Infinite Power: August 2025

Friday, 29 August 2025

How to save the world from despair

We know those who gain power are inclined to be addicted, egotistic, self serving, and learn to play the game that only values themselves, not the public good, and no matter how hard they try to win we (the entire planet and all its creatures) are not going to benefit. Who benefits? The narcissist, the rich and the beautiful, the special ones who have learned how to rise to the top and how to stay there.

It's a sad game. The stage for the ego obsessed, where we learn that working for the greater good is never the winner. The game is about power, gaining it, keeping it and to hell with everything else. We also know we are racing our way to obliteration. It might be in a year. It might be a decade or a century. Whatever we do know humanity has sold its soul and anyone who speaks seriously will be dismissed as naive.

One of the problems is, history itself, and another is the dismissal of longer serving, higher ideals.

I read Carl Jung, Chris Hedges, Maya Angelou, Robert Reich and those who write from the heart with sincerity and integrity. I am attracted to those who claim we must serve the greater good, the life and health of humanity, with care and dedication to preservation of the health and well being of all creatures.

To give in to despair is to hope you and your loved ones will not be subjected to the pain at the end. The sickness of ego without integrity.

I ask you, dear reader, to think about how to give something of worth to the future, not money, not liked posts, but your unspoken promise. We don't need to know what you give, we need to know how we all could work towards the future when a tract of land, sky and sea, is not treated like a dollar. We, live and die, unknown, even if we have given this world the precious gift of love and hope.

Tuesday, 19 August 2025

Chris Hedges on Shakespeare

There is scant evidence that William Shakespeare authored the plays and sonnets attributed to him. But questioning the authorship is an unacceptable heresy among Shakespearean scholars who liken it to believing the moon landing was faked. These scholars have built their academic careers on the foundations of the Shakespearean myth, writing long biographies that are almost all based on hypothesis and conjecture. They are the guardians of the one true church, and like grand inquisitors arrogantly dismiss intriguing arguments to be made for other authors including Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford, Christopher Marlowe, Mary Sidney, Francis Bacon, and others. Or perhaps, like the King James Bible, published in 1611 after several years of work by a committee of 47 scholars and clergymen, the plays were a collaborative effort by several talented writers and poets. Even the most adamant defenders of Shakespearean authorship concede that some of the plays attributed to him, such as Pericles, contain the work of other authors. What is not in dispute is that even raising this issue is a literary taboo. But this is not an idle question, for a writer’s past and experience illuminates his or her work, despite what the post-modernists preach. The Shakespeare narrative fits perhaps too neatly into popular mythology – the story of a poorly educated glover’s son who arrives in London from a rural village and conquers the stage and writes the most immortal verse in the English language. Joining me to discuss the debate is Elizabeth Winkler author of “Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature.”

https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-chris-hedges-report-show-with-cc6?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Women and the survival of life on this planet

Many years ago when I was about 12 or 13 I witnessed an event that disturbed me.

A girl in my class had some possessions in a bag and one was something soft wrapped in a brown paper bag. A boy in this class found the bag that had a clean sanitary napkin, he took it from her bag and threw it across the class to another boy. They laughed and threw it to another boy and then another boy. The girl went red as if she was embarrassed.

Now the thing to remember is she displayed shame as if it was her fault. Logically this makes no sense the pad was a function of nature. It was in her bag and had nothing to do with anyone else in the class. But when one boy picked it up out of her bag. He made a display of power.

This is how power works. A number of things display human ignorance about this power. Take pregnancy for example. It is a fact of life but when a woman gets pregnant the man is congratulated and the woman is shamed. No-one talks about desire, the need for money to buy food and shelter.

In fact there is the hint that anything a man can do to a woman is good for him and a shame for her. A woman, unmarried who gets pregnant is often seen as something to be ashamed of. Even the young girls used as sex objects are seen as having been shamed (conquered). We know women rarely if ever brag about being raped, having sex or even sexual desire.

These events are meant to be a triumph for the male and shame for the female. I feel that our society trains us to see women as burdens, weak, problematic, and males as conquerors.

What does that leave males with in terms of achievement? Any power over another is congratulated as a triumph. Kicking a ball into the net, climbing a mountain, making a lot of money for a business. Stealing power from other organizations, inventing ways of winning. The goal of any man is to win, a trial, money, wealth, territory, war.

Men raised with the expectation they must prove themselves as winners does not inspire nurture. In fact its more likely to dismiss work that heals or nurtures as effeminate and so the "most powerful nation" in the world is the one who inspires fear in others.

Yet women who have shown ability to be good leaders are not praised, do not earn the same money as males. Women who have the ability to create places of harmony are not applauded. The reality is care and kindness benefits all.

Women who work on this are intelligent and beautiful in many ways. MLK junior the African American who inspired thousands of people should never be forgotten but the contempt expressed by some billionaires toward social activists reveals a deep meanness that is destructive for humanity. And could lead to the end of life on this planet.

Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Caterpillar and the Butterfly

We all know what happens to the caterpillar when it sheds its skin becomes a cocoon and then emerges as a butterfly. It must be very traumatic and scary for the caterpillar. If it could talk it would scream as the cocoon cripples its body. Does the cocoon become fully blessed as a butterfly? Or is it even more scary when it relies on the fragility of its wings to carry it to the next branch?

The caterpillar doesn't get to choose does it? But humanity can choose to open itself to a better future for all. To accept we have different features, different histories and different beliefs.

Monday, 11 August 2025

Those Who Care

The only reason I am still here is because of those who care. By this I mean people who care about other people, the survival of humanity. We who feel emotion and who love other people, love life, love hearing what others think. I call this THOSE WHO CARE or THC's.

Today a friend came to fix some things in the garden, my husband made lunch, Debbie organized the women's group where four of us joined on zoom, and a local woman came to give us a pedicure. One man guided my wheelchair into the room where I could link. After that gathering I had a nap and when I woke up it occurred to me the only reason we still live on this planet is because of those who care, who reach out and organize a meeting, who come to the house to fix small things in the garden, who prepare food, who wash up dishes then plan supper.

These people are not millionaires, famous or even talking about saving the world. They just care about others. I call them PWC's. Some care about hospitals, the economy, education, or social issues. 

People who have a sense that there's more to life THAN ME. People who spend time thinking about what's happening in this world we live in. There are big arguments about what is right and what is wrong, but in the end, it boils down to me and you, them and us. 

Yes we have problems trying to get along with one another but in the end it comes down to seeing others, hearing them, and caring about them.

I know there are these sophisticated arguments about who should be here and who shouldn't, good beliefs, harmful beliefs, good people and bad people, policing, schooling, driving, healing. It's too much. We have created other 

problems by looking at the larger picture. Training people to write with their right hand, to learn science, sociology, truth, lies. Then we wonder if we have the right colour skin, the right beliefs, the right clothes, the right education.

We are trapped in a bid of who deserves to be here and who doesn't. So we never get to caring for each other. But we must start with that no matter what your IQ or bank account says.

We must care about life and the health of others.