#617 Wisdom? Me First!

     A popular 1970s poster showed a cave-man-like brute wielding a huge club, with the caption: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil, because I'm the meanest son-of-a-bitch in the valley." Each of us, as individuals, might carefully reflect on what it would take to make us use deadly force to get our way. How would belonging to a group of like-minded individuals change "what it would take"? We recoil in horror when an individual does precisely what people in uniforms do daily around the world. Is killing more polite, legal, civilized or healthy while wearing a uniform? If so, there'd be far fewer cases of PTSD among veterans.
     It's primarily psychosocialspiritual immaturity that can turn our beloved sons and daughters into killers - be they official terrorists, military, or elected officials who give the orders. And they are our sons and daughters. 
     All of us have the primary responsibility to intentionally mature into wise elders. Why me first? Because without wisdom, all I do is add to the world's confusion and suffering. Wisdom is the evolved, mature side of all major religions - without the childish, egocentric, xenophobic, violent posturing. Adversarial posturing - with weapons, religions, energy, water, food, etc - must end. Humanity can't tolerate any more selfish ugliness.
     Our world is one family. A healthy, functional family does not "wage war" on some of its members. Those made to feel excluded are more likely to behave insanely. We can and must improve conditions at home and abroad, to approximate the quality of life we want for ourselves and our own children. First as individuals - yes, it has to start with me - we need to embody, teach each other by example, the quality of life that only a loving, mature, civilized family can enjoy.

Black Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada

#532 How to Keep from Becoming Frustrated? - Part 1

     World & local events on the news often sound horrifically ugly, barbarically cruel, primitive. The perpetrators are often amazingly brazen, defiant, even triumphant - claiming religious, political or other "rationale" for their subhuman behavior. Disgust is a common, understandable reaction from civilized society.
     How - or why - should we keep from supporting those who would "nuke them back into the stone-age"? In short, that would make us horrifically ugly, barbarically cruel, primitive. It's critically important to recognize our own potential for evil. "Wiping out evil - out there" eg capital punishment for murderers, does nothing to eliminate our own capacity to cause others great suffering.
     Those perps on the news are literally our relatives. How would we want our children treated if they were the perps on the news? It would be with superhuman understanding, respect, fairness, with rehabilitation instead of vengeance in mind.
     The other humbling aspect for us to ponder AND act on is the part WE play in these global events. How does our appetite for ridiculously cheap clothes contribute to child labor & dangerous sweat shops in third world countries? How does our appetite for street drugs contribute to the drug-related massacres in Mexico, Columbia etc and on our own streets? Our appetite for oil, exotic produce from around the world, our inflated standard of living, - all come at a price - increased suffering for poor, powerless people around the world.
     WE need to clean our own house! The more clearly we see ourselves, the more humble we become, the less unnecessary suffering we cause ourselves & others. Awareness, humility & kindness work for us, work for others - these just work!
     We surely know by now that "the war to end all wars" - both of them, and all the other wars on drugs, terrorism, poverty, etc - are primitive useless garbage - enough - they don't work!

Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, May 4, 2014