Learning to Live

 

Yesterday I gave a workshop on The Power of Your Voice, wanting to encourage the human factor in our world. It seems as though humanity doesn't count any more. Expertise is needed. Psychologists, economists, political experts are required to look down on us struggling to survive. We need their point of view and all those who argue with them.

But something is lost here. The voices of friends, family, people we know and love have been subdued. Anyone can have an opinion. 

In Ukraine the people are being bombed, shot even as they try to escape their home. Some voices claim that Russia wants to clear out the towns and cities to create pipelines for oil and gas. To clear the land of people as if they are vermin.  This is not all Russians, just Putin's inner circle of billionaires, most of whom don't live in Russia.

Some say it's US foreign policy. Destroying civil society wherever there is a chance to make a profit. And of course  there are reports of other nations fallen under the rule of fascism. 

A handful of families on this planet are billionaires who are funding political movements that benefits them while many are homeless and hungry working for starvation wages. 

This is the direction we are going in, say the news reports and the intellectuals. There is nothing we can do. We have no power. Far right politics is becoming more extreme, full of hate and contempt for the greater good. 

Ukrainian people and even Russian people are against the bombing and killing of unarmed people. I don't know how many people support the war. But arms industries will sell weapons to any despot seeking control.  The future does not look good for creatures that breathe and eat. 

Seems like the idea of human engagement without guns and bombs is not worth broadcasting. The world, we must assume, is coming to an end. Illness, poverty and war will silence us. Starting a family now seems cruel. Humanity is redundant.

But all this is the assumption of cynicism, the collective noise of media, economists and political pundits. The grave voice of middle aged experts.

We might not have billions to promote ideas and glossy covers or propaganda, and we do have a moral conscience. 

We have hearts that won't let us off too easily and we can comfort one another with compassion and reason. We know in our bowels that war against unarmed people who just want their children to learn what life on this planet means, is repugnant, selfish, pathological and sick.