To Save This World We Have To Kill The Most?

Being strong is not about learning how to endure. These days, according to capitalism, we have to be the richest, buy the most expensive things like bombs, guns, stylish clothes, fanciest cars. We are told we need the new thing currently being promoted. Of course, we know that's not true. We know that advertisers are selling us gaga economics. They have to do what they are told. 

Do we have to do whatever we are told? Are we worried? Do we feel we are losing the plot? Did the world seem more logical thirty years ago? Or are we fed lies and nonsense to make the world and all its consumers nervous and powerless?

Is our world living on thin ice? Are we supposed to feel powerless?

 

Scrolling through posts

on public media it occurs to me, the way forward is reachable and we are all accountable. We don't have to make millions of dollars, or have the perfect beautiful body or win the wars by killing the most.

We don't have to buy the newest, the best, the shiniest. And if we keep competing for the most we lose sight of our own lives.

Gaining the largest wealth was one way a king or ruler could become famous but without the wisdom of the owner, using wealth for the optimum display, the greatest mansion, the most beautiful queen-- didn't  bring happiness for long. The future was still not guaranteed. Yet, even today this contest still gets the most media attention.

Nonetheless all our intelligence, wisdom and headlines focus on THE WINNER! 

I remember a shallow young girl who believed she had to be a success to make up for her mother's unhappiness trapped in the kitchen trying to keep the house perfect. It sounds silly when I put it like this but this was just after WWII. Her first love was killed in that war and she had a baby to care for, so the "wisdom" of that time was to "get a man" so as not to burden her family.

This girl seemed to be far away and although she didn't make a fuss she wasn't much help. She assumed she would have to become famous to make up for her mother's grief.

For her father's part, he came from a wealthy family where it was expected he would make a lot of money since his family were rich. 

Generally the pressure was on men to be a success by having a spotless home, a beautiful wife and gifted children. The expectation was the drive to success. If you have lots of money you can buy a beautiful house, send your kids to private schools. There were always "buts" that got in the way.

This man found a beautiful wife too, however she didn't want to stay in Europe. She had to move to the USA, be an actor and musician. She also felt the pressure like other survivors of WWII. The problem was she had given birth to a daughter. Eventually they worked out a solution. The wife would stay in the USA and the husband returned to the UK, found a woman who needed a husband. She agreed to look after the baby and he agreed to marry her.

Problem solved? No. There was discomfort, gossip, sensitivity to feeling like outsiders, feeling the gossip that spread faster than wealth. No-one belonged anywhere it seemed.

The daughter was large, clumsy, quiet and dumb. At night when everyone was in bed, the child would start singing. Father shouted to be quiet. She would stop for awhile and then start again.

This is how humans get tangled up in trying to win. There's always something that goes wrong. No matter how much education and wealth a society has, things go wrong. The world will not cooperate with our dreams as aspirations. Not entirely anyway and humans have egos and expectations.

On top of all this there is patriarchy. Training men to win, to be always strong, to avoid thinking too much, to proscribe the future based on what the society needs and when things go wrong, find a scapegoat. Now in this late stage capitalist society, all our expectations stumble on top of one another.

Since women are only valued in how they serve men there is a reluctance to see where the gaps are. How our society keeps punishing the ones with the least power to make changes.

SO HERE WE ARE TAKING UP SPACE

 

on this continent  almost  destroyed by an ideology that idolizes power. 

It's as though we can get all we want by creating rules that keep out humanity. Although we agonize on the effectiveness of systems, we mostly find ways to shut out human needs like safety, food, clean air and hope.

To do this we look for fast effective ways to shut up the majority of people, broadcast the voices of a special few, look for new ways of silencing the emotional needs for hope, home, food, air and social organization for kindness. We breed anxiety, a desire for ways of shutting everyone up.

Please don't look for AI to provide the answer when the most power lives in the imaginations of oligarchic fantasies of personal superiority. We must mend the broken human heart.

It's At Times Like These

... I need to remind myself of all the beautiful things in the world.

First my husband who takes care of me, day and night. He has a positive attitude to weather and bad news.

I haven't got anything to worry about, myself, but human society looks to be falling apart. I have long thought America was a powerful country. It is rich, had many positive developments, and yet its social fabric is falling apart. Why? White Supremacy. Wealthy interests have this need to keep telling us we are under threat by positive things like democracy, warnings of inequality in wealth. Billionaires hoarding money in fear that others will not be manipulated by the glamour of wealth.

The future is not and never has been static. We cannot assume that class will remain influential to all. There are no assurances we won't suffer climate change. There is blame against the people who warn climate change needs to be addressed. 

White Supremacy, male dominance, wealth privilege, are all temporary. Times change, people change, we learn new ways to survive. The King and Queen may have a lot of wealth but the masses are always learning.

Forget the power of Trump, patriarchy and all the banks. Yes they have a lot of power but ordinary people struggling to make ends meet have something else. Love of life.

We have ways of getting information, which is dangerous, untrue and disturbing. Millionaires, schmillionaires! And we invent our future by doing and using our creative intelligence. 

Mary Jane

Thanks for the chocolate cake it was fabulous. Thanks for coming to visit. Thanks for holding on to your beliefs, your kindness and your integrity. 

The Politics of Democracy Works Only When We Engage

 So much news about survival and politics these days. The commentary often include predictions on what the powerful will do and how we, the victims can fight back but fighting is so harmful. Do we want to keep looking over our shoulder debating alternatives, summing up our chances of winning? Do we really want to see this planet as a commodity to win? Furthermore do we want to see our relationships as win or lose games? My wins depend on your losses. It feels like carrying weapons responsibly.

But aren't we missing the point if winning is the only game? It seems to me we are part of the solution. We are not living in a win or lose world. We live with uncertainty. Jesus of Nazareth created feasts of hope not live or die, not a competition, if I believe the bible is true. But Jesus is not available for conversations. Since then we have learned from Martin Luther King, Mary Oliver, Carl Jung, Simone de Bouvoir and others who try to reach us.

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.