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.

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.

RE: Brussels. It happened again, and we're still surprised

My heart aches every time innocent people are ripped out of life because evildoers do what they do. I weep for every family who suffers because someone, some group, some ideology thinks they can get what they want by harming others. How perverse can you get.

But, perverse is also thinking that we -- you and me -- are guiltless. We're not, no matter how much we want to be. Why? Because we allow those who have every interest at heart but our own to decide what is right and what is wrong.

What just happened in Brussels is a tragedy, no doubt about it. What it preventable? No. Could we have done something about it? No. Can we do anything in the future to prevent such tragedies? No, but we can do a lot to reduce the likelihood that we are victims of terror.

Terror is terror because it comes unexpectedly, violently, without warning, overwhelmingly. It shocks us to our core. Otherwise, it wouldn't be terror, would it?

The media love to tell us how terrible it all is. Politicians are the first to rant and rave and rail against the pain. But, in the end, those who cause it should be the last to condemn it.

A little story, a blast from the past: when I decided to stay in Germany after my tour of duty, the country was firmly in the grip of terrorists; that is, zealots who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted, regardless of what it cost. In those days (the 70s), the hounds of Hell were domestic, home-grown; our own (the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Red Army Faction) ... their color was different, to be sure, but their rhetoric and their love of violence was the same as we find today with Daesh. Change the colors, change the words, but you can't change the message, and you can't change the mindlessness. While I was studying at a near-by German university, every week a bomb exploded, a car blew up, sometimes with casualties sometimes not, but with wanton disregard for innocent life. And what did we do? Nothing. Because it was the right thing to do.

People were dying, violence was being wrought, but no one, and I mean no one ... neither the populace at large not the politicians in power ... thought of curtailing rights, instituting massive surrveilance, or creating extra-judicial gray zones to fight against the insanity. All of those are standard fare today. Why? Because we've lost sight of the goal: a free and open society which embraces values that are worth standing up, and even dying for. No, today, we've become cowards and victims of our own making.

It doesn't matter whether terror strikes in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, London, Athens, or anywhere else. Terrorists can only terrorize if we allow ourselves to succumb to fear. When we do, they win. It is that simple. In that moment in which we allow the power that be to curtail our rights, restrict our freedoms, impose their own will, we have lost the struggle for humanity. It is that simple.

It's not about safety or security or surveillance or anything like that at all. Either we have values we believe in and are willing to die for or we can merely choose whom we would like to be our masters and enslavers.

I find it particularly interesting that those who profess to have the strongest faith -- evangelicals and fundamentalists -- who are the first to call for more restrictions, more protection, more repression, more whatever, to save or protect their already petty lives. If you cannot live in the face of death -- the fate of every single living organism on earth -- you haven't really lived and chances are you never will.

So don't make life miserable for the rest of us. We live and we die; everything that lives, eventually dies. Just because your own belief makes small of this fact is no reason to cry for the protection of another because you personally are afraid.

I choose freedom. I choose life. I choose a world that allows me to be me and you to be you. I choose being over fear. I choose going down with my head up rather than cowering with my head down.

You can choose more police, more military, more violence, more killing, more aggression ... that's your choice, but do know that I will fight you every step of the way. I am willing to die knowing that I lived, in freedom, rather than dying never knowing that I lived.

Reflections of an optimistic cynic

This isn't the first time I've been torn between what I experience and what I want to be true. We all go through phases like this I'm sure. But, it's getting increasingly difficult to keep my spirits up these days. There's simply too much inanity and too much insanity to have to contend with. And while I want to believe that somewhere, perhaps behind the scenes, certainly unbeknownst to me, there are people succeeding in making their world a better place, it also feels like they're getting harder and harder to find.

What's even worse, and as a life-long student of language most distressing, is how we've allowed our language to be commandeered by newspeakers, marketeers, and propagandists. We are subjected, day in and day out, to an unending harrangue of false truths (we're-the-good-guys-they're-the-bad-guys), conscious bias and prejudice (if-you've-seen-one-Muslim-you've-seen-a-terrorist), over-the-top hyperbole (I-could-shoot-people-and-not-lose-votes), unmitigated aggression (#black-lives-matter), calls to violence (carpet-bomb-the-Middle-East), and bald-faced "justifications" of corruption, greed and oppression (Citizens United). Along with those 5,000 ads we're subjected to every day, we have this ceaseless stream of reality distortions against which can hardly defend ourselves.

One the one hand, I can understand why nothing happens. People are cowards by choice or through resignation, people are afraid for we're repeatedly shown what will happen if you step out of line, too many people have just enough that they can be made to fear those who have less. We can always find scapegoats and if we can't find them ourselves, there are more than enough interest groups to give you comprehensive list to chose from.

And we fall for it every time.

One of my favorite cultural philosophers Jean Geber wrote, "Every reform is a mere attempt at resuscitation." He was right. You can only resuscitate someone (or something) that's dead. And most of what we hold dear is dead: our money system, our banking system, our economic systems, our political systems, our education systems, our social systems ... dead or dying before our eyes. They're being hijacked, kidnapped and murdered before our very eyes. A stacked deck, a rigged game, a grand illusion, a con; deception, deviance, distortion, dishonesty, all in the name of the good, the better, the just, the humane, the compassionate, the fair, and what's right.

Sure, I would like to think that things will improve, but they can't under the current conditions. I would like to think that humanity will come together and realize that they have much more in common than what separates us, but they won't as long as we can be so easily set against one another as we are. I would like to think that change could come without all the pain and suffering that most great changes in history have brought with them, but it's getting more and more difficult to hope otherwise.

Maybe it's time to just let it all collapse. Maybe we are headed into a new dark age. Maybe we simply haven't got the smarts or the will or the desire or the wherewithal to save ourselves from all the suffering. If we don't, then we don't deserve to not suffer. If we do, then maybe we should start doing something to embrace the change that will come.

Boom! it's started all over again

Yep, that's just how fast it goes: one minute it's last year, the next minute it's a whole new year. One minute you think you know what you're doing, the next minute, you're confronted with a whole new future.

Human beings are, without a doubt, fantastic creatures. We have more potential than any other species in all of creation. I don't care if you're a hard-core fundamental religionist or a die-hard evolutionist: there never has been and most likely never will be anything like homo sapiens again. Oh sure, we have it within our power to utterly destroy all we have ever known, but we have, at the same time, the potential to give birth to a future that is beyond our wildest imaginations.

Don't get me wrong: I have the greatest respect and honor for all sentient beings, for the incomprehensible power of Life, but when you get right down to it, we -- homo sapiens, human beings -- are the make-or-break factor for the planet. And as far as I'm concerned, our primary shortcoming is simply that we don't recognize and don't understand which role we actually play in the Grand Scheme of Things. It's too bad really. We have such potential. What a waste.

You can say what you want, but there is simply too much distrust, too much apprehension, too much uncertainty, too much ... well ... fear of everything and anything that is not ... well ... me, or us, or whatever or whomever we think we are. And therein lies the real rub, eh Bill?

It's really all very simple. We didn't "get it" last year. Lots of folks think they did. Even more say they did. Most just assume they did. But, they didn't. As long as you're still us-and-theming, disparaging others for trivial reasons (they don't believe in the same G-d, for example), excluding, demeaning, ignoring, denying, avoiding, well, you're just contributing to the problem. You're nowhere near the solution.

And that's why our problems are as big as they are. They're solvable, no doubt about that. They can be addressed reasonably and effective, efficiently, and economically solved, but where's the fun in that? Why should I share when I can have? Why should I pay when others don't? Why should I give when others just take? Why should I work when others are so lazy? Truth be told, the poorest of the poor in this world, share more, pay more, give more, and work harder than any one of us reading this message. But, we were lucky ... lucky as you can get, that we weren't born into "those circumstances". Any way you look at it, we're ALL in this together, but too many of us would rather spend their time and energy picking, choosing, sorting, sifting, and separating instead of ensuring we all have better lives.

So, yeah, it has started all over again. Another year, another failure. We haven't advanced as much as we have simply cast our old ways in concrete, chiseled our misdeeds into stone. Today is, in truth, no different from yesterday other than we have arbitrarily decided that this day is new. So, if it is, if it is to truly be what we proclaim it to be, it is up to us to make things new.

Who has the courage?

Boom! it's over

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fear will be our undoing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dark days are upon us

Dark days are upon us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A seeker's confession

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The case of the unfulfilled dream

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summer's almost over

Summer was a much bigger deal when I was a kid and it was also a much bigger deal in the US. Three months of summer vacation is nothing to scoff at (especially when you consider that Europeans get a mere six weeks), but once you leave school and find a job and start working for a living, well, summer becomes more or less the hot time of year when you have to work. Nothing exciting about that, even if we tend to pack in more power-weekends at this time of year, just to convince ourselves that our lives are not completely in vain.

Hint: if you have to power-weekend at all, your life's pretty much in vain.

This was just another summer and not all that much out of the ordinary: a bit too hot, a bit too dry, a bit too short, and a bit too time-consumed by everyday life. We all tend not to really appreciate what we have while we have it, and I'm pretty sure that come November, I'll be thinking back fondly of these very days which will have been made better than they actually were because there has been time between now and when I will think of them again. That's pretty much how our minds work. We don't appreciate enough of what we have when we actually have it. Yes, most of us in the West have been firmly conditioned to want "more", or at a minimum to be dissatisfied with what we have.

That's pretty sad when you stop to think about it. Yes, there is definitely one thing that you cannot, you may not, be in a capitalist economy, and that's satisfied. Where would we be if everyone were satisfied? Consumerism and consumption is predicated on the idea that you can never, ever be satisfied. That's not only sad, it's downright unhealthy. What kind of a world have we made for ourselves?

But those days of lazy reflection are just about over. Kids are back to school. Our daily and weekly routines have normalized themselves. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the days are going to get noticeably shorter and the light is going to start fading. It's going to get cooler, then colder, and we're going to start getting a bit more precipitation than we like, so we'll grumble more, complain more often, be more dissatisfied than usual and, well, all the more "motivated" to go out and buy stuff we don't really need, because it's the only therapy we're willing to submit to. That's pretty sad, too, when you stop to think about it.

But once summer is over, we can at least act as if we're busier than usual and with the weather turning bad, no one's going to be coming along with extraordinary plans or demands. We can just get busy and do our thing, and start yearning for those crazy, lazy days of summer, which are so far off, and so beyond our reach.

Apocalypse soon ...

... at least that's what a lot of people think. I can't blame them. As the last two series on "responsibility" and (shared) "myths" have shown, we're not in very good shape. We don't want things the way they are, but we're reluctant to do anything about it. That's not a good combination. But, as the old saying goes, if you don't decide for yourself, someone else will decide for you.

It could be someone, or, maybe, something else, though. The options on the "people" side aren't all the inspiring. We've got a hooligan-leaning group with too much power, too many weapons, of which too many are deadly, no, downright destructive who are dead set on having a little guy with a massive ego and a deep-seated rejection complex pushing back for all he's worth. There's no sign at the moment that either side is willing to back down, and so we find our long-dead, almost forgotten Cold War suddenly heating up again. And, speaking of which, we've got way too many people -- too many of them in positions of authority and some power -- who not only deny the planet as a whole is warming, but that their own limited, ignorant view of the world needs to be imposed on everyone else. And, on the imposition front, we've got two huge, fundamentalist, religious blocs squaring off, whereby it is not the religions per se that are threating each other, it is a loud-enough minority of blind-faithers on both sides who aren't willing to compromise because they insanely believe they all have get-out-of-hell-free cards and are going to go to heaven, regardless of how much bloody death and destruction they unleash. And finally, we have a small elite of insatiably greedy gluttons who would rather the whole world implode before they share anything they think they've "earned", when in fact, they're little more than pesky, life-threatening parasites sucking the life out of everyone else.

Yes, at times, it's almost as if you can hear the pounding of the hoofbeats of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse rising in the distance.

That's it folks. The outlook is anything but rosy. The crash, implosion, explosion, whatever you want to call it is not a mere possibility. It is a reality that is going to become more real than any of us desires, and it's going to happen sooner than later. It is no longer a matter of whether, it's merely a matter of when.

There are more than enough optimists in the world who are willing to believe and tell you that we can still turn back the doomsday clock. What should have become clear over the past few weeks is that the number of people who are willing to make that happen constitutes a disappearingly small minority. They get no media time, they get no attention, they get laughed at and abused, verbally and otherwise, and they're seen as weak, tree-hugging, trail-mix-eating, soy-milk-drinking hippies who have no clue. But, in the end, they're the only ones who have figured it out. They weren't always the way they were. They changed. They changed themselves. They stood up, gathered up all their courage and told themselves that when they went, at least they'd go with the knowledge that they did whatever they could, regardless of how little or seemingly ineffective, to make a difference, to make the world a better place.

Yes, you can think of them however you want, but in the end, it is they who are going to go out with integrity and dignity.

Chapeau.

Revolution's end

Whereas throughout the course of the history of humankind, revolutions have tended to be brutal and violent, the most important, lasting, and profound revolution that can ever take place is the conscious change that you undertake within your own self.

I know you all like to think that mere change and revolution are two different things, but when it comes to oneself, a conscious change is the same as a revolution. If you fundamentally, truly, change yourself ... the way you view the world, the things in which you believe; if you consciously decide to be different than you are, to act in a different way, you have most certainly changed the world.

John the Baptist's message was simple: change the way you think (metanoia) and the Kingdom of God will be realized on earth. Jesus' message was the same, only he provided us with a couple of guidelines in which direction we might consider changing in a worthwhile manner. They cut off John's head, according to the story, and we all know what they did to Jesus. Has it ever struck any of you why whoever it was, whenever it was, would have resorted to such drastic measures for such as simple statement: change the way you think?

It's not all that difficult, really. Should we stop talking about how much we love Jesus and believe in him and start acting like he did, the world would change in drastic and radical ways. Or, just for the contrast, we stop talking about Buddha and start acting like he did, we would recognize our true selves and the world would change in drastic and radical ways. Or, just for laughs, if we stop talking about the Tao and start acting like Lao-Tzu admonished us to act, we would change the world in drastic and radical ways. And the same is true no matter who I call as witness. We love to talk about a lot of things, but in the end, we're reluctant to do anything at all.

For you non-believers or atheists among us: you're not off the hook. I, personally, don't care if you believe in God or Allah or Nothing or everything. I don't care if you think religion is a bogus pyramid scheme that needs to be eliminated. If you're so fixated with eliminating the "evil" influences of religion, how about simply acting in a way that others might find worth emulating. Set a good example.

What we think and what we say is all very nice. I would hate to think that those who are saying and thinking nice things should be ignored. But, in the end, when you get right down to it, what you say matters very little compared to what you do. The real revolution would be a revolution of action, of doing: saying what you mean, and meaning what you say; doing that which is necessary to support what you say; doing as you do, not only as you say. If we could get just this far, we'd have taken a huge step forward.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, there are more than enough folks who are simply all show, and no go; folks who can talk the talk, but can't walk the walk. The final question is obvious: where are you in all of this? Are you the revolution's end, or its beginning?

What happens without a revolution?

The world will change ... or at least our perception of the world will change. Nothing is going to stay the same. Change is inevitable. Being born, growing, dying ... these are all marks of change. That's simply the way of the world.

Conscious change, however, can only happen where there is consciousness, where there is an awareness of what can, needs, or should be changed, when individuals gather like-minded others together to make a difference. Of course, that is next-to-impossible these days since everybody is right and everyone else is wrong, since there's no talking to most people anyhow, and you can't fight city hall.

Toward the end of last year, there was a spate of postings that appeared on my Facebook wall about individual responsibility. You know, things like each of us is responsible for the choices and decisions we make; it's not our parents, our neighborhood, nor our community who's to blame, we have to own up to our own choices and decisions. Some of these appeared concurrently with news reports of protests and demonstrations, the hand-up/I-can't-breathe/Black-lives-matter events. It's sad enough that such "statements" get made for what are obviously the wrong reasons, but while I am all for personal responsibility, if we apply the logic of the statement to the statement itself, we find it collapses into a rather pathetic bleating of it's-not-my-fault.

Think about it: we live in a world run by fear, directed by terror; we're restricted in our freedom by oppressive political and police structures; Americans are personally armed to the teeth to protect itself against everyone who's out to get them; religious fanaticism brings forth sickening violence and horror; there's not talk and discussion anymore, only accusations, claims and contentions, our infrastructure deteriorates before our eyes, illness drives so many to bankruptcy, and nobody can do anything about anything anymore. The logic of the personal-responsibility advocates tells me that since you choose to do nothing about any of that, then your are responsible that things are the way they are. You choose to buy your new car instead of putting the money to better use for the community; you choose to sit in front of the TV instead of getting involved in community projects; you choose to watch Fox instead of getting the facts and informing yourself about issues; you choose to put more energy into rooting for the home team instead of making a difference in the world. These are all choices we make, day in and day out, and each and every one of them contributes to how the world is.

The world is the way it is: unfair, unjust, unequal, inhuman, violent, dangerous, threatening, and deadly because we have all made those choices that end up making the world this way.

The revolution, should there ever be one, will never, ever start with the others. In can only start with you. If you don't consciously change, don't expect that anyone else ever will.

Is there really going to be a revolution?

Though often accused of being terminally cynical, I have, deep within me, quite the optimistic streak. And when I tap into it and think about the revolution I've been going on about, there is only one answer that keeps coming up: no. No, I don't think there's going to be a revolution. It saddens me to say this, believe me, but I have to be honest with you, and with myself. Why? Why have I come to this conclusion? I can sum it up in two words: "conscious change".

Yes, "conscious change" is what I have been talking about for the last half-a-dozen posts. The deliberate, aware, recognized and acknowledged changing of oneself: conscious change. We may do a lot of things in our lives, but most of them -- too many of them, unfortunately -- are not conscious choices. And, when it comes to change, well, let's be honest: that's something for everyone else, not for me.

Let's face it, taking a good, hard, impassioned look at oneself is anything but easy. In fact, it's downright hard work. It requires, strength, patience, endurance, courage, tolerance and the ability to forgive. That's how we like to think we are, but that's how the fewest of us are, really. Most of us put on a pretty good show, but at heart, we're pretty much lost and pretty much overwhelmed by the world around us. So what do we do? We puff up our chests, beat upon them, if necessary, and bluster our way through the everyday. Things would be so much better, so much simpler if others thought like we do, or so we say, and acted like we do, well, as long as those others don't act toward me like I act toward others. Yes, everybody else has every reason to change, every reason to need to change, but me, well, I'm not such a bad person really, I'm pretty much OK the way I am.

Whatever change happens, of course, happens to us, certainly not because of us. The world keeps getting worse, the problems bigger, the threats darker and more horrific, the dangers graver, and the outlook bleaker. We fail to recognize, let alone acknowledge, that things are the way they are because we allow them to be that way, we make them that way.

Oh, we have our lucid moments when we decide for ourselves ... to move house, get a new car, go to the movies or the pub, watch football with the guys, or buy new shoes. But that's about it. Big issues, real-life issues, issues that affect us and everyone around us ... those we leave to others, not because they're more qualified to deal with them, but because we then have someone to blame when things go wrong.

Is the revolution desirable?

We're such strange creatures, we humans. We're so amazing, glorious, astounding, and at the same time we're horrible, despicable, and revolting. We can create artistic works of breathtaking beauty and inspiration, but we can also devise the most hideous methods of torture and depravity.

I know that many of you belong to that school of thought that says we humans are, in the end, merely animals. It will come as no surprise to any of you when I most vigorously disagree. Don't get me wrong. I admire and am awe-inspired by so many of our animal cousins, throughout the entire biological spectrum, but, when all is said and done, when all the evidence is in, and when all the measures are applied, we humans are, well, just a little different. Personally, I don't care if this is because you believe that God created us in His own image or whether you believe that it is merely the chance result of a gazillion gene mutations. I don't want to discuss the cause, I merely want to focus, for a moment, on the effect.

I said it before, and I'll gladly repeat it here: difference obligates. If any creature or entity is capable of something then I expect that this creature or entity live up to its possibilities and capabilities in an optimal way. (Yes, my dear critics, there are a lot of fuzzy words in that last statement, so I'm open to any and all suggestions how one may phrase the idea more concretely and more precisely.) What I'm saying is that should any of our animal cousins change, according to current biological and evolutionary theory, it will be because some gene mutation, not because that creature or entity desired that change to occur. We, however, as humans, as I have been painfully trying to point out over the last few posts are in the rather unique position that we can change who and how we are by merely willing to be different. Now, that, in my own rather humble opinion, is an extremely powerful capability. That is, without a doubt, an awesome power. And if you disagree that difference obligates, you're going to have a much more difficult time convincing me (and many others, I might add) that with power comes commensurate responsibility.

If things are so (and I believe they are), then we have every reason to pause and reflect on how much we want to change and how quickly. We could, perhaps, establish peace of earth. Theoretically, it is possible. On the other hand, we have it within our power to create Hell on earth. That's just as possible.

Is that the reason, deep down, that we are reluctant to change even ourselves, to participate in any larger action that may induce a sudden or drastic change, because we don't really know which way it all could go? Perhaps.

It has always amazed me how fear-motivated we are. We're afraid of consequences, even though there are consequences for being afraid, which are anything but welcomed consequences, but ... how circular and confused our logic can get.

The revolution is only desirable, of course, if the results are desirable. I'm advocating desirable results for the maximum number of people: love and care and be concerned more; hate and interfere and be apathetic less. What's so tough about that? You tell me.

Is the revolution even possible?

Spoiler alert! The short answer is a very sound "most likely not."

Disappointed? You should be.

You see, it all boils down to something very fundamental, very basic, and very personal. We all think that we're all OK, it's everyone else that needs to realize they're being talked to and do something about it. That's why nothing ever changes: because for change (and I'm not talking about any kind of "revolution" here) is only possible within oneself. Things don't change, we do ... as Thoreau pointed out, but even when we do change, we don't admit to it, for somehow we think we would be betraying ourselves.

Change is possible. As a matter of fact, it happens all the time: we get older, more experienced (I'll leave the judgement as to wiser or not up to you), our bodies get weaker and eventually break down completely. This is the way of the world.

Conscious change is possible too. We can decide to lead a healthier lifestyle. We can decide to be more open-minded and tolerant. But we can also decide not to do anything at all. But the one thing that we can never decide to do is not change.

Again, the observant reader will have noticed that since the year began, I have not been advocating mere change. Why should I if it comes about all by itself. No, my focus has been revolution, and revolution is not a slight, gradual change of circumstances, it is a sudden, sometimes drastic, shift in ourselves and much of our environment. But, revolution can also be conscious, desired, willed, and put into motion. The prerequisite for this, however, is that enough of us decide that things shouldn't stay the way they are, that we ourselves should be different.

Do you have any idea how many of your fellow readers just jumped ship? "Oh no, we'll be having none of that!" Others: "We have no idea what might happen," scream others. Why would we want anything sudden and drastic to happen? One reason could be that "sudden and drastic" are, in and of themselves, not all that bad, but most of us have a very negative attitude toward them.

I'm now going to put this into terms that I think everyone can understand: we (all of humanity) are at a threshold. (I know you've heard it before and most of you think it's crap, but bear with me.) It is within our power to change the world. This change can take place within the timespan of a day. However, it is up to you. If you are with me, and if you feel up to it, and I have but two small, simple challenges for each of you: Pick the one person in your life who causes you the most joy, and do whatever you can to make that person more joyful and aware that this is their role in your life (and I'm not talking about a one-time thing, I mean continually). The other half of the challenge is this: pick the one person in your life who causes you the most grief, and do whatever you can to be kinder, more tolerant, more understanding of who they are and what problems/issues they may be facing (and I'm not talking about a one-time thing, I mean perhaps even approaching them and offering to help with the issue).

All of you were with me on the first challenge; I lost most of you on the second. And that's why, my dear friends, I believe that the answer to this blog's question is a very sound "most likely not."

What's the revolution about?

For those of you who have been paying attention since the turn of the year, it should be obvious that the revolution of which I am speaking is a personal, if not private one. We need to start slowly, start small. There's no need to take on too much too fast. The world's a big place and it could take a while to change it. Nevertheless, much of what has been said thus far has been intended on recognizing that there is more to each of us than we may initially suspect. We're not everything, that this for sure, but we are not nothings. We are ourselves and who and how we are affects and has effects on a lot of other people as well. We're not lone, isolated individuals, but the one to whom we are always the closest is simply ourselves.

The purpose of our last little thought experiment, it will be noted, was simply to make you aware that if enough people moved in any given direction -- good, bad, or indifferent -- significant change could occur. We have little to say about how others may or may not move, but we have everything to say about we ourselves will move.

The observant reader will have also noticed that I'm not selling anything, I really have no agenda as I have nothing to gain by you following along or not, I don't have a fancy set of rules to follow, nor am I pushing a particular view of the world. No, I have asked nothing of you, other than you, perhaps, take a bit of step back from yourself and look at yourself again. You can block out friends, family, loved ones, employers, colleagues, co-workers, passing acquaintances, or anybody you happen to pass while walking down the street. I have not asked you to do anything but look at yourself. I don't care what your political leanings are, whether you believe in God and go to church or are an atheist or an adherent of some new-found earth religion. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters ... absolutely nothing matters but you and -- this is the big IF -- whether you're willing to simply take an inventory of your own inner self; that is, of who YOU think YOU are.

Stated most simply: I merely want you to take the opportunity to become just a little more aware of yourself. If you're not willing to take this step, if you are not willing make a serious effort, if you are not willing to go even this far, then I want you to finally sit down, shut up, suck it up (as many of you probably like to tell others), and put up with all the crap life throws at you. If you are not even willing to take a good, hard look at yourself, you aren't willing to contribute to solving anything you think is a problem, for, in the end, you are a good part of the reason we have all these problems to begin with.