The Meaning of Moments

By most standards I'm getting old.  I'm in my seventh decade of life.  Thinking about the last six decades has given me a perspective that can only be understood as one might understand the import of a summer vacation away from home or making a trip to an unsual place might be understood in retrospect after many years.  One perception is that every moment we live is like a brick placed into a foundation.  Teh foundation is the set of our experiences on which our future life will rest.  It will contain the values or fulfillment we wish it to only if we are thoughtful about which and what kind of bricks of experience we build into its everyday construction.

One Love | Playing For Change | Song Around the World

One Love | Playing For Change | Song Around the World

Dirty Electricity - Part 1 - Rays of Rash

The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See (part 2 of 8)

The Sky is Falling!

I think of all of the time about how things are and how they should be. I think too of how largely all of mankind accepts all of the illusions of the physical material world without question. An example is that, sometime in the Seventies, we began to hear that the World was running out of water. Messages were everywhere: "Save Water!" When that campaign was on, and still, I asked myself, "How do you save water?" It's a question no one has yet answered nor can I answer it either. Not long after this campaign to Save Water, people began selling bottled water and today you almost cannot enter an establishment where snacks and food are sold without finding bottled water bearing various labels. Is this saving water? Is this water that was saved? If it is saving, please explain to me how selling water is saving it. If it is water that was saved, please explain why it's being sold. I just don't understand.

What I do understand though is that the original scare was and still is an illusion. The World is not running out of water. I can't measure the hydrosphere, but I will guarantee you that not one drop of water has disappeared from this planet that wasn't carried off by mechanical means. Something else is afoot here. It's akin to the story of Chicken Little, if I have the source right. "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" everyone cries as in the story of Chicken Little. But the sky wasn't falling and we are not running out of water. All but one of the characters in the story fell into the illusion caused by fear and accepted it as the truth. One sane and sober character showed the rest the fallacy of their beliefs. Almost everyone today will glibly tell you that we're running out of water, yet the proof to the contrary is on shelves everywhere. And not one person in the U.S. has died of dehydration due to a water shortage across the country.

So, what's the real story?

I don't know, but I'd bet good old American greed, otherwise known as entrepreneurial enterprise, is behind all of this. It does seem to connect the dots between the scare and the appearance of what we're running short of on shelves selling food and snacks. It also fits a motive very well. No, I'm sure we're not running out of water. What we're doing is running out of reality. Being in an illusion with others who have bought into it seems to be more comfortable than proving that the Sky isn't Falling.

La causa principal de la pobreza

Continuamente recibo correo y toda clase de anuncios pidiendo que luchamos contra la pobreza, enfermedad, y el hambre. ¿No se ha considerado nadie que la raíz de todos estos problemas es el amononatimiento de riquezas? Dos por ciento de las unidades de compra en los EE.UU. poseen noventa y ocho por ciento de los bienes del país. Esto se puede comparar con hacer invitar a cien personas, representando proporcionalmente los estratos sociales del país, a una fiesta donde van a servir sólo un pastel. Éste se corta en cien piezas repartiéndolas entre los invitados según sus niveles de riquezas. Los dos más ricos recibirían noventa piezas minetras los noventa y ocho demás recibirían las díez que quedan. Entonces nos piden combatir nuestro hambre, pobreza y enfermedades concomitantes. Es peor la situación en los países de menos desarrollo técnico como hay menos riquezas que repartir y la proporción de ricos es también menor. Qué hay de mal con este retrato?