don't understand until many, many years later. When he said it, the Depression was wreaking its havoc and WW2 was on the horizon. There was, to be sure, lots of reasons why lots of Americans were afraid. And, the same is true today.

Terrorism, be it domestic (the preferred American variety) or foreign (what the rest of the world gets), has but one goal: instilling terror in those in some way close to the victims. For the most part it works, and the knee-jerk reaction to anything that terrorizes us is to fight back. Against what? We don't always know. But when we're "thinking" with our spinal columns, it doesn't really matter. Better a bigger bunch of bodies lying around than to do "nothing", whereby not reacting in a knee-jerk manner is probably the best thing you can do. And here, the emphasis is on "do". Having the presence of mind, willingness, and courage to not simply lash out in fear is an act, an action, worth applauding.

Problems are never, and have never been, solved by violence. It doesn't matter what the problem is. Problems aren't, and never will be, resolved, by blindly reacting aggressively. Frustration (and a feeling of powerlessness) is poor counsel for smart decisions. Don't get me wrong, I know just how easy it is do simply strike back; I know how much we'd like to just "put an end to it all". But, truth be told, that's not how things work, and it is long past time that we grow up and recognize that all the approaches we have tried thus far have not produced the results that most of us want. It is time most of us realize, though, that the results that "we" want are not necessarily the results that others -- in particular, others with more influence with decision-makers -- may want.

Terrorists live from terror. The more afraid we are, the more effectively they've "done their job". If we all don't immediately react with abject fear, we've got a huge, well-paid, and submissive media industry which will do what it can to keep us shaking in our shoes. And, there are untold numbers of large and small corporations who start rubbing their hands in glee, for nothing sells weapons like fear. Yes, the first question we always have to ask ourselves in "cui bono" (Who benefits?) And, the fact that the question shows up in Latin (a language spoken by the world's last great empire, two millennia ago) should tell you how long "we, the people" have been having to put up with this.

Power lives off fear. It is really that simple. The more you're afraid, the more power others have. We really need to start asking ourselves just how much we need to be living in fear. We need to ask ourselves whether our willingness to submit, to kow-tow, to defer to the "wisdom" of others is really worth the benefits we supposedly gain.

When you're afraid, you can't think clearly. When you're afraid, you're more than willing to compromise. When you're afraid, you can be too easily led and misled. And all the blustering, bravado, macho, military, fire-power, talk will -- I can assure you, and history proves me right -- remain just that, talk. Why? Because you can't bomb an idea out of existence. Ideas ... and their evil spawn ideologies ... can only be countered by sounder, stronger, more substantial ideas. Resorting to force, pure and simple, merely "proves" that you have no ideas left.

Yes, fear will be our undoing, if we continue to be afraid, but what we should be more afraid of than random terror itself is the calculated terror we are fed day in and day out from those who allegedly want to protect us.

No, I didn't say that at all

I have long maintained that the wonder of communication is that we manage to communicate at all. The reaction(s) to the Paris terror attacks have made this clear once again.

There are lots of smart people running around out there and some of them use their brains (at least sometimes) and some of them don't (or not very often), others are more emotional than reasonable, still others have such fixed ideas that no manner or volume of facts or arguments is going to change their minds. Unfortunately, I must say, that's how people are.

What is particularly tough these days, though, is have a view of things that is not mainstream or mainstream-sanctioned. We have arrived at a point here in the West when disagreeing with a given (generally speaking, accepted) point-of-view is automatically interpreted as advocating the precise opposite. This isn't faulty thinking, it's unacceptable behavior, and I don't care how smart you are or think you are, if you make this mistake, you're just being stupid. None of us lives in a world of black-and-white, regardless of how much most people, the mainstream media, the powers-that-be, or anyone else would like it to be so.

Let me repeat what I've said so often in the past few days: what happened in Paris is reprehensible and inexcusable. There is no justification for it; end of story. Let me add what I've also had to say so often in the past few days: I understand all your shock and sadness, but the fact remains that this kind of thing happens to "us" (I'll come back to that) once every couple of years; for too many others on this planet, this is their life every single day. Why is that so hard to understand? Why is it so unwanted when someone -- like me -- brings it up? I think those are legitimate questions.

Our reaction to the tragedy of terrorism should be (and yes, I'm being very prescriptive here), how do we stop things like this (read: acts of terror) from happening? what can we do to make it stop?

This shouldn't detract us from our mourning, but our mourning itself should sensitize us to the real issues involved. We've got a problem, and by "we" I mean all of us, every single human being on the planet. Terror happens everywhere but in some places more than other. We, in the West, have been exposed (NYC, London, Madrid, Paris, to name the most familiar), but others have been immersed (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, to name the most recent) in it. It matters. It matters a lot that we have to go through it, but it matters that others have to live with it.

While I have never claimed that we don't care about the terror inflicted on others, there is a good bit of factual evidence available that we don't know about it, don't recognize it, don't accept it, and don't feel as moved by it as we should. This "we" is all of us in the West, and all our countries that believe that we know what's better for others than they know themselves, which we claim fear and hate us when they would probably just prefer that we leave them alone, which just happen to be sitting are geographical areas that we have decided -- for whatever reasons -- are in "our interest". Just what the hell is that: our "interests"?

Personally, I'm sick and tired of all the blaming, all the blathering, all the threatening and the theatrics, all the conflict-seeking and the killing. When are we going to get it? When are we going to understand that every act of violence and revenge that we yearn for only makes things worse? When are we finally going to practice what we preach?

The death toll rises

We're stunned, and we should be. We're shocked, and we should be. We're feeling vengeful, and we should not.

What happened in Paris last night deserves our strongest condemnation: the killing of innocent civilians, for whatever reason, is a reprehensible act of barbarism. There is no justification for it. None. And yet, it our shock and sadness and, yes, anger, we must beware ... of ourselves. Can we -- you and I -- become what we hate. We must be careful, for it can happen all too easily.

Two mistakes must be avoided right now: identifying one, singular, unified enemy and blaming victims. I'm concerned that both are about to raise their ugly heads.

Let me repeat: last night's actions were committed by individuals, acting together, it is true but hardly representative of anything but themselves and their own distorted vision of reality. It will most likely turn out that they will have claimed adherence to one particular flavor of a faith, and in our anger and lust for vengeance, we run the risk of placing all adherents of that faith into one basket. There is not a single religion on the face of this planet that is singular, monolithic and the same to all of its adherents. Every religion has its major and minor groupings and individually accented believers. Such diversity is celebrated in one's own religion, but too often mistakenly denied to others. That would be a mistake. We in the West celebrate the individual, and we need to carry that view over to those with whom we disagree and, above all, to those whom have done us wrong.

It would be just as mistaken to use this incident to justify a rejection of the flood of refugees coming to Europe at this time. First and foremost, the vast majority of these refugees find themselves in Southern, Eastern, and, most recently, Central Europe, not in France. It would be naive, to say the least, that there are no terrorists or terror-inclined individuals amongst that flood. The thing about terror is that it has the ability to take advantage of all opportunities it finds. These refugees are fleeing from precisely that terror -- the unreasonable, unexpected, sudden and drastic taking of human life -- that we are mourning today, only they have experienced it longer and on a much larger scale than any of us. They are not fleeing for the fun of it. They are being driven. The refugees are the victims of a greater terror and we need to acknowledge that.

A pitiless, merciless retaliation -- as has already been promised -- is hardly the appropriate response. It is said that and eye for an eye can only make the whole world blind, and although we are getting there, we are not all blind yet.

We can not respond in kind to senseless, irrational actions. What terrorists do is meant to instill fear, but it is the light of reason that keeps us from falling into the darkness of fear. Terrorist, regardless of how murderous and bloody their actions may be, act for a reason, they feel justified in what they do. Until we recognize that and deal with those reasons, we can only expect more of the same.

I don't know about you, but I've had more than enough of this insanity.

St. Martin's Day

The 11th day of the 11th month of the year was for the longest time and for the shortest of times, reason to celebrate, (I'll come back to the other reasons next time,) but there was a time when today was a much bigger deal than it is today.

Oh, I know, we're (post-)moderns now and all that mumbo-jumbo, hocus-pocus religious superstition has all been superseded by ... well, by what? rational, objective, de-mythologized ... nothing. Yes, the emptiness we feel so strongly these days has something to do with the so-called "detritus" that we sent to slag heap some time ago. Old "holidays" and (what's worse!) Feast Days are well-deserved, forgotten relics of a by-gone age ... or are they?

We live in a post-industrial -- and as many like to claim, a new, information-based society (though, actually I should say "economy", since we even banned the ghost (read: spirit) of a society some time ago). All those once-important autumn, or harvest, festivals are no longer important, even though once, at a minimum, they marked the passing of the year, and above all, the passing of our consciousness from one temporal phase to another.

Today is St. Martin's Day, which I'm sure most of you don't know, so I'm here to remind you.

Saint Martin (of Tours, who died in 490), a former Roman soldier is known once cutting his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm, to save the beggar from dying from the cold. The beggar was allegedly Jesus. Not unsurprisingly, he's the patron saint of the poor (and hence more relevant today than ever). In his honor, the medieval church mandated fasting three days a week from today till Epiphany (which I've mentioned before); that is a period of 56 days, but mandating 40 days of fasting (cf. Lent).

Here in Germany, goose is the traditional dish. (OK, OK, my vegetarian and vegan friends will have to close an eye, but I'm still working from the top of the food chain and still have my -- in your eyes -- "weaknesses".) This is because -- as the legend tell us -- when trying to avoid being ordained bishop he had hidden in a goose pen, but was betrayed by the cackling of the geese.

My goose dinner will have to wait a few weeks for other reasons, but the point of all of this is that we have a day that was meant to inspire us to stop, reflect, and acknowledge the Christian "truth" that it's good to help those less fortunate than ourselves, and to stop, reflect and give thanks (it is after all, harvest time) for all that we have.

You can think what you want about the "evils" or "redemption" of religion ... it doesn't matter, really. Any time -- and for any reason -- that we can stop and reflect on what might be good not only for ourselves but for others or that gives us pause to give thanks for all that we have is time well spent.

We used to be reminded of these things as a matter of course. It seems today that I have to keep reminding us. But, that's OK, the reason for pausing is irrelevant. That we pause, that we reflect, and that we give thanks is all that really matters.

Paradox paradise

When choosing the lesser of any number of evils, aren't you are still choosing evil?

If "by their fruits you will know them", why is so much emphasis placed upon credos?

Can good guys be allowed (or even expected) to do bad things and still be good guys?

If G-d is the ultimate judge, why do so many of His followers spend so much time judging?

Why do alleged lovers of freedom coddle ruthless leaders who suppresses those in their power?

If you are sanctioned for exercising your rights, do you even have rights at all?

Did I miss a memo or since when is there such a thing as "good" (or even "moderate") terrorists?

Is stealing someone's heart a crime?

If gamblers are looked down on, why are speculators looked up to?

Why does Justice act like she can see even though we're all equal in the eyes of the law?

If truth is arguably relative, why do we argue about it at all?

How is it that might make right but right can never make might?

If knowledge is power, why are so many stupid things done in our name?

Given that certain truths are self-evident, why must laws be made to enforce them?

If actions speak louder than words, why do we put so much faith in what people say?

If you can't turn around, at least turn the wheel

Although I don't know how many times I have to say it before it becomes clear, it should be dawning on you -- even if ever so slightly -- that we can't go on with "business as usual", as if "business" were a good metaphor for anything.

The difference between what we say and what we do is huge. The difference between what we know would be good for us all and what we have is huge. The difference between what we believe and what is real is huge. The days of small-step changes are, well, for the most part behind us, if they even exist any more at all.

Don't you just hate it when that happens? Here we are, like frogs in the pot of water, thinking that things aren't as bad as everyone says and that with a tweak here, a small adjustment there; a declaration of commitment here and a gee-wouldn't-it-be-nice there; with a mere "return" to some odd values that were never actually there; well, then things would just be peachy keen and the world would be a nice place again. The water's boiling, however, and if we weren't frogs, our goose would be cooked.

But hey, as George Orwell once said, "In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." And he also said, "The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." George was a wise man, and insightful on top of everything else. No, don't get me wrong: I'm not comparing myself to him in any way. I think he got it, and I like to think I understand what he's saying. I'm not (yet) despised by many (OK, a few, but who isn't), and for the most part those who don't want anything to do with me feel that way for reasons much more personal than whether whatever I say might have some similarity with "the truth". Fair enough. What I am thinking, though, is that in these days and times, even looking for the truth is close to revolutionary. I've never really thought of myself as such, but with each passing day, I find myself closer than I would have ever imagined.

Revolutionaries are a strange breed, that's for sure. You've got your Lenins, your purveyors of the guillotine-driven French Revolution, the slave-owners-seeking-freedom types of the American Revolution ... hell, all advocates of violent revolution have been short-lived, ending up like the despots they drove out (the Beelzebub-Devil problematic, as I like to call it). On the other hand, there are the Mandelas, the Gandhis, and Jesus, just to name the most well-known, who knew that if you want real change -- even necessary change -- you've got to find it in yourself first. And who is really ready for that?

And that, dear reader, is the rub: Folks much smarter and wiser than me (e.g., Buckminster Fuller, Jacques Fresco, Jim Hurtak, Stan Tenen, Valentin Tomberg, Gar Alperovitz, E.F. Schumacher, Erich Fromm, Jean Gebser, just to name a few) have all made the case that any and all real change starts with ourselves. We can't wait for others to set the tone. We can't wait for others to show us the way. We can't wait for others to take the lead. We can't wait for others at all.

I know -- and believe it or not, I understand -- that not many of you are willing to (radically) "turn around". I wish you could, but I know that's expecting too much. Given that we now think what we've always thought, we've simply got just more of what we've always got. Nevertheless, you can make a start, and this start involves simply stopping to think what you think and take a step back to give it a good look-over. Regardless of how compressed time-frames are becoming, the least you can do is ask yourself whether there might be other options for a better future available.

I pledged but not necessarily allegiance ...

As I noted last time, saying the words is just a way of "talking the talk". The real test of anything we say is whether we're willing to act on it ... to "walk the walk", to keep in tune with the rhyming metaphor.

I know lots of talkers. Lots. At the moment we're talking about American talkers, but I'm here to tell you: mutatis mutandis (a Latin phrase that means, "all the relevant changes having been made") what I'm saying here applies everywhere else I've ever been as well, and beyond. Again, this is one of those cases in which my fellow countrypeople carry their obsessions on their sleeve, but they're really not as exceptional as they might like to think they are. No, what I'm looking for are "walkers": people who are willing to put into practice what they preach, folks who are willing to do, not just say.

Even once we get past that swearing-one's-allegiance-to-a-piece-of-cloth thing and leave the realm of the actual for the more ethereal realm of the possible, what does this "oath" require? Assuming that the sayers are serious about that "one-nation" stuff, how long does it take for it all to break down? Two more words, as Fate would have it.

The original pledge, written by a fascist-friendly Baptist pastor who wanted to have it said with right arms extended forward (yes, as in "Sieg, heil"), didn't include the "under God" part. That was a 1954-we've-got-to-distance-ourselves-from-those-atheistic-Commies addition. If it's included, what does it mean for Americans today? If it's an essential or mandatory part, then, quite simply, no atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Taoist, and, conceivably, Moslem (though the stretch is not far) can say it in good conscience. I don't know how many of these there are in America, but it's more than a handful. There are those who insist that the phrase be included, even if it excludes so many fellow "patriots". Personally, I think we can leave it out because it wasn't there to begin with, and since the Commie threat has passed, it's doubly unneeded, but that's just my own little view of things.

No, what interests me more than anything else is what follows, that short little phrase, "indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". When I look across the Pond these days, I see anything but something "indivisible": right and left, Democrats and Republicans, gun nuts and concerned citizens, North and South, East and West, the racial divide, and the treatment of immigrants -- just to name the most obvious -- point to anything but indivisibility. Which talkers are doing anything about that?

The very last six words, though, are the killer: in a country that recognizes "affluenza" as a disease, that has a disproportional number of minorities in prison, most often for negligible offenses, that has the starkest income inequality in the Western world (and is in the top 3 worldwide) and that is home to the Patriot Act, the NDAA, the CIA and NSA, that has the most militarized police force in the "free world", well, I have to ask myself, what are the pledgers doing about this?

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that all those "rising to defend the pledge" are actually just doing their part to ensure that nothing about it holds true. It's just so much hot air. What we should be doing is protecting and helping the weak and maligned, seeking ways to come together, and speaking truth to power. But we're not. We're wishing for the "good old days" that were never really good, and are nothing but old.

The way out of the darkness is not behind you, it's in front of you.

I pledge allegiance ...

These are the opening words of a statement than every American school child was expected to render each and every day of school at one time. It probably persists today, but I don't know, for I'm not there. What I do know, however, is that more than just a few friends of mine bring it up again and again (on Facebook, for example) and there is a strong feeling that it's not being pushed hard enough.

It is, therefore, time to take a look at this pledge and ask ourselves just what is being said, and, in addition, whether we should be pledging it at all.

Note bene: for my non-American readers, this is an exercise in examining something Americans think is important. Consider it a lesson in cultural studies, or Landeskunde, as my German friends would say. In the next post, I'll take another look at it from a broader, more inclusive perspective.

The pledge, as originally written, is as follows:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation [under God] indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

First of all, a flag is a piece of cloth, in most cases, and it is, at best, a physical representation of an idea or an ideal. It doesn't matter which. What we find, first and foremost, however, is an oath to a mere piece of matter which has been, somehow, in some inexplicable way, be endowed with almost religious significance. Immediately, though, we are informed that the same degree of devotion, of submission, is to the republic that the flag is meant to symbolize, namely the USA. This entity is then described as a singular, united, unified "nation", which as of 1954 by legislative decree is imbued with divine oversight, that ascribes to and practices "liberty" (freedom in a political sense) and "justice" (equal treatment before the law) for all.

It's a nice sentiment, but is it applicable? When the pledge is expressed, it's a matter of "talking the talk". But, putting it into practice would be a matter of "walking the walk". But that's a topic for next time.

No, at the moment the question that is plaguing me, is how so many people who either believe or would like to believe that the United States was founded on sound, Christian principles, reconcile this pledge with their beliefs. Think about it:

1. There are numerous places in the Bible, especially the New Testament, that strongly indicate one shouldn't be swearing oaths.
2. While it is on the surface, at least, a pledge, it certainly sounds like an "oath", especially when you consider what the law proscribes for desecrating the symbol, let alone the "republic for which it stands".
3. The discrepancy between what it describes ("liberty and justice for all") and what is reality (one of the greatest disparities between rich and poor, the inordinate number of people of color who receive harsher punishments, even for lesser crimes, the repeated attempts to modify, say, voting laws to discriminate against those same people of color, the drastic differences in adjudication between "those well off" and others (e.g., "affluenza")

I have to wonder about how people get these things together in their minds. For the moment, I think it's enough for you to think about.

Yes, this is the pledge that many, many Americans hold to be sacrosanct, but before we even look at it in a critical way, questions present themselves that every one of us should be required to think about seriously.

Are you shaking in your shoes yet?

It will not come as a surprise to any of you that I'm not the world's convinced optimist. Oh sure, things for most of us generally work out, not because we did anything in particular and certainly not because we deserved it. Most of us live in a lucky part of the world and hence most of us are luckier than most others.

This does not mean that I'm therefore and invariably a pessimist. Sure, there are aspects of pessimism that agree with me, but I, like Ben Franklin, am more pessimist out of self-protection than conviction.

And, yes, there have been any number of people who have "accused" me of cynicism ... but I ask why cynicism should have anything crime-like about it. George Bernard Shaw noted, "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." After all, when I'm in cynical mode, it turns out I'm more often right than I would like.

Recently, I read two good essays (both of which are much longer than everyday, internet-attention spans) by Henry A. Giroux and the other by Peter Koenig, both authors for whom I have a lot of respect. They weren't happy essays. They were well-reasoned, insightful, and thought-provoking. Giroux's was more about America; Koenig's more about Europe, but they had something in common: hope.

Giroux ended his essay with the line, ""Dark times are not ahead, they are here but that does not mean they are here to stay." Koenig wrote, "Rather than fearfully shutting up – wake up! Dare stand up fellow citizen – against the white collar onslaught of fraud and exploitation, against corruption of our elitist neoliberal system! Get rid of those deceiving politicians – the scum of greed and power. Expose them. Neutralize them." In other words, they both think that we can turn this game around.

Naturally, I'm not so sure, but I would like to think they're right. The problem as I see it is that too many of us don't take the time to get truly informed, won't make the effort to sort through the issues and facts, will fall back on our innate fear of power and violence, and will jump upon any excuse we can find why it's "not our job" to do anything about anything.

You know, the only reason it appears to be getting dark out there is because we allow it to happen.

The terror of the darkness

We have every right to be afraid ... day in and day out. If the climate doesn't do us in, it could be a military catastrophe when the "wrong people" get hold of weapons of mass destruction, or it could be the "right" people who already have them and are itching for a fight. It could be some natural disaster, and we seem to be getting more of them, in all sizes, shapes, colors and what at least feels like subjective frequencies.

And, if there isn't the big global cataclysmic apocalypse, there's always a new epidemic, an antibiotic-resistant strain of virus, a mass shooting, a slip of the tongue or wrong answer after being stopped by a cop, another armed whacko who decided enough's enough, or lawmakers who think the rest of us have it too good as it is and start taking away what little most of us have left. Yes, we have every reason to be afraid ... day in and day out.

And, let's be realistic. No, let's be honest with each other: most of us live our lives in a state of repressed terror. Oh, sure, we act like we've got thing under control. We act like we have the (or at least some of the) answers. But, deep down, especially at night, when the lights are off and we can't sleep, we're well aware of our terror of the darkness that surrounds us.

Quite recently, I read something that describes this perfectly:

We are, we believe, seeing some long-standing fractures and psychological tensions within [life's] sphere coming to a head: ‘Old certainties’, old landmarks, familiarities, longstanding ways of being – all are eroding, leaving people bewildered and angry – and ready to lash out (at the world because they feel it is no longer what they know and want it to be). The ‘world around them’ is perceived as ‘doing this to them’ (destroying their handholds in life which kept them psychologically secure). It – all of it – as it were, has become ‘their enemy’.

We feel threatened from all sides, regardless of our political and religious beliefs: black lives mattering, gay rights, abortions, financial bailouts and coup d'etats, terrorism, radicals of all kinds, the absence of G-d in government, an economic system gone haywire, illegal immigrants, tax give-aways for the rich and for corporations, intrusive government action, disrespect of authority, and the list goes on and on and on and on, and each of these items is, of course, an "enemy" to someone.

What fascinates me most about the situation, the threats, the list, is that it is all of our own making. Yes, dear reader, you and I and everyone else is responsible for how things are and why there are so many enemies "out to get us". They are all demons of our own creation, and they make the darkness upon which they thrive.

Dark days are upon us

Dark days are upon us.

The heartless command, our attention at the very least. It may be a
madman with an Arabic name; it could be a finance minister whose
madness won't allow him to admit he is wrong.

Our minds are not being molded, they are being violated, bludgeoned,
abused, every bit as debilitating as any comparable physical abuse, but
as Stockholm taught us, it is possible to love one's abusers. It's not
mentally healthy, but it is a survival strategy.

Democracy hasn't been taken from us. You can't lose what you never
had. What has been taken from us, though, is our democratic ideals and
beliefs. In the United States, money talks; it's speech is free. Here in
Europe, we politicize instead - it's so much more sophisticated - and we
simply deny sovereign states their sovereignty. Both methods are
employed in the name of "unity", but we're not one, nor of one mind, nor
should we be, but we will be made to be alike.

It's not the silence of the masses that frightens me. What does
frighten me is the moment of their awakening to the realization that
they have been lied to, manipulated, and extorted. No, right now, what
makes me so uneasy is the silence of those who should know better.
Perhaps they have been bought; perhaps they have been intimidated;
perhaps they have simply lost hope. It doesn't really matter when the
results are the same.

The paternalization of society, not just here in the West, and
misguided feminism (only in the West) have made everyone just a bit more
manly: we're so easily distracted by shiny, glittering, but ultimately
worthless little things. We can argue for days about meaningless,
trivial, irrelevant details, yet we won't admit, neither to ourselves
nor to others, that there's a real problem that needs to be solved.
We're in crisis mode all the time. Men are, as you know, always in
crisis mode.

Dark days are upon us. And, they will not find the light as long as
we can be distracted, frightened, threatened, intimidated and bullied
into thinking that different is dangerous, that otherness is
ostracizing, and that only each of us can save him- or herself.

A seeker's confession

There is a certain type of individual who simply keeps me in awe: a person who claims to know what they know and believe. I'm not that kind of person. Regardless of how much I think I might know, regardless of how much I might learn or want to learn, regardless of how much insight I think I might have gained over the years, I'm always in doubt. Or, as Bertrand Russell put it, "The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

Don't get me wrong: I'm not calling most people stupid, if if they are. It does strike me, however, that there are a lot of cocksure people in the world, and as far as I can tell, they've not got a clue what's going on. But that's a whole different matter, and for another time.

I have to admit as well that I have had few "heroes" in my life: individuals to whom I have looked up or whom I have admired, even from afar, but there is one who sticks out who raised himself above all others: Socrates. Why? Well, there are two reasons. First, because he's the one who first told us, "The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing." Wise words, to be sure, and humble words, anything-but-arrogant words. Second, the only approach he took toward dealing with anything was by asking questions. When it came to questions, here was, without a doubt, the Master of Masters at work.

I am fully aware that other folks' heroes are doers of great deeds -- or at least perceived-to-be great deeds: generals, conquerors, founders of great religions, diplomats, intellectuals, whatever. The history of humankind is replete with examples of feats of strength, might, power, violence, murder, and blood. For me, though, the hero of heroes was an ugly guy with a shrew of a wife who asked a lot of questions that eventually got him executed. Why? Socrates was a seeker?

Seekers have fallen into disrepute in our day and age. We prefer those who know to those who wonder; we prefer those who speak to those who ask; we prefer those who are strong to those who are smart; we prefer -- let's be honest -- arrogance to humility. That's too bad, really, but seekers have always known that what the world wants/likes/honors/reveres, is very different from what it really needs.

Regardless, and nevertheless, it is becoming ever more clear that we are dying by our own hand; that what we think (want?) to know is false; that things/possessions/money can't bring us either happiness or salvation; that what one has is no match for what one can be; that all that bothers, troubles, and threatens us in the world is of our own making. Pogo was right, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Whatever.

There is Truth and there are truths out there, and I refuse to stop looking for either.

Simple wisdom

There's an old Zen saying: "Those who speak do not know; those who know, do not speak."

I stumbled across that one many, many moons ago, and I can assure you it's every bit as true now as it was then. We've got more than our share of purveyors of "truth" (or what they believe to be true or whatever), but, let's face it, most people talking have very little to say.

And, before you get the wrong impression, I'm one of those talking. I know that, and at a literal level, one could maintain that I have no idea what I'm talking about. However ... there is a difference between speaking and "speaking". Regardless of what my detractors might think, I don't claim to know what's what or what we should or should not think or believe or not believe. I don't think, believe, or even feel, that I have all the answers. Hell, I'm not even claiming that I have any answers. My "job", if that's how anyone might like to see it, is simply "to draw your attention to". No more, no less.

It's impossible for me to tell you what's right, wrong, good, bad, worthwhile or not worth even thinking about. That's something that each of us has to decide for him or herself. And that's what you need to do. You have to decide what you want to believe or what you actually believe. You have to decide what is fact and what is fiction. You need to discern and differentiate between what is real and what is illusion, what has substance and what does not.

All I want to do is nothing more than perhaps make you aware of something that you might have not thought about before. I'm not telling you what "is", I'm merely pointing out that this, that, or the other might not be exactly how you thought it might be, that not everything you're being told is being conveyed with good intentions, that a small dose of skepticism is very often very much in order, that just because something feels right doesn't mean it is right.

A buddy of mine once told me that the reason we have to learn from others' mistakes is because we don't have time to make them all ourselves. He was right. The flip side of that coin is that we need to listen to and learn from others because we don't have time to find out everything for ourselves either. When we're all sincere about pointing out and sharing, about communicating, we can all benefit. True, there are those who would abuse this process for their own advantage. We all know that as well and for that reason it is important that, well, we keep a bit of a skeptical attitude until we can corroborate, confirm or, when necessary, deny what we're hearing.

It's really not a difficult nor dangerous nor risky undertaking. It means taking things perhaps a bit more slowly, perhaps stopping to think from time to time, and maybe evening thinking first and believing later.

So, while I may be "speaking", in a sense, I'm not laying claim to knowing. Sure, I want to know, but first I've got to figure it all out.

Columbus Day, again

To be perfectly honest, I find a holiday like Columbus Day shameful.

Oh, I have nothing against holidays. In fact, if it were up to me, there would be at least one holiday per month, without exception, and I would have no qualms about finding rather innocuous reasons for having them. In March, we should all be able to celebrate the Vernal Equinox, if nothing else. In August, we should simply have a Holiday of Holidays, if nothing else. Yes, every month deserves to have a holiday, and not one of those wimpy floating ones, but a real Monday holiday as it should be.

Of course, if we're going to take this approach, I would insist that each month have a holiday that is meaningful and mostly -- and I emphasize, mostly -- inoffensive to the population. You see, we could declare, say, St. Patrick's Day as a national holiday, but that would be partial to the Irish. We could have a religious holiday in August, but this would be disrespecting of non-Christians. I'm sure, though, that it wouldn't take long to find a Monday that was acceptable to everyone. After all, we only need to have a will to have a way.

Columbus Day, in all due respect, is not one of thoses days. Yes, I know that his intentions were honorable, that he merely wanted to find an alternative to the status quo of his day, but the way he went about it and the results of his personal policies made live more than difficult for millions of people, and we're talking about millions of people who never had and no longer have a voice in their own demise.

Yes, Columbus Day honors the overtaking of different cultures for no other reason than one believed that one's own culture was the best the world had to offer combined with the arrogance of believing that white, Western Europeans were in a better position to decide what was good for the world than any other peoples are the face of the earth.

In the meantime, we've come to realize that Columbus really didn't get it right, that he didn't understand the world with which he was confronted, and that he represented a way of thinking that derided and suppressed any way of understanding the world that didn't conform to their own.

No,I don't believe there were any evil intentions. No, I believe that Columbus and his crew's intentions were good. But, at the same time, I believe that they simply failed to recognize that those who were already here deserved to be treated with the same respect as any other human being on the planet.

Unfortunately, we didn't get it then, and it's quite obvious we don't get it even now. We may never learn, even if I hope that I'm wrong.

The case of the unfulfilled dream

When I was coming-of-age, the Civil Rights movement was in full swing. People were in the streets protesting the war in Vietnam. Flower children were spreading a doctrine of peace and love. I, like many of my generation, had great hopes that the world would become a better place and that we'd be able to leave that better world to our children. We couldn't have been more wrong.

A forced stint in the military, rampant inflation, a delusional turning back of the clock, a celebration of greed, a misunderstood collapse of an "enemy", and one crueler war than the previous one have taken their toll. Since that time, it's been a small step forward and a big step back, and it would seem we're picking up the pace as well.

Wages for normal, working people have stagnated, inflation has been brought under nefarious control, many of the social programs instituted back then are being dismantled, there's been a massive increase in the number of refugees on the move, more people are dying of hunger every year, income equality has become obscene, the environment is polluted, the planet it getting hotter faster than we can do anything about it, but it's harder and harder to find anyone who really cares.

Oh sure, I have to answer to my kids -- and rightfully so -- since they're all of age and I taught them to speak their minds and ask uncomfortable questions. I believe I got at least that much right. What troubles me more, however, are their children, and those of my own siblings and their kids just making their dramatic, but welcome entry onto the world stage. What about them? I envisioned them then; I know them now. And there are days I simply hang my head in shame.

While I've never been a top-echelon optimist, I've always (most often, secretly) been a hopeful person. It wasn't solely up to me whether "things" turned out or didn't, but I have to ask myself nevertheless whether there was anything I could have done better, harder, more determinedly, more effectively to have possibly made those coming-of-age dreams come true. I've come to the conclusion that there were lots and lots of things I could have done but didn't. But I've also come to recognize that far too many of my one-time compatriots -- brothers- and sisters-in-arms, as we liked to style ourselves then -- simply gave up.

When I see them and hear from them these days, it becomes clear how helpless they feel, how hopeless they've become, how defeated they are inside, and they do everything to prevent that anyone see that. Oh sure, some of them -- and not an insignificant number, I might add -- went over to what we might call the "dark side". They're still my friends and acquaintances. After all, "there, but for the Grace of G-d go I". And it saddens me all the more.

What I miss most of all about those halcyon days of light and hope is the feeling of sharing, of camaraderie, of shared hope, of shared faith, of being-in-it-together. How did Thoreau put it? "Things don't change, we change." He's got a point, I'll admit, but it's only a partial one.

The dream was real. The implementation left a whole lot to be desired. We were many then, and now we're few. And even though that dream remains unfulfilled, it was the right dream to have -- then, and now.

Standing up for what is right

Before anyone gets the wrong impression (again), I would like to point out that everyone is free to believe what they want. I don't really care ... as long as it doesn't affect me, or anyone I know, or, well, anyone else. You see, beliefs are all well and good when taken for themselves, but problems arise when our own beliefs start interfering with others' beliefs.

What too few people have are beliefs that can stand up against others' beliefs. Kim Davis wasn't any more a representative of "religious freedom" than the Pope, who met with her, is a representative of Christians everywhere. The Westboro Baptist Church is no more representative of Christianity than the IS is representative of Christianity. The chicken hawks advocating bombing Assad into the Stone Age are not more representative of a reasonable Middle East policy than are the dumb-down doves are representative of the position that Russia will bring peace to the region. No, everybody has a stake in the game, and, by definition, everybody is spinning the tale to make themselves look good.

Truth be told, what I find most amazing in all of this is the fact that facts, actual verifiable and documentable happenings, statements, and signed agreements mean absolutely nothing at all. What matters is what one side wants you to believe, how one side is interested in having you believe a certain way, and how what is must invariably yield to what others want.

Everyone involved in the current "crisis" is a jerk (I would say "asshole", but I'm trying to remain at least implicitly impartial); everyone has an agenda; everyone has a definable interest, but none of the players have the least concern for the everyday people involved.

The entire Middle East is underlaid with oil and that's what we -- and probably everyone else wants. Whether the people sitting on this resource are democratically inclined or subject to brutal dictatorial oppression is irrelevant. What WE -- the USA, or the Russian Federation, or the EU, or whomever -- want is all that matters. The cost, the consequences, the collateral damage, the ... makes absolutely no difference at all.

The so-called fact of the matter make no difference at all. What matters, in the end, is what any given country with any given interest believes is their "right" to act as they deem appropriate given the current situation and compilation of power.

The human suffering, the human casualties, matter not at all. Somehow national interests and national pride are more important than anything that may happen to any given individual or population. How proud we must be. We define the world. We define what is right and what is wrong. And in the end, we are always right. Oh, how proud we must be.

The case of mistaken identity

We need to get a couple of things straight.

In the world in which I live there are religious, not-so-religious, and non-religious people. There are those who abhor the label "religious" and prefer to refer to themselves as "spiritual", which I accept, and there are also non-spiritual people as well. In the world in which I live, there are capitalists, free-market advocates (if not, devotees), socialists, anarchists, humanists, and just about every other kind of "-ist" you can imagine. Some people are fervent in what they believe and advocate and others are lukewarm. Hell, I even know quite a few individuals who could give a care one way or the other about anything. There is, in other words, a merry, colorful patchwork of thoughts, ideas, ideologies, views, Weltanschauungen, feelings and desires that make up the world in which I live. And I would have it no other way.

Having said that, I am, above all else, prior to anything else, deep down inside, at heart, a human being who loves my fellow human beings, all of us as imperfect as we are. My most fundamental belief (which I believe, with a little bit of effort, I could "prove") is that all of us human beings have much more in common that what makes us different. At least that which we have in common, makes us human. Everything else is, well, irrelevant details.

It is against this backdrop that I look out into the world and react to whatever comes my way. These days, there are so many different "things" that people believe and hold to be true that I have trouble following them. What is more, I am (literally, and honestly) shocked at how much how many people are willing to invest in what they "believe". (I put that last word in quotation marks intentionally. There is very little in this world that we actually know, but there is one helluva lot in it that we believe.)

There are so many people who believe that what they believe is right. That's fine as far as it goes, but in that moment when you encounter another who may not, who most likely does not, believe (and "know") what you believe, well, you have to decide whether you are willing to engage this person or not. I say, let's explore; let's exchange ideas, thoughts, notions, beliefs; let's talk about, discuss and, if necessary, debate, those things; let's understand why you believe the world is one way and I believe it's another. Why? For the simple reason that my experience has shown me that given half a chance, I can learn something that I didn't know before, that I can grow in some way that I had never even imagined, that I might become, given the right set of circumstances, a better person -- and we might even (hopefully) agree on what "better" means in this context.

But, I will be honest, I'm having trouble finding anyone who is willing to engage.

What I -- and so many others, I am sure -- am left with is a whole bunch of know-it-alls, people who think they know what's what. Unfortunately, they don't. They only think they know, but they are damn sure about it nevertheless. Too bad. There's a world of difference between knowing and believing and those yacking the loudest don't know there's a difference at all.

True courage

Anybody can start a fight. Just about anybody can get into a fight without really trying: sometimes the wrong place at the wrong time or the wrong facial expression in the wrong situation. There are lots of ways to get into a fight.

If you're really smart or if you are lucky enough to have the gift of gab and can talk your way out of it, you are one of the very fortunate few. For the rest of us, it's fisticuffs. And that, dear reader, is one of the sad facts of life even in the 21st century.

What's worse, this logic applies regardless of whether it is only individuals involved. It could just as well be gangs, football fans, political parties, demonstrators, or even countries. The logic is the same, regardless of the size or the seriousness of the parties involved.

And so, you stand your ground, blow up your chest, you "act like a man", take your knocks, and save your face (more figuratively than literally, of course), but you've preserved your honor. Of course, it really could be countries involved and it could be that there is collateral damage running into millions of lives, or the whole world -- what the hell -- what's important in the end is that I've saved face, I've shown you what I'm made of, I've demonstrated my courage ... or have I?

Truth be told, you're just another one of those sorry, ever-adolescents who either can't or refuse to grow up. You're just another one of those faux bravehearts who think that a black eye and a bloody nose are some kind of badge of honor. They're not. They're mere indications that you'd rather be an actual coward than be called one.
And that's where we are these days: image is much more important than substance (or as the Germans would say, "Schein ist wichtiger als Sein"); appearances are more important than reality and what you think of me is much more important than what I think of myself or what I stand for.

Turn it around. Get out of the mirror. Face up to the fact that it takes way more courage to take a punch in the nose than to give one, that it takes way more courage to say what you think than to say what others want to hear, that it takes way more courage to stand up for what you believe in -- in light of, not in spite of, the consequences -- than just saying something's important to you.

The world as we know it honors violence. The world that we desire will honor courage.

The anathema of caring

People who care have it tough: they're laughed at, derided, criticized, maligned, and, worst of all, ignored. Still, there are not just a few of us who are concerned that the current trajectory of developments may bode ill for us all. No, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist. In fact, most conspiracy theorists aren't ... they're just called that, and then we don't have to deal with them. Truth be told, we're being beaten down by our own silence.

A lot of things in our world are broken, from our economic system to our idea of society, from our idea of community to our notion of something as simple as sharing, or even caring. The world suffers as we sit idly by and lament that there's nothing any of us can do about anything. We couldn't be more wrong.

If you care -- about anything -- you have to know that you will have a tough go of it. Most folks don't care that you care and most folks, when push comes to shove, will try to prevent you from caring. Sometimes it's a simple "it's not your problem", to the more general "you can't do anything about that", to the grotesque "why should anyone think they can live off my dime"? Oh, we love to sift and sort, to pick and choose, to declare these folks are "in" and those are "out", but all we're doing is demeaning ourselves.

We can't solve the world's problems, but we can solve our own and the problems of those near to us, and by this, I just don't mean those related to us. In the English translation of the Bible, there is lots of talk about "neighbors", as in "love your neighbor as yourself" and more. In German, this is translated as "the next one"; that is, the one to whom you are in closest proximity, physically. In other words, your neighbor (and this is clearly laid out in the Parable of the Good Samaritan) is whoever is near you, and, especially, who needs you at any given time.

Popular wisdom will tell you that you'll only be taken advantage of. Most of your neighbors will tell you not to get sucked in by the con. And almost everyone else will tell you that you are a fool for even thinking about caring in the first place. What kind of world is that?

Most people thrive on the acceptance of those whom they care about, be they relatives or actual neighbors. If we want the world to be a better place, we have to get beyond that. Whether you are put down, ridiculed, or looked at askance for helping others in need, doesn't matter in the end. It only matters whether you were willing to stand up and to act because you knew it was the right thing to do.

Personally, I don't care where you start, be it in our own family and neighborhood, or be it in the country in which you live or the world at large. At some point, we all have to care about more than just ourselves, regardless of what others may think. That, of course, takes courage. And you need courage to care. You need even more courage to do something about your feelings.

And I know that most of you feel you are doing your fair share already, but I'm here to tell you that you are not. None of us do enough. All of us are capable of more. And all of us will be guilty, if we don't follow our hearts instead of our brains. The choice is yours