If you can't take any more, maybe it's because you can't let go

The world's is sad shape. I mean that literally. I don't know how anyone can look out into the world and not be sad at what is happening, what's not happening, what's being said and how it's being said, and at how helpless all of that makes us feel. If you think you've got things under control, you're not paying attention to anything but yourself. But life's not about you, yourself, or what you personally think is right, wrong or indifferent.

Not being an ardent, only an interested, student of history, I can't say for sure, but the indications are strong -- very strong -- that we human beings haven't managed to learn very much in the course of our collective sojourn on this planet. For lack of a better number, let us say 100,000 years of hominoid and human history, most undocumented of course, and there's no real evidence that we're any better off inside that our forebears.

Oh sure, we've developed lots and lots of techologies and gadgets that were supposed to have made our lives easier, and while we now live statistically longer than our ancestors, there's no real signs that we're living better. We've simply traded physical ailments for mental and psychic ones. We've made it possible for our bodies to survive for a surprisingly long time, but we're not happier about it or doing it.

Take a moment and be honest with yourself: you're in the privileged position of being able to read this post. Thousands of years of hard work and sacrifice ... millions of deaths and lots of privation ... went into to making it possible for you to be able to do so. And ... ? Aside from the other car in the garage or the last bank statement or the country-club membership, are you truly satisfied with your life and the lives of those close to you, or you just living as if you were. You're completely and utterly content with the state of your own being and that of the world in which you find yourself? If so, then why are you reading this?

Anyone who looks into this blog a couple of times and all of you who peek in more often than not know unequivocally that I am not. The country into which I was unexpectedly and accidentally born has mutated into something that I cannot recognize anymore. The country which I have chosen to be my home is becoming colder, harder, more ruthless and irrationally violent than I would have hoped. The world in which I one day woke up has become a plundered and polluted environment that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy (if I had one), let alone upon my grandchildren for whom I'd sacrifice everything I have if I knew they'd suffer even one second less. But, I know as well, my sacrifice would be like every sacrifice ever made: in vain. Because we refuse to recognized, let alone acknowledge, that nothing -- absolutely nothing -- has to be the way it is. Things are as they are, not because we have made them that way ... we didn't wake up one morning and say, "Hey, let's see if we can't screw up our world beyond all recognition." ... rather because we have let them become that way because we just didn't know what else to do.

In contrast to what I'm pretty sure most people believe, I do not believe that human beings are inherently evil. By the same token, I also do not believe that human beings are inherently good. What I do know -- or, perhaps more cautiously stated, believe -- is that human beings simply are.

There are lots of things that simply are: the whole universe and everything in it. It's just there. We didn't put it there. We didn't make up the rules and laws that govern how things happen there. It's just there. We don't even have to want to explore the Mystery of Creation or want to have an answer to the big-W question, "Why?", to agree that whatever is is, and that's all we have to deal with. We human beings are simply a part of that. It doesn't matter whether we believe some omnipotent being put us here or whether we're the product of some alien intelligence gone wrong (or right) or whether there even is some omnipotent being or just blind randomness. It doesn't matter for the simple reason that we're here and we have to deal with whatever it is we are confronted with. We, as a species, but particularly as individuals, know deep in our hearts that we're here and somehow someway we have to come to terms with that. Do we really think that any more than that is essential for our well-being?

Maybe. There are many of us who are always on the lookout for that "more", whatever it may be. It's simply hard to believe that this physical mess, with all its shortcomings, deprivations, pain snd suffering is "all there is". I have a body, which I can see, and a whole lot of wonderful (and awful) sensations that I can feel, and that makes me wonder about those who want to tell me that the physical (what I can access through my five senses) is all there is to Life. That's not enough. It comes up too short. There is so much more that moves me (sorrow, joy, hope, that feeling you get when you actually experience a sunrise or sunset or holding the hand of a person who dies) that I can't help but feel that my materialist friends and their simple chemical reactions in my brain and neuron-synapse firings can't really get into the game at all. I understand them, I think, but I don't know why I would want to live in a world that devoid of meaning.

But when I get on Facebook, for example, I'm suddenly confronted with diehard materialist who still find beauty in a work of art, exhilaration at a new experience, despair when a loved one departs and anger when they see injustice being committed. I don't know why they have (or better, acknowledge) those feelings (or maybe they're only pretending they do), but I'm nevertheless glad that they have them and share them. There's a lot wrong with social media, don't get me wrong, but sharing with others isn't one of them.

The point is really this: regardless of whether they are materialists, anti-religionists, born-again hopers, political activists, politically interested by-standers, environmentalists, free-market apologists, spiritual seekers, anarchists, democratic idealists, Realpolitik-realists, traditionalists, conservatives, liberals, militaristic-go-getters; pacifists, in the end, it just doesn't matter at all. All of them, regardless of where they're "coming from", generally believe that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. They're not satisfied with things "as they are" and they all share the same belief that regardless of how things are, it's not the way they have to be.

I'll be honest, right up front: that amazes me to no end. If I had sleepless nights, that would cause them: how can it be that so many people from so many different perspectives, imbued in so many different "philosophies", "blinded" by so many different belief systems and religions all come to the same conclusion: the world as we experience it is anything but the best possible world (to corruptingly paraphrase Leibnitz)? Shouldn't that give us pause to reflect? I think, "yes", but apparently much of the world doesn't think so at all.

OK, some people aren't reflecting because they think they have all the answers and if the rest of us would just let them have their way, we'd all be "saved" or at least have some kind of utopia on earth. Bzzzzzz! Wrong answer. We'd just have their limited, individual bullshit to put up with. None of us individually has T-H-E answer. We may have a contribution to the answer, but it's not all of the answer. The answer, whatever it may be, is bigger than all of us.

None of us -- neither you, dear reader, nor I -- is going to save the world. It may just be that the world, as we know it, does not need saving. It's not in good shape, that's for sure; it's in sad shape, as all of us know; but it may not be doomed.

It could also be that we don't need a strong leader, a long-lost messiah, a forgotten prophet or a supergenius to get us out of the dilemma in which we find ourselves. Did it ever occur to you that if you -- yes, just you ... little, old insignificant you -- started acting like you mattered (at least in the immediate world in which you find yourself) that the world at large might become a different world altogether? I believe it would.

Most of us are fed up with "the world as it is", but it is that way because we make it that way. If we act differently, no matter how insignificantly, the cumulative effect would be unignorable. We don't act differently because we think that however the world is is simply beyond our control. It is. But, it is not beyond our influence. We can change the world, truly, but we have to change ourselves.

I'm not asking you to become a different person overnight. That would be ludicrous, even if it were possible. I'm not even asking you to change your mind or way of thinking, though that would induce a change that may be hard to take. All I'm asking is for you to do is simply "let go" ... of all the ballast, the opinions, the solutions, the leaders, the parties, the programs, the whatever that you thought might make a difference. None of it will. The world will change -- and for the better, I can assure you -- when you finally start acting in a way that you know is right: listen, sympathize, and have compassion for others: first in your immediate environment, and slowly, but surely, in an ever-expanding circle of immediateness.

Just let go of what you think is right, and act as if you knew what right is.

Hunks of meat suspended in time

Recently, I had a bit of a discussion on social media (and yes, I know I'm too old for that, but I've got an extremely young grandchild and need to keep up-to-date, or some reasonable facsimile) ... well, it wasn't as much a discussion as it was an exchange. Let's face it: social media doesn't lend itself to discussions, nor was it ever intended to.

Discussions need to be done tête-à-tête, I agree, but I've been involved in the electronic medium long enough to know that it is possible to have long, deep, meaningful, debates and discussions online, but you need people who can, and are willing to, think and who are willing to persevere till Hitler (or some other Nazi reference) butts in. Exchanges are nice enough, but they are pretty meaningless in both the petty and grand scheme of things. Social media is there for people to spit out opinions, to try to impress others with one's own wit and brilliance, or to just vent. That's not really what I consider to be engaging an idea, notion, or possibility in any superficial or meaningful way, but we shouldn't expect more than a media channel can deliver.

Nevertheless, even such pithy exchanges, you can get a feeling for where the other commenters are coming from. Every time we open our mouths (or let our fingers do the talking) we tell the world where the shoe is pinching (as the Germans like to say) or what our particular problem is this week. People ain't refrigerators: they can't keep nothing. You want to know what's important to someone, what's floating their boat, tickling their fancy, or pissing them off to no end: just listen. They'll tell you. If you don't know what's bothering your partner, well, then you're not listening.

Oh, it's easy not to listen. In fact, it takes a good amount of effort. Most of us are so wrapped up in ourselves that we can't get past the monkey-chatter in our own heads to pick up on whatever it is that "they" are going on about. The old Zen saying may be that those who say, don't know and those who know won't say, but I can assure you that the vast majority of denizens of this planet don't know what they know nor are they willing to try to figure out what you might know. It's so loud in most of their heads that they would rather just turn it off than have to try and filter the worth-hearing from the noise. And let's face it, most of it's noise. There's a lot of noise, both inside and outside our heads.

But that's not the point. What struck me in my recent exchange was how few options we had. Center point of the back-and-forth was "human beings". You can love 'em, you can hate 'em, but you can't avoid 'em ... they're everywhere. For obvious reasons there are 7 billion of us on the planet these days and truth be told, most of us don't have a clue ... about anything. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining nor am I accusing: most of those 7 billion can't have a clue: they're struggling to survive today, let alone tomorrow; they're so poor they don't have dirt to rub together; they're hungry, sick, forlorn, forsaken and forgotten. But ... and it's a bit but(t): we in the West do, and we, in the West, should know better. But, we don't. And that's what hit me first. The vast majority of human beings in existence, that is, alive today, didn't even get factored into the discussion/exchange equation. What does that say about us?

The second thing, though, that hit me ... OK, it was more like a bitch-slap ... was the assertion/contention/assumption that if humans were involved, whatever the topic was, it was doomed to failure, because, well, human beings are beyond hope anyway. There was/is the implicit, though if necessary, explicit assertion that humans are incapable of anything other than stupidity, bullshit and nonsense. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not accusing my interlocutors of anything other than short-sightedness: they appealed to history, and history -- regardless of who has written it -- documents the failure of human beings. We haven't gotten a damn thing right in the half-a-million or million years that we've been here (and I'm only referring to homo sapiens right now, for simplicity's sake, not because it's the only way to see things): violence, rape, pillage, plunder, war, death, destruction, thievery ... regardless of whomever we love to pick out and praise as being laudable, enviable, praiseworthy. They only managed to stop the destruction long enough for someone to write down how great they were. I get that. Really, I understand that, but the conclusions they draw from this is simply ... well, wrong. Let me explain.

Two forces are at work here: First, there's the factual evidence that over time, and according to whatever records we have been able to salvage, the creatures on this planet know as "human beings" tend to act more stupid than smart and are much more violent than peaceful. But ... and, again, it's a big but(t) this says nothing about how human beings actually are. Also, and closely related to this, is the deduction/assumption that human beings are simply not capable of any more/better than that. In other words, if human beings are involved, whatever you have planned is going to go south; that is, there is such a thing as "human nature" and it more or less precludes that any other outcome is possible. These are insufficient, inadequate, inappropriate conclusions to be drawn from the evidence for they are based on an incorrect assumption about human beings in general, namely that they have a "nature" and this nature is somehow defective.

This is a common, widely spread, and simply wrong conclusion. It assumes too much, and it has to. Why? Because those who believe that "this is how things really are" start with two incorrect assumptions: (1) past actions of human beings are accurate predictors of future behavior and, the one I like to call the materialist fallacy, (2) we're just big hunks of meat who are the unfortunate product of chance. If matter is all there is, well, you can't -- no, shouldn't -- expect too much of others. After all, they are, at best, products of chance who have no clue why they're here or what they're up to. But, this is going to far too fast.

Now it's your turn. Think about it: who are we creatures we call 'human beings'? Is there a reason for our presence on this planet or are we mere products of chance? Does life -- no matter what we think it is -- have some meaning or is this all just a big coincidence? Do we have some fundamental, basic "nature", some way of being that when you get right down to it just can't be changed? Do notions such as "good" and "evil" really exist or are they just illusions? Do the ideas of "right" and "wrong" actually exist or are they merely conventions we've accepted so that we can get through whatever the hell this is we are experiencing until tomorrow? Do we have any say (in any sense of the word) in our lives or is everything simply determined, if not predetermined, by the accidental interaction of forces, events, whatever beyond our knowledge?

OK, I know these are what is often referred to as "heavy" questions. When you get down to it, though, each and every one of us has to have some idea, some story, some explanation that we like to tell ourselves that helps us get through the darkness of unknowing as to why we're here. But, hey, maybe there's no reason at all. I'm not claiming there is, I'm only asking you to think about what you think the answer to "the question" is.

So, where does this leave me with my "discussants"? To me, it's relatively clear: they are what we know in this day and age as "materialists" and they don't know, to be kind, any better. And here, too, you shouldn't misunderstand me: I'm not criticizing or condemning these folks in any way, shape or form. They simply believe that all there is to life, the world, the universe, to all that is is, well, matter. I know: it all sounds so simple. At some time, a long time ago, an explosion -- to be precise and scientific, a Big Bang -- occurred and the ball started rolling who knows how and who knows where and here we are. One of the products of this "bang" was matter ... stuff ... the shit we knock our knees against when we're not paying attention. Somewhere along the line, we -- that is, you, me and every other human being on the planet or who ever existed -- showed up, as a, well, coincidental by-product of this "bang". Though we don't know for sure, we still "know" that matter is all there is. And here we are.

Well, this is where my discussants are at any rate. We've got a lot of people now, just as there have been a lot of people before us, but all of them are more or less fortunate or unfortunate accidents of a huge fart that took place billions of years ago. (To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't trust these accidents with much of anything either, but I started from a different assumption, and that makes all the difference in the world.) We're (and by that I mean we human beings, allegedly with consciousness and free will) are freaks of nature, and I use the word "freaks" in the most well-meaning sense of the word: it was just an accident that we are as we are; there's not a damn thing we can do about it, and if we consider the laws of statistics and probability, we shouldn't be here anyway. Unfortunately, we are. Funny how that works.

Well, what disturbed my discussants, I believe, is the fact that the fate of our planet should be placed in the hands of these freaks. Oh, I understand their shock and dismay. After all the failures we have to show for ourselves, I am the last person who would jump up and yell, "Hey, let the failures take charge!", but the truth of the matter is that there is only us. We have it in our hands -- and here I've got a lot of good science on my side -- to destroy the planet or to at least eliminate ourselves (and probably a whole lot else, including thousands, if not millions, of other species) in the process, and these folks -- my discussants -- are the ones that potentially are going to save us from ultimate demise. I agree, the chances are slim, but -- truthfully -- if not us, who? Yeah, we're pretty screwed up as a species, but we're also the only ones who have even the slightest chance of pulling ourselves, and everything else, back from the brink of extinction.

Yes, I exaggerate. My hero of heroes, George Carlin, accurately, and I believe appropriately, declared that human beings are to the planet nothing more than a bad case of fleas: the planet can shake us off and go on as if we never existed. And for as right as he was/is, that's a whole other issue and not relevant here.

So, here's the point: what happens to the earth and all of its inhabitants is nothing we can worry or not worry about. It doesn't matter. What happens to us, human beings, as a species, is, nevertheless, in our hands. We can participate in the further development of planet earth or we can decide to opt out. And this is where things start getting both serious and interesting: it's up to us. We can change our behavior and play along in the Big Game of Chance, but we can also opt to just spite ourselves ensure that not a one of us survives. This is what my fellow discussants didn't get, or didn't want to acknowledge: we have a choice in the matter, and the mere fact that we have a choice makes us different than any other species of living thing on this planet ... for better or for worse. We may -- and probably will -- choose the path of death and destruction. We seem to like that. But ... whether we like it or not ... we, and only we human beings, have the option to choose Life over Death.

You can't fix stupid, but stupidity can be fixed

We've got a problem. By "we", I mean those of us who find ourselves in what we like to think of as the 1st World -- and I'm not the first to ask somewhat naively, where's the 2nd one? Yeah, you, almost all of your reading this, and your friends, and your friends' friends, if they have any, and the people around you, like family and neighbors, and all of us who have too much time on our hands, too much money in our pockets, and too little sense to know what to do with either.

Now, before you go off all insulted because you're struggling to make ends meet or you're starting to sweat all the debt you're carrying around or whether there is going to be anything left for your kids or grandkids ... if you're concerned about any of that, you are precisely whom I'm talking to. Your problem isn't insufficient funds, it's insufficient gratitude. The vast majority of human beings on this planet would swap places with you in a heartbeat: and you'd die having to deal with theirs, and they'd think they'd died and gone to heaven. It's a matter of perspective, true, but also relativity. According to popular, widespread, and most oft proclaimed ideology: you chose your problems; the vast majority of humanity had theirs dumped on them by people who care more about themselves than even you do. If you've got a conscience, you'll never make it into the top 10%, let alone 1%. You're not cut out for it. Or sell your conscience. At the moment, however, you're just in the way ... of progress to make a better world or your just another wannabe for those at the top who want, and will eventually, get what you have.

You might get the impression that I'm a bit miffed at the moment, a bit irked, a bit bothered, a bit off-center. And you're right. I am. But, I firmly believe that I have every reason to be. Oh sure, I've cobbled together a fixed-income existence; I don't own anything other than a car of good middle age; I've got family around me, a couple of friends (who at least people who tolerate having me around); I've got a roof over my head, enough to eat and access to the world's largest cesspool of information, the internet. I haven't got a single reason to complain about anything in my life. But I'm also not only not the only person on the planet and I'm not the only person in my immediate environment. I'm part of a larger whole that varies in size depending on time of day, phase of the moon, and societal configuration.

In other words, I lead a relatively normal Western life. And I'm thankful for that, believe me. I'm thankful that I have the wherewithal, the inclination, the talent, the time, the opportunity to share my thoughts with all of you. But, I must admit, I'm rather bothered by the echoes that are finding their way back to me. Like most of you, I've got a real life and an online life, and the online life has to do with social media to a large extent, and regardless of what you think about either in general, I can assure you that, in particular, the online part is causing me more and more concern with each passing day. That's why I'm bringing this up here, with you, with all of you who obviously have an online life as well. The number of people with online lives is growing daily. The "society" that these online denizens are forming, however, is not exactly what I had hoped it would be way back when 95% of the people on the internet lived within 10 miles of my home. Yeah, I've had a chance to watch all this develop, and I'm not all that excited about what I see.

I'm going to out myself right up front: I don't believe the least in "human nature", but I believe unboundedly in "human potential". I believe -- deep, in the very heart of my own being -- that human beings are the living expression of the possibility of all possible possibilities. (That's the optimist heart that beats in my breast.) And I also believe, unreservedly, that the low end of those possibilities is the world we have thought out for ourselves, the world in which we're all -- at the moment -- forced to live. Stated succinctly, we're the biggest of all of G-d's failures. (And thus beats my cynic's heart in that same breast.)

We are, and have shown, that we're capable of the most exhilarating flights of brilliance: fire, the wheel, more-than-sufficient food production, disease eradication, alternative energies and explorations to the stars. At the same time, we have demonstrated that we're capable of the most terrifying horrors imaginable: war, genocide, unimaginable physical and psychological violence, greed, selfishness, self-absorption, and lack of empathy that there are moments when I find myself almost yearning for that last affront to occur so that we all go down the tubes the blinding fire of nuclear annihilation. And therein lies the rub, as the bard so eloquently put it.

You should be aware that all of G-d's children don't have the same intellectual capabilities and capacities. And that's OK as far as I'm concerned. Some of the nicest people I ever had the honor of dealing with weren't the sharpest pencils in the box, as they say, but they were Menschen, in both the true and Yiddish senses of the word. They cared about others, were kind, generous, helpful, supportive, and chock full of empathy and sympathy for the plight of others. I don't consider these people stupid, however. No, to me, stupid is when you think you know something, when you think you are smarter than you really are, or when you let external, non-personal "attributes" drive your actions.

Three of these are particularly dangerous: money, guns, and power. You can be bright, but once money (or in its most fundamental and nefarious form, the love of money) takes over it's good-bye smarts. Money is a prime cause of stupidity. You think your money makes you better, and smarter than everyone else, but it doesn't. It makes you think you're an authority on things you have no idea about (e.g., Bill Gates and world health or education). Guns are also a classic, and they (or the violence they represent) is a key feature of the gangster/Mafioso boss Hollywood has infected us with for decades. The propensity toward violence or violent behavior, the willingness to use it so "resolve arguments" is prototypical of stupidity in general. And finally, power ... often some vague combination of the previous two attributes, or "actual" power, like a political office (here, Bush the Lesser jumps out as poster child for what can happen when the intellectually challenged get it in their heads that they're better than and worth more than others) ... is the worst of all. And it's the one that has the most disastrous effects on the most people.

Even the most superficial gloss over the history of humankind reveals that it has been those awash in stupidity who have been in charge. We don't know who it was who figured out "fire", but we know practically everybody's name who used fire -- in one form or another -- to ensure that hundreds, thousands, if not millions of people had to suffer to satisfy their own egos. And we praise them, look up to them, remember them, and as school-children are forced to memorize their names, but in the end, they were stupid, self-absorbed, self-serving egoists who forced their personal mentation on others. Alexander the Great, the Roman Caesars, the British and other European royal houses, from Stockholm to Madrid, and, most recently, a whole bevy of American presidents (not starting with but particularly egregious since Reagan), have tortured the life out of countless human beings for the greater glory of , and we laugh and gloat and cheer and pat ourselves on the back for being so "great". But why? What's so smart about being able to kill untold human beings at will? Why do we think -- at this point in history, here, at the beginning of the 21st century (since we've agreed on counting years) -- that this is a good thing? Sure, it enables you to sit there in your room; fat, dumb and happy that you can look down upon the vast majority of humankind; but you need to explain to me what about this is good.

Recent history has shown us what's going on. Whether is was Thatcher in Britain or Reagan in the US, or Clinton (who could cover it over better than most), or Blair or Bush the Lesser (if that wasn't the tip-off, I don't know who was) or Merkel, or Cameron or Juncker or Schäuble or Gabriel or Obama or that it's not the bright ones who are leading the way and seeing to it that the proper shots are called. No, among this limited selection of individuals there are those who -- on their own, in a normal conversation -- would come across as half-way intelligent and reasonable, there seems to be the overwhelming propensity, if not compulsion, to blow any and all alleged inherent intelligence to the wind and strut forth as a contender for the crown of Village Idiot.

This -- not the results of neoliberal economic policies -- is what trickles down. We then find the same behavior patterns in the general population, be it in alternative political parties (like the AfD in Germany) or alternative political candidates (like Trump in the US (though Hilary isn't much better) and his followers) or just plain misinformed-and-proud-of-it welfare-bashers, gun-nuts, evangelicals, flag-wavers, sports-fanatics, and small-minded bleaters would rather complain about others than actually do something for or with others to make a difference. And I'm amazed each day at the number of people for whom this description applies.

No, I don't have a very high opinion of the general quality of information available on the internet, but there is a lot of good, sound, reliable information to be found there. But you have to go looking for it, and you have to wade through cybermiles of sludge and jungle to find it. There are good, sound, and inspiring insights to be found there, but you have to be able to weigh and evaluate, compare and contrast, and, well, think, to figure out which they are.

Of course, you have to be willing to explore thoughts, ideas, opinions, and views with which you don't necessarily or immediately agree and you have to be willing to assess their validity, their impacts and maybe even their worth. But that takes both time and effort and, well, with all the important stuff so many of us have in our lives that needs to get done, who is going to ensure they do this as well? But, most importantly, you have to be willing to communicate what you find and discuss it with others, not just with people whom you agree with. You need actively engage other ideas and notions if you are ever to come up with thoughts and ideas of your own. And who, pray tell, is going to be willing to do that? There are some thank goodness, though they are few and far between. There are some who haven't yet given up, even though they are reviled and ridiculed by those who have chosen stupidity and their particular way of life.

The point is that we don't have to be in the messes we're in. We don't have to deal with all the ignorant nonsense which pervades most of our lives. We don't have to allow stupidity to rule our lives ... but we are, we do and we will, because to change any of it, we might just have to change ourselves. So, don't complain about stupid (and all that is wrong with everybody else) if you choose stupidity yourself. And that is the choice too many people are making.

Moms have been getting a raw deal for far too long

This weekend is Mother's Day, in a lot of the world that is. (Not unexpectedly the Brits celebrate theirs on 4th Sunday in Lent. Go figure; always no reason to be different.) Anna Jarvis, an early 20th-century woman's activist pushed to get it recognized, only partly successfully of course, but recognized nevertheless. Some countries picked it up; others refunctioned their own similar holidays honoring women, so there is no universally accepted day of celebration. And yes, it's one of those pseudo-holidays that Hallmark or one of those greeting card manufacturers breathed life into in order to increase sales. But, the fact remains that we still have a day to honor mothers, in spite of everything modern culture tries to do to ignore, if not outrightly suppress, them.

You don't have to be a zealot of political correctness to know that we live in a man's world, that our societies for the greatest part are patriarchal. This is one of those little understood aspects of life that has always fascinated me, for it never ceases to surprise me to what ends some folks will go -- mostly men, of course -- to justify this as some natural order of things. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Male dominance or patriarchy, and I'm referring to human beings now, is a cultural, not a biological or natural state of affairs.

Throughout most of nature, males are larger and stronger than females, but this is also not a given. It seems that among birds of prey, females tend to be larger than males; the female great white shark is larger and stronger than the male, and there is certainly a difference when considering propagating vs. social relations: praying mantises and black widow spiders have the final word on who's in charge; elephants, for the most part, live in female-dominated herds, while males are more of loners and only show up for mating; lion prides are organized by the females; but hyenas, lemurs and the bonobo all live within a strict matriarchal order. Given this wide range of set-ups, only a bean-counting statistician would insist "natural" male dominance, and I'm pretty sure that they do.

Biologically, however, at least as far as human beings are concerned, no case can be made for male superiority at all. Mothers conceive and gestate the young; mothers give birth (well, except for among seahorses, I understand, and you've got to love the irony of at least one species providing an exception). The only thing that men contribute to thee young of the species is 50% of the DNA and the determination of gender, otherwise, males are pretty much observers in the whole affair. Even a cursory reflection upon biology class and the X and Y chromosome lesson shows us that Y-chromosomes are complete, the X-chromosome is noting more than a crippled X (that is, one of its legs is missing) so in essence, boys are merely crippled girls. The fact that more boys then girls are born in the natural population is due to the fact that infant mortality is higher and later reckless behavior lead to more early male deaths. Male-female populations don't balance out till around 20 years-old or so. And, with males being more observers than participants in the whole new-life thing, it was the Anglo-Saxons of yore and the Jews to this day who correctly observed that the bloodline actually runs through the mother, not the father. Nature takes care of itself, it always has, and it could probably well use less of our help in getting along. (Of course, in regard to this gender thing in general, the Americans (unsuprisingly) have lost the plot and now find it one of their highest legislative and juridical priorities to sort out biology apparently gone wrong. Truth be told, nothing's changed in nature, just the way certain obviously ignorant and sexually-inhibited individuals choose to see nature, but there's nothing new about that either.)

The next biggest justification, and certainly one of the pieces of evidence I would take to support my own case for cultural choice as opposed to biological selection, is religion. The religionists all seem to have got together defend male dominance. We have to remember, however, that there is a huge difference between what religions' sacred texts say, what they mean, how they are interpreted and, finally but most importantly, collected into whatever articles of faith that are used to organize their affairs. Christians love to go on and on about how Eve caused the Fall from grace and were made subordinate to their husbands; even more love to use the writings of St. Paul to justify male domination (having converted out of Judaism and as desirous as he was to bring Gentiles into the fold, it is not surprising that he would take over any number of their "beliefs" in order to further his cause). You can open practically any newspaper or read any online new site and find all kinds of evidence of male domination in most Muslim societies and communities. The fact that the Indians and Chinese would resort to infanticide should a female child be born first provides evidence for their own fanaticism of male domination. Of course, what most people don't realize about religion generally is that there is an exoteric side to it, the one that you actually see and most often get to experience, but there's also an esoteric, or hidden side, where the real tenets of the faith can be found. (For example, since the notion of bloodline referred to above, or consider that the majority of Jesus' followers were women, that they were treated as equals if not more (for example, the controversial role played by Mary Magdalene, especially in the Gospel bearing her name) and that it's been well documented that later redactors of the Pauline texts even changed women's names to men to serve their theological needs.) It would seem the things that we need to take at face value, like biology, we don't, but the things where a bit more discernment is needed, say, with the texts, well, why go to all that trouble once you've got them saying what you want them to say anyhow? But what we should be aware of, in every instance, is the fact that when we start to speak of "civilization", we find men wanting to or actually calling the shots.

Well, I'm beginning to think civilization is the problem. What this implies is that the opposite of civilization isn't barbarism, as we've been told to believe. Let's think about this for a minute: civilization meant the rise of the city-states, the old Babylonian and Mesopotamian empires ... society was organized well enough that surpluses were possible, resources were accumulated, food became plentiful and could be distributed among a larger number of people. All of these are good things are they not? And, of course, they are, but the fact that some folks are managing their resources and processes well implies that that there are other who are not. It also implies that there are others who perhaps want more than they'd otherwise be entitled to. In other words, the whole idea of not having enough which at some point turns into having more than anyone else enters the picture, and once these feelings take over, well, the next thing you know -- religious texts or no -- stealing, raiding, robbing, pillaging, plundering and other forms of aggression and violence against others suddenly becomes the norm. And here we are -- voila -- a mere 10 millennia later and there still isn't enough to go around for all the rich folk. What we need to remember, however, it was at the time that this civilization got off the ground that the women were kicked out of power (yes, there is strong evidence that pre-civilizational societies were matriarchal) and the men took over. In a perpetual act of what appears to be gross psychological compensation, we are privileged to live in a world so advanced, so powerful, so dominated by male aggression that we literally stand on the brink of annihilation, and most people I know -- men and women -- are standing by cheering these louts on. If you can inject enough testosterone into anything or anybody, if it has a mind, it will lose it. And that's where we are.

Now, I dare any of you who are now thinking I'm exaggerating to prove me wrong. Look at the state of something as irrelevant as sports these days: a male-dominated, rape-condoning, destructive, greed-machine that serves primarily to distract us from real issues that need resolving. What about international diplomacy: Their machos fighting our machos in a loser-loses-everything-winner-takes-nothing chest-beating with deadly consequences. Politically: the rapid rise of violent-imbued, rightist ideology from the entire American political caste to the Front National in France or the Polish and Hungarian proto-fascists, to our coddling of the new Turkish sultan who in turn has become the poster boy for male-dominance and misogyny. I could go on and on, and where is the voice of reason among them? Nowhere because at some point women wanted to become men and partially succeeded (e.g., Thatcher, Merkel, Fiona, etc.) but failed in the end because, well, they might act like men, but in the end, they just aren't.)

Too many people these days think that if you don't believe this then you must believe that, if things aren't one way then they have to be other. Nothing could be further from the truth, but nothing is more telling of how we moderns think. Whether the days of the matriarchy were good or bad is something we'll never know. We do know it was good enough to get us to written history and the documentation of millennia of blood-letting and conquest. We do know that for whatever benefits civilization and male-dominance may have brought us, it's at the end of its rope. We can't take much, if any, more of male aggression, violence and death, of hyper-masculinity. Matriarchy had its chance. Patriarchy had its chance as well. It's time to move to something more inclusive, an Integrum, if you will, in which men and women, male and female, integrate.

The Ancients ... even back in the days of the Matriarchy, when myth was first taking shape and being used to describe who and how we are as human beings ... knew the principles of essential balance, the complementarity of male and female; the need for allowing each his or her due and to make his or her contribution. We've forgotten that, too, of course. Or maybe we consciously, willfully, viciously drove it out of our minds. I wish it were the former, but it feels more like the latter. We've got our problems with gender equality over here in Europe, to be sure, but we've still at least got it written into our constitutions and there's still some hope we're going to "get it" before the next wave of mind-numbing PC washes over us from across the pond. Maybe.

So, I for one, will be celebrating Mother's Day, as I always have and hopefully always will. I still open and hold open doors for women, because that's how I was raised, but then again, I don't let doors I go through slam in anybody's face. And I will continue to recognize women for what they are: equal partners, our (we men's) better half, and more than ever our hope for any kind of tomorrow. If we don't manage to turn the hypermasculine, violent patriarchs around -- or at least put them in their proper place -- they'll manage to finish off the planet before we can do anything about it. And yes, I still say Mother Earth. Go figure.

As a cynical optimist, I question my own sanity

For the most part, people believe what they want to believe and for the even larger part, most people are impervious to facts. Oh, part of the problem comes from the rampant relativism that's taken over modern mentation (and notice, I dared not call it "thinking"), but part of it -- I'm afraid a large part of it -- is out of downright ignorance.

Let's face it, experts gave people who know stuff a bad name. There are people who simply know things, some even in more than one field. We have a long history of being moved -- socially, economically, politically, etc. -- by so-called polymaths (that is, people who are highly competent in more than one field). You know, people like Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, Newton, Leipniz, Jefferson, Franklin, Hume ... individuals who were not only good at STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) subjects, but also in the languages and the arts. Newton, for example, wrote over 1,000,000 words on the subject of physics and natural sciences, as well as over 1,000,000 Biblical exegesis (interpretation of Biblical texts, most often in their original language; Newton's focus was what we call the Old Testament, available mostly in Hebrew), as well as over 1,000,000 words on alchemy in his search for the Philosopher's Stone. Of course, he also died "mad as a hatter" from inhaling all that mercury, but his legacy is brilliant regardless of how he ended up vacating his on-earth slot. Just where are all our polymaths today? Not in the spotlight, that's for sure, because somewhere along the line we decided that only experts have anything worthwhile to say and in the meantime we have found out that experts are paid by interests to say what the interests want them to say. So much for the freedom of inquiry and knowledge.

No, this whole I've-got-an-expert vs you've-got-an-expert thing has ruined it for those of us who don't have the time, energy and inclination to know everything about everything in the world. It is becoming harder and harder to find those individuals who really do know what they are talking about, and when you do find them, chances are that monied interests are either trying to buy them out, drown them out or shut them up. "Cui bono? Cui bono?" my friend Julius used to tell me. If he were still alive, he'd still be telling me.

The result of this is, of course, that everyone, including Joe Shit, the ragman, thinks they know something and have something to say. It's not bad enough that they have nothing to say. No, they insist on their right to say it, and that you should have to listen to it, even though it's nonsense. And there are some areas of life where everyone's an expert, even though they have no clue as to what's going on. You think I'm exaggerating? Think about it: everybody went to school, so everyone's an expert on education. Everyone speaks their mother tongue, so everyone's an expert on language. Everyone has a job and hs bills to pay, so everyone's an economics expert. Those who served in the military (for whatever reason) are military strategy experts; those who helped their friends move are logistics experts; and we all have to pay taxes is a tax expert. Don't believe me? Bring up any of these subjects at your next happy hour and you'll end up with more indigestion that the hors d'oevres allow.

Now, if this were all playing out down here in Littleguy's Land, I don't suppose it would be much of a problem, but if you take a step back and look at what is happening above our own petty oxygen level, you'll quickly realize that our fates are in the hands of not-so-stable individuals. They, however, are playing out their own roles as if they were at happy hour with us: taking their own level of not-knowing and misinformation to levels we can't begin to imagine.

They actually hire people with credentials to do their dirty work for them. Well, OK, industry usually -- and generously -- picks up the tab, but they've got all the expertise they need to make it appear as if they are doing what needs to be done. That's why the earth's environment is getting worse, new climate agreements are regularly necessary, and all us tree-huggers are simply annoyances. That's why the rich are getting richer even faster than the poor are getting poorer, but there's always justification for a bit more exploitation and humiliation nevertheless. That's why the petty national interests of my country trump the petty national interests of yours, especially since I have bigger bombs and more bullets and am more than ready to use them. That's why we're the smartest, slickest, best-looking, most fabulous, kick-ass, cool people who have ever existed and we can't solve the simplest of our problems. And that's why the most psychopathic, sociopathic, self-absorbed, narrow-minded, ruthless, unempathetic people we can possibly imagine are the candidates for our highest political offices (and I'm not just picking on the USA here ... this applies elsewhere as well, though your mileage may vary).

The result, of course, is what I like to call rule by opinion. We're supposed to accept the fact that one opinion is as good as any other -- which is not the case -- but the higher in the political pecking order a given opinion is expressed, the more valid it is. That's how the world is functioning at the moment. The scary part is that people who, by any real standards in any arena other than politics, would be considered mentally unstable, if not downright sick, are permitted to do their thing at the expense of the rest of us. But what's even worse, most of us little folk cheer them on. Just where is all that progress that my history teachers loved to tell me about?

How can it be that a trade agreement is being pushed as "beneficial for us all" that is so secret that no one is even allowed to talk about it once they find out what's in it (TTIP)? How can it be that a two-bit regional wannabe leader is a threat to the security of the entire world (Putin)? How can it be that the mightiest military on the face of the earth can't win a war? How can it be that candidates for public office can express views in public (and find support!) that one should be ashamed to say in private (Trump in the USA, AfD/Pegida in Germany)? How can it be that even after we finally realized that spanking does nothing to make a child behave better that we still think in international politics that might makes right and that we can sanction (merely political spanking) whomever doesn't dance to our tune? How can it be that even though 1,000,000 years of human evolution have shown that cooperation trumps competition in the struggle for survival we still think that every individual's fate is in his or her own hands? That, my dear, readers is simply insane.

But, it's this insanity that we're all confronted with every day. We're confronted with -- if we don't have our noses rubbed in it -- every day with absolute insanity: the politician who rabidly opposes transgenders supports a child molester; the Noble-peace-prize-winner is proud of his reputation as drone-executioner; one of the greatest abusers of human rights is made chair of the commission on human rights; the most overtly devoted religionist is the perpetrator of the greatest violence against others; the list goes on and on. And what bothers me most is that most of us just accept it. "Well, that's just the way it is." "What the hell are you gonna do?" "What's a little person like me supposed to do about all of that?" Oh, I can understand how you can feel that way. I can understand as well that it's in a lot of people's interests that you feel that way, too. If my own study of human history and development has taught me anything it is that there are always a few who try real hard, and very often succeed, in making most of the people feel like they've nothing to say at all.

That's why my optimism is waning. It's too easy to get most people to shuffle and jive, to sing and dance, to do what has to be done to let those interests in power have their way. None of us are allowed to think any more, to develop our own opinions on issue or propose real solutions. That's all taken care of by "their" experts. Too few of us are willing to think on our own and talk to others about what we're thinking. Too few of us are willing to recognize that together were strong and divided we're nothing. Too few of us are willing to inform ourselves, to discuss with others of differing views, and engage in a real debate about things that actually matter. And the longer this goes on the greater the chances that the untenable situation in which we find ourselves will simply have to give, but when it does, it will be more like and explosion than a mere crack.

When things go south, folks, -- and it won't take a lot: another financial crisis, a failed industry in a major economy, a lost harvest across the third world, overzealous military intervention that goes nuclear -- a lot of people are going to get hurt and a lot of those who get hurt are going to be people we know. The planet has become way too small for any of us to really escape. The more you ignore, the more you put it off, the more you bide your time, the greater the chance that someone you know and love is going to get hurt badly when things simply break down. We're already living on the edge of insanity and most people I can see are feeding it. My cynicism tells me that the feeders are going to win, which means the rest of us lose. My optimism tells me we can still turn things around, but it ain't going to be easy.

How to win a Holy War

Instead of the usual blah-blah-blah you may be used to, I decided to let someone else speak today.

Why?

Because the man has something to say that's worth listening to ... and I think he's on the right track.

So, How to win a Holy War.

Lest we forget

Make no mistake: the events of September 11, 14 years ago, were unnecessary, tragic, shocking, damnable, disgusting, and devastating. There is no way that anyone can "justify" what happened. It was an destructive and frightening act of terror.

We should remember, though, that we still don't know who was responsible. We were told who was responsible, and this was different people or organizations at different times, but we do not know with any certainty. There are, to this day, too many unanswered questions. I'm anything but a conspiracy theorist or practitioner. I yearn for clarity, for transparency, for uprightness, and for honesty. Things that I'm sure many of you would agree are lacking today.

Almost 3,000 people lost their lives, needlessly on one single day. Death tallies like that are normally the result of war, but war was "declared" on "terror" in the wake of those events. And that, my dear reader, is what is so troubling.

The government has spent years trying to convince us of who was behind the attacks, but their arguments and proof are unconvincing. The commission report is laughable and contradicts itself. Nevertheless, we attacked Afghanistan, which was not behind the attacks, even if they were allegedly sheltering Bin Laden. We attacked them for revenge. The country was in chaos before and after the Russians were forced to leave. It wasn't Pakistan, our ally. It wasn't anyone with whom we had friendly relations, but we had a bone to pick with Saddam Hussein and that was the "trump card" eventually played. We attacked Iraq only a few years later, a second act of revenge. We may have been threatened by Al Qaeda or some similar organization, but we attacked countries ... out of revenge.

Since time heals no wounds, as yesterday's Facebook activity will attest, what is it that we have actually done? We've killed, maimed, wounded, traumatized, more than one million human beings. A few of them were from "our side" (about 7,000) if you count 9/11 itself. But the remaining 999,993,000 were "them". No more, no less. Just "them". We weren't defending ourselves, we weren't being attacked. We were attacked once. We, on the other hand, have been attacking ever since.

What does that say about us? About us as a people? About us as a civilization? The old Kabbalistic adage states it clearly: you become what you hate. And we hate. Over 1,000,000 people have lost their lives directly because of this event, another 1,000,000 are in the process of being killed, more than 50,000,000 people are fleeing for their lives, and we have the cold-hearted audacity to glorify the killing, allegedly in the name of the killed. What has become of us?

Two (or more) wrongs have never made a right, and they never will. We gave up our moral high ground long ago, but we still refuse to acknowledge that we're not a damn bit better than those whom we despise, detest, and hate. I'm sorry I have to say it, but for all you so-called good Christians out there screaming the loudest at the Muslims, don't forget that, by your own standards, you will be judged by what you have done, and not by what you have said.

If we want to maintain that Life (whatever you may perceive that to be) is somehow sacred or of high value, then it is time we started acting like it. You can turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the crying and anguish of the suffering, but there's not enough pathetic (in the sense of unjustified pathos) patriotism to cover it over or tune it out. You can act like you are in the right, but to find glee, happiness, or pleasure in the suffering and death of another human being is sadism, pure and simple.

And that, dear reader, is something I don't think we should try to forget.

OK, a second word from the heart

It's taken me a while to be able to say this at all, and I'm pretty sure that my buddy would be on my case about what I'm saying, but I have to say it anyway.

One of our common friends, also a fraternity brother, aptly noted that Keith was "a gentle soul". That he was, and he was more. He was as orny, hard-headed, blunt, and unyielding as anyone I have ever known. He asked no quarter and gave none, but he still listened and considered. He loved to make a point, that's for sure, but he was always open to facts, logic, sound reasoning and positive outcomes. We talked and discussed a lot, but we never debated. Neither of us ever tried to be "right". What we shared, I believe, is a love of meaningfulness in life. Some might want to call it "truth", but in the end, things had to make sense and they needed to make sense in the larger scheme of things as well. Without heat and hammer a strong sword cannot be forged.

Truth be told, Keith and I were rarely the same mind about anything, but, this is most important, Keith was a person you could connect with. As human and imperfect as he was, he had a lot in common with what the Kabbalists call a Tzaddik (a righteous man), one who is toku k'varo ("their insides are like their outsides"), or, as I like to put it, what-you-see-is-really-what-you-get. They are their own persons; that is, in my mind, authentic: they can get hot under the collar, but are never mean-spirited. And, for as odd as they sometimes appear to others, they retain an aura of innocence that can calm even their harshest opponents.

I must admit that I have been allowed to live an exceptionally fortunate life and I've been blessed with meeting a very few, truly exceptional people. And yes, in his own way, my brother Keith was one of them. I'm going to miss him to be sure, but I have to add that as far as he is concerned, I don't have a single, dark, troubling, or even uneasy memory. He was simply who he was.

Time and our perception of time is a big thing for me, and I'm a big fan of time relativity: Einstein once said that sitting together with a beautiful girl for two hours seems like ten minutes, but sitting on a hot stove for ten seconds can seem like two hours. In an analogous way, that's how time was with Keith: short, yet intense, but without any of the pain! There was always just-the-point, and none of that distracting, obscuring posturing and pretentiousness that we have to wade through with most people. He always said what he meant and meant what he said, and that allowed us to cram a whole lot more life into a short span of time.

I don't know if any of you have a Keith as friend, but if you do, be thankful to the very fiber of your being. Such people are rare -- too rare -- but we need to learn from them and grow through them and know why the world is a better place because of a few extraordinary and too often unknown people.

At any rate, I sincerely wish, from the very bottom of my heart, that you have the opportunity to encounter a "Keith" in your own lives. But, when I meet him again, you can rest assured that I'll let him know what he meant to many of us. And, as a mutual friend pointed out, there is a Hebrew proverb that sums it all up beautifully: "Say not in grief he is no more -- but live in thankfulness that he was."

A word from the heart

Two weeks ago, one of my best buddies died. Like so many these days, he lost the luck of the draw and was diagnosed with a cancer that he just couldn't beat. We all lose far to many friends and family this way, but that's just how life is.

The two of us went way back. He joined the fraternity I was in during my last year or so at college. He left when I did: I with my degree; he with a letter telling him he need not return the next semester. He had done no wrong, of course, he just didn't meet the expected standards of that august institution. No, Keith, was better than they deserved, even if they couldn't recognize that at the time. We had about a year together before our paths parted, for all the reasons you can imagine. I had to go to the military; he had to figure out what to do with his life. And though we had been as good as inseparable for those fleeting few months, parting paths know no mercy. And, as is too often, the case, we lost touch.

It wasn't but a few years later that I read in our fraternity magazine that he had joined the Chapter Celestial, our own fraternal organization's euphemism for dying, and it pained me, to say the least, but it did not surprise me. Keith was a person who had always been 100% in life. Never on the sidelines. Never noncommittal. Never half-assed. Keith was always there. I wished I would have had another chance to hook up with him, but that's how life plays out sometimes.

Just a few short year ago, however, I got a more-than-mysterious message on Facebook. It was from a Keith, and I knew it could only be my buddy Keith, for it was formulated in his own inimitable, unique way. Oh sure, I thought I was being visited from beyond, at least that was my first thought, but it was him, big as life and twice as enlightening. I had got my second chance.

It doesn't matter how long true friends are not in your life, for when you meet them again, if you're so lucky to do so, it's like you've never been away. We picked up our discussion where we had left off, discussed and debated things that were important to us, shared memories that either the one or the other had forgotten, and simply appreciated the thereness of the other.

And therein lies the danger. We get sloppy. We get careless. We get negligent. We lose sight of what's important. We quickly start taking things for granted. We humans are like that, for I don't think I'm all that different than most of us, but I wish to G-d I were. Keith, on the other hand, never let on that he ever took anything for granted. And that's one of the greatest lessons he ever taught me.

Oh yes, I was the older of the two, but that doesn't mean for a second that I didn't have anything to learn, nor that he couldn't teach me a thing or two. That's another thing Keith taught me: age means nothing; the lesson means everything.

Memorial Day

Let summer begin! Isn't that what Memorial Day is all about in America? Yes, it is the unofficial beginning of summer, coming as it does so close to 1 June, the meteorological beginning of the season. That's not what it's supposed to be about, but what it is supposed to be about has been so distorted, I think I'll just go with the unofficial stuff. It's a whole lot easier to take.

Originally known as Decoration Day originating in the aftermath of the American Civil War, it was made an official holiday only in 1971 and is meant to commemorate those who died in military service for the country. Every country has some kind of equivalent holiday ... more often not a work-free day, certainly not a Monday holiday, as it is in the US. But what a holiday is for, why we even have a holiday, and what we do with that holiday seldom have much to do with one another.

If I were more generous, I'd say that Memorial Day became simply a victim of circumstances. Coming as close as it does to the meteorological beginning of summer, it suffered the same fate as Labor Day (the unofficial end of summer), namely being overshadowed by things that move people more personally. After all, who really wants to think about dead people when you can fire up the grill. And who wants to think about work when you may have to soon put the grill away? But, who am I to disparage the tried and true traditions of sensitive, hard-working people?

Personally -- and this is purely my own personal opinion -- I have no idea why we have a holiday to honor the dead, especially those who have "fallen in battle". Don't get me wrong, I feel deeply for every family who has had a family member go off to war and never come back. My heart grieves at the fact that robust, young men, truly in the prime of their lives, often with young and hopeful families, made what we like to call the "ultimate sacrifice" for ... well, I'm not just sure what.

If you take the last two "world" wars out of the equation (the 2nd because it was a direct result of the first, at a time when bad ideas were gaining the upper hand; and the 1st because it was the last of the vanity-driven wars), which war was fought, which young men died, for a "real cause"? I can't think of one. War, as von Clausewitz noted, is simply "diplomacy by other means", which has to be one of the most cynical statements ever to issue from the mind of a human being. All that really says is, "since I don't know what to do to finally get my way, I'll initiate the slaughter of young men and civilians (yes, old people, women, and children) to get what I want". How glad I am that three-year-olds don't have access to weapons.

Yes, I believe we should honor our war dead, but not for the reasons that we like to proclaim. There is not a single human being who ever lived who died in a war for a just cause. Yes, like the Second World War, there are wars of necessity, but only because we are too slow to realize that there are other ways to solve problems than violence. In general, however, wars are useless wastes of life. And, it is for this very reason that there should be a holiday to remember all of those who died needlessly, before their time, brutally, and in the end for nothing, because we simply haven't learned to live with one another, as human beings.

Out, out, damned spot

There was a time that Shakespeare was a mandatory part of the curriculum. I don't know if that still is the case. At that time -- in my time -- it was considered mandatory, as part of a well-rounded education, that one would be exposed to "classic" literature. My parents never, ever suspected how dangerous that was. I don't think any technocrat or bureaucrat has ever pondered literature as the well-spring of subversion. But good old Bill knew and told us more than most people ever want to know.

I'm partial to Macbeth, I'll admit it, not because it the shortest of Shakespeare's tragedies, but because it is, as I see it, the most intense. To me, Macbeth is tragedy with all the fat cut off. There's not a lot of philosophical speculation of "maybe this" or "maybe that" options. Macbeth, as I like to think, is Shakespeare's most "down and dirty" play: you can want what you want, regardless of what reasons, but in the end, you have to make do with the consequences of your actions. Yes, at bottom, we're responsible for what we do. All the magic, all the witches, all the noble and other aspirations mean nothing. When all is said and done, reality takes its toll.

Of course, Lady Macbeth plays her part. Behind every successful (or doomed) man, there stands a woman. This isn't belittling to women, far from it. A man without a woman is a mere shadow of a human. It takes two to be one. (And if you don't know what I'm talking about, maybe in a future post, I'll get around to explaining it.) Of all the characters in this particular play, I have to say that Lady Macbeth is my absolute favorite. Without her, we don't have a tragedy, no, we don't have a play at all.

But, literature always tells us something about life. Macbeth, like all Shakespearean heroes is doomed. And, in this case, his accomplice, is doomed as well. It is Lady Macbeth who, long before her husband even suspects it, knows that it is all going to end badly. Most literary scholars like to think she simply loses her mind under the unbearable pressure of her guilt, but it would seem that she is the only one who really knows that her own motivating actions set the switches for the route to perdition.

What Shakespeare shows us, clearly and vibrantly, is that while we think we're doing one thing, in truth, we are doing something else. When we, further, believe, we are doing good (i.e., what needs to be done), in truth, we are undoing ourselves, we are undermining our own ambitions. Why? Because, just like Lady Macbeth, we confuse our personal ambitions with those of the general populace, of the masses, of, well, everyone else.

Lady Macbeth implodes not so much because she can't bear her own guilt as that she breaks under the burden of ego-centrism. She wanted more. She encouraged her husband to want more. But the desire for "more" is an insatiable desire. We can want what we want, but we can't have it all. At some point, the individual implodes.

There are those who would say that Shakespeare is not longer relevant to us today, but I disagree. We're living in an age in which some folks want it all and, like Macbeth and his Lady, are willing to do whatever's necessary to get it. What's different today is that it is a system (in a manner of speaking), not a person that is making the decisions, but, in the end, the results will be the same. Unlike then, there's going to be a lot of collateral damage, death, and destruction this time around.

Resurrection

Back in February, I took a break from my train of thought at the time for a brief Valentine's Day interlude. If I was willing to take a break for a pseudo-holiday, I should be willing to do the same for a real one, so today, is our Easter break.

Easter is, without a doubt, the most Christian of all holidays that we (pretend to) celebrate. I mean, without Easter, there's no Christianity, pure and simple. You would think, and it still amazes me, that Easter isn't a bigger deal than it is ... for Christians, that is. Could it be that they really don't understand what the holiday is all about? Perhaps. It's a great kiddy holiday, though, even if you're an atheist: what's not to like about chocolate, in whatever form it comes in? Valentine's Day may mean chocolate for the sweetie, but at Easter, it's chocolate for the whole family (as well as those disgustingly artificial and chemically laden marshmallow chicks, but, hey, haven't I been harping on the fact that there's an upside and a downside to just about everything?).

What Easter has in common with just about every other major religion on the planet, is what most people just don't get. The focus, the theme of this particular holiday is life after death (put in most mundane terms) or eternal life (in a more spiritual and uplifting sense). Now, I don't want to go into detail about or have an argument about who has the better heaven. Every religion talks about what happens after we die and the common thread is that if you were "good" (whatever that means in the given religious context), what comes next is good, and if you were "bad" (and the same caveat applies here), what comes next is, well, literally, hell.

Who's right and who's wrong is not important. Whether anyone is right or anyone is wrong isn't important either. What is important is the fact that throughout the entire course of human history, recorded or archaeologically discovered, this has apparently been a subject that has been on our minds. The Neanderthals took great pains in burying their dead; the Egyptians made a civilization out of it; there hasn't been a time, place, or people who didn't try to come to terms with the fact that we're only here for so long and then ... . Yes, Easter is the holiday at which we think about death - as natural a part of life as there can be - as well as life, in particular life after death.

I believe that Easter is as good a time as anything to think about such things. Americans like to avoid the subject; other cultures apparently can't get enough of it. Regardless of where you personally stand on the issue, you need to come to terms with it anyway. You can believe that you can blow yourself up and awaken to six dozen virgins or that you'll walk streets of silver and live in houses of gold, or that you don't wake up at all and just rot in the ground. It really doesn't matter. All that's important is that you give it some thought.

Having said that, though, and in keeping with the current flow of posts (apart from this interlude), there is increasing interest in the topic by lots of people. One of the more interesting approaches, I would like to add, comes from the world of hard science, believe it or not. The philosopher of science Jim Beichler has written a number of articles and books on the subject. He has developed a theory of physics which he believes shows, scientifically, that individual consciousness survives death. He's part of a growing number of scientists who are refusing to be silenced by the "accepted wisdom" of the scientific community and are demonstrating in rigorous and scientifically acceptable ways that there's more in this area too than meets the eye, or we'd like to admit.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. If you're interested in Bleicher's ideas, you can find him on academia.edu. Open your mind. Expand your horizons. Take a new lease on life.

Glubb, glub, glub ...

Let's go back to Gen. Glubb. He never once said what we should do, how we may be able to avoid the -- according to him -- inevitable catastrophe. He simply provided us with a few key indicators that the collapse is near. Picking up, in a sense, where he left off, Ross Ashcroft bundled a lot of Glubb's (and others') thinking into a video (hey, who reads anymore?) that deals with the same topic. The video is entitled "The Four Horsemen", making direct reference to the Apocalypse of St. John, or as it is better known, The Book of Revelation in the Bible, one of the "standard guides" to the end of the world ... or at least to the end of the world as we know it. (It is freely available on YouTube (what isn't these days) -- at least for my most loyal readers -- in both English and German.)

Ross interprets Glubb's decadence characteristics in a slightly different way. Most specifically, he more or less ignores, Glubb's "influx of foreigners" and replaces them "a weakening of religion" with an "obsession with sex" and a "debased currency". We have already seen that Glubb wasn't all that far off, and these two new factors, well, it would appear that these factors aren't all that far off either. Let's say, they are later additions, not corrections.

Think Internet, think pornography: it's the most widely distributed form of content available. There's something there for everyone's (so-called) "tastes": adult, child, professional, amature, hard, soft, male-female, male-male, female-female, and every imaginable combination ... you want it, you can find it. What was once tabu is now mainstream, if "Fifty Shades of Gray" is any indication of the state-of-the-art (and I use the term loosely). That's a given.

And, we all know, our money's not worth anything anymore anyhow. Wars have been fought (Gulf War II), nations have been destroyed (e.g., Iraq, Libya) because they "choose" the "wrong" reserve currency. The gold standard was abandoned a long time ago, but the "gold standard" of currency remains the US dollar, and we all know the Americans will do anything -- and I mean anything to ensure that doesn't change, regardless of how little the dollar is worth.

The point is that -- and I don't think I'm overstating the case -- things are going from bad to worse. Glubb makes a sound, and noteworthy point. Ashcroft underlines and enhances it in a very meaningful way. Things are not getting better, they are getting worse. It looks like we're going down for the count, or, in swimming terms: go down a third time and you drown.

Again, the point is not so much how terrible things are, but rather that we (humanity, Western Civilization, whatever) is faced with yet another total collapse. It is clear to me, and it should be clear to anyone who has even taken a passive, fleeting look at how the world or economies or cultures work, to know that the choices we have made in all of these areas are simply not sustainable. Whether we could have avoided this crisis, or whether it would have been possible to do things to avoid all the suffering that is to come are moot points. It just doesn't matter. Things are as they are, and things are going to come as they are going to come.

We shouldn't deceive ourselves into thinking that things aren't as bad as we think or that the crash won't be as hard as we fear. It will be both, but, in the end, it doesn't matter. Whatever comes, comes. Many, many people, cultures, and civilizations have suffered and lived through similar crises in the past. The only reason that we will have to suffer is because those who came before us, our forebears, refused to learn from history. So, we've got a choice. We know what's coming. We know what's going to happen. And, most importantly, we know why. We have a huge opportunity before us. The question is whether we are going to take advantage of this opportunity or whether we are going to waste it, like all those who have preceded us have done. The choice is ours. Which one will we make?

The schizophrenic search

We may be on the eve of destruction. Things aren't getting better, that's for sure. We are living in critical times, and that is also for sure, as is the fact that change is coming whether we like it or not. This is scaring a lot of people and whenever and wherever anyone is frightened, there are tons of media types just waiting to make sure that fear is spread. As the saying goes, "if it bleeds, it leads", or as I like to say, "if it's scummy, we'll make money". OK, it's not exactly the same, but close enough."

So what's a poor, simple person to do? Well, conservatives, I have to say, make a dash for the past. They get all fired up about turning back the clock to the "good old days", when life made sense, when things were manageable. They've lost the plot for the simple reason that the good old days were bad, for anyone living in those times life made as little sense as it does today (we only think the past makes sense because we have the knowledge and experience of everything that happened in-between to color our judgement), and I can assure you, my parents were as much at a loss for what was the best things to do in their lives and for their children as I am with my own kids. We have to come to terms with what we have, not with what we would like to think we might have had if things has been somehow different.

Liberals, I have to add, are no better. They're looking at life through a rear-view mirror (thank you, Marshall McLuhan) as well. They foolishly believe there was a time when politics mattered, when debate was virulent, when the best argument won, when morals could be legislated. But, alas, that time never existed either. They think it did. They think their dreams were institutionalized, but the teeny, tiny steps of progress that were made, were just that: teeny, tiny. We really haven't come very far.

This is our modern, most common, form of schizophrenia: thinking that the past holds solutions for the future. We love to look backwards, to times that never really existed except in our own rose-colored-glasses tinted memories. Gen. Glubb's critique didn't just miraculously appear. He was analyzing at a time when we these days believe things were halfway OK. No, dear reader, the world's been going to hell in a handbasket for some time now. The only change from then to now is the rate of acceleration.

All the wailing and gnashing of teeth we're hearing these days isn't going to change a thing. What we're wailing about, for the most part, is for how things used to be. To my American friends, all I can say is, get over your holy Constitution. It is nothing all that special, it has not changed the world for the better, it's one of the most misquoted and misused, if not abused, documents ever to have been written, and, worst of all, it was formulated in a mindset and a way of viewing the world that hasn't existed for two centuries. It's time to simply let it go and look for some common sense relevant to today. To my non-American friends (i.e., everyone else), all I can say is, you've got nothing up on the Americans, you haven't managed to go right where you think they went wrong, you also don't have a now-relevant solution to the problem either.

Why? Because you're all, we're all, looking in the wrong direction for a solution. Glubb, believe it or not, provides us with a reasonable starting point for thinking about all of this, but he doesn't have the "answer" or the "solution" either. We, you & I, have to figure out what needs to be done, but he, like many other reasonable authors, provides us with a starting point for maybe thinking about things in a slightly different way. What this might be, we'll look at next time.

The decline and fall of the American empire

It will thrill some readers and appall others, but America is the latest in the last string of world empires that the world has been forced to enjoy (or endure, depending on your perspective. Right up front, let's compare the state of America today, with the criteria Glubb outlines in his article, which we talked about last time:

1. Average empire lifespan of 250 years? USA: 1776 - 2015 = 239 years; we're in the 10th generation since our founding.
2. Age of Pioneers? Check. Louisiana Purchase, Westward expansion, Manifest Destiny.
3. Age of Conquests? Check. Genocide of Native Americans, Monroe Doctrine, War with Mexico, Spanish-American War.
4. Age of Commerce? Check. Gilded Age, Roaring 20s, Post-WW2 boom. American-driven globalization. IMF, WTO, etc.
5. Age of Affluence? Check. Thriving middle class in 50s and 60s; increase in the number of millionaires and billionaires, but most unequal wealth distribution in developed world.
6. Age of Intellect? Check. More than our share of Nobel-Prize winners in science, medicine and economics; everybody should be able to go to college.
7. Age of Decadence? Check. A no-brainer.

Even though it's so obvious, we do need to stop and look at the last item, The Age of Decadence if for no other reason than to see how far along we might be. So how do we size up?

• Defensiveness (or much military)? Check. Defense budget larger than next 24 countries combined. Over 1,000 military bases worldwide. Still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan; thinking about Libya, and who knows where else. Militarization of police.
• Pessimism? Check. Financial crash and exoneration of guilty bankers. Fear of losing everything (bankruptcy because of medical bills, living from paycheck-to-paycheck, fear of unemployment.
• Materialism? Check. Lavish displays of wealth. Whole TV shows dedicated to the lives and lifestyles of the rich and famous.
• Frivolity? Check. Have there ever been as many sitcoms, game shows, and ludicrous reality shows as now? Consider as well how overboard we've gone on sports.
• The welfare state? Check. While some of you are thinking Food Stamps and Long-term unemployment benefits, I'm thinking corporate subsidies. The United States spends almost twice as much on corporate subsidies than on social saftety-net programs.
• An influx of foreigners? Check. Have you noticed how shrill the immigration debate has become? And, how is that fence along the Mexican border coming along?
• A weakening of religion? Check. Except for the Pope who is speaking out against the oppression of the poor, two other trends are noticeable: atheists are standing up for their "equal rights" or how about the Satanic Temple's holiday display in Florida? Furthermore, the only rise in traditionally understood religion we're seeing is in evermore literalist and fundamentalist belief systems.

Of course, we all know that it is current American policy to secure even more worldwide resources to feed its materialistic addiction, and the global financial community isn't going to stop until they have everything and the rest of us have nothing. No, it would seem to me that we're pretty much a spot-on example of Glubb's analysis. It can only be a matter of time, and not all that much time either.

There is an almost natural tendency to believe that we're somehow better or different than all the rest, and this fate will simply not befall us. I wouldn't be so sure. Glubb points out rather clearly that it is precisely this attitude that guarantees the repetition of history. As Santayana taught us, whoever fails to learn from history is condemned to repeat it.

The fate of empires

A former British general and diplomat, John Bagot Glubb, wrote a somewhat dated (because of its language and cultural framework), but certainly not outdated (due to it's conceptual content) article a while back that dovetails well with what I wrote about last time. It's entitled "The Fate of Empires". It's been long out of print, but can be found on the Internet in more than one place, just in case you're interested. As the title implies, Glubb takes a closer, but still strategic look at eleven empires the world has experienced over the past 3,000 years to see if they have anything in common, and it turns out they do, so let me summarize the most salient points of his analysis for you:

1. We do not learn from history because our approach to it is fragmented (focused on brief time periods) and parochial (these days, nation-centered).
2. The lifespan of an empire is about 250 years, or approximately 10 generations in human terms.
3. They all go through the same six "ages", as Glubb calls them: the Ages of Pioneer, Conquests, Commerce, Affluence, Intellect, and Decadence.
4. The Age of Decadence (of most particular interest to us) is marked by a number of factors, including defensiveness (actually, too much military), pessimism (the feeling that things are going to end badly anyway), materialism, frivolity and the welfare state ("bread and circuses"), an influx of foreigners, and a weakening of religion.

Glubb does use examples from the empires he analyzed to support these conclusions, and I have to admit, even though he has rather archaic notions of "race" (whereby he actually means civilization or culture, for the most part), "foreigners" (anyone who is "not us"), and "sense of duty", he takes great pains to point out that it is not any single feature or factor that brings about the fall of an empire and no one and nothing is better than anyone or anything else, only different. In all cases, the structure, the pattern, and the results are always the same.

For Glubb, and I agree with him here, the reason for the decline and fall is, in my words, simply become fat, dumb and happy and would rather be entertained than do anything about the seemingly inevitable crash. That is, Glubb believes that if we actually understood history, in the broader, strategic sense that he is trying to point out, we could counteract what only appears to be the path of inevitability. This isn't like our own lifespans or the shifting of the seasons, this is a matter of taking action to, stated in more lighthearted terms, finally break a bad habit.

Perhaps he's right, but I can't help but think that we may already be past a point of no return. Is this just another example of end-of-empire pessimism on my part. Perhaps, but it could be that some things just may be so broken that they can't be fixed anymore. While reading Glubb, I couldn't help but feel he was talking about the United States. After all, it's pretty easy to see how applicable his analysis is to our own situation.

You don't agree? You think we're somehow different? Well, let's take a closer look at it all. Next time.

On this day in history

Yes, on this day in history, November 22, 1963, more than half-a-century ago, John F. Kennedy, then President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The assassin was allegedly Lee Harvey Oswald, but the circumstances surrounding this event, the consequences, the actual facts have been long obscured in conspiracy, fantasy, and delusion. We'll never know what really happened and why, and I'm not sure that it really matters in the end. Sure, I was an impressionable adolescent when it happened, and, yes, I think about that day from time to time (and sometimes when the date rolls around again), and, yes, it makes me wonder. (I told you: I wonder a lot; I always have and with each additional year of my life, I am given more reason to as well.)

So what am I wondering about this time? Simple: why do only Americans assassinate their major political figures? Sure, every once in a long while, someone flips out in the Middle East or in Israel and a well-known politician or Prime Minister is killed, but it's almost always someone "from the other side". No, Americans are pretty unique in that they elect someone to the highest office in the land, and then, later, for myriad, stupid reasons, they decide to end their term of office prematurely. Think about it:

• Including the current one, the US has had 44 presidents thus far.
• Four presidents have definitely been assassinated: Lincoln (#16), Garfield (#20), McKinley (#25), and Kennedy (#35).
• Two more presidents are at least rumored to have been assassinated: Taylor (#12) and Harding (#29).
• Two additional presidents were injured in assassination attempts: Roosevelt (#26) and Reagan (#40).
• And, there have been 13 assassination attempts on presidents not mentioned in the points above.

That's a pretty impressive list, if you ask me: 21 of 44 (that's 47%) have been killed, injured, or attempts have been made on their lives. Just how democratic is this? With the exception of Johnson (#36), every single president since Kennedy has been at least threatened with assassination. That doesn't make you wonder? It makes me wonder, I can assure you of that.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know what to think about that. My first reaction is, "the US is one violent society." Another thought that crosses my mind is, "why is assassination (well, murder, actually) considered a solution to anything?" More generally, "what does this say about the state of American democracy?" And the cynical side of me wants to know why America is held up as an example for anything political? Be honest. Who really wants a job in which almost half the holders have been murdered or someone attempted to murder them? And the country isn't even 300 years old! So young, so reckless, so irresponsible.

Yes, I wonder a lot ... more some days that others ... sometimes merely because the calendar gives reason to.

A Thought On Death

When life as opening buds is sweet,
And golden hopes the fancy greet,
And Youth prepares his joys to meet,
Alas! how hard it is to die!

When just is seized some valued prize,
And duties press, and tender ties
Forbid the soul from earth to rise,
How awful then it is to die!

When, one by one, those ties are torn,
And friend from friend is snatched forlorn,
And man is left alone to mourn,
Ah then, how easy 'tis to die!

When faith is firm, and conscience clear,
And words of peace the spirit cheer,
And visioned glories half appear,
'Tis joy, 'tis triumph then to die.

When trembling limbs refuse their weight,
And films, slow gathering, dim the sight,
And clouds obscure the mental light,
'Tis nature's precious boon to die.

-W.H. Auden

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

-Dylan Thomas (1933)