Coming closer to the end of one’s tenure in physical life leads that one to consider both past and future and the multiple meanings of both. There isn’t anything unique to that; millions of people who have gone before and who are in similar periods of contemplation have had such thoughts or are now contemplating what and how to face that transition. Then there are the thoughts of sadness for those who are prevented from the luxury of contemplation or who are not wise enough to seize the opportunity to contemplate their various lives.
Love is the spiritual force that drives our contemplations and our hopes that we might add something more that is positive to the world and to those we love. Why is that the motivation? Merely for kind memories after we’re gone? Or, is the existence – virtually universal – of love in the “hearts” of those who know us, now, or who remember us from years prior, but even, somehow, of love we have for children too young to know us, really. Love is more than a vapor that blows this way and that: it is like an abiding, surrounding fluid that is everywhere we look and think. One cannot wash it off.
It can be repelled with hatred, illustrating the force that is love and its strength and simultaneous fragility. Each of us has a responsibility – spiritually – to defend love from the nibbling intrusions of hate. Some become so fearful of the imputed power of hatred that they stop feeling, let alone expressing, love. Yet love is infinitely stronger. Religious explanations of love are somewhat confusing since most are complicated by political or financial power over populations. The confusion has become worse as scientific inquiry has appeared to disprove many religious tenets. This threat to religious infallibility has caused many branches of Judeo-Christianity to soften scripture and history so that modern social justice may be elevated to something religious. True Love is largely left behind. The frequent declaration of God’s love for each of us is disconnected, somewhat, from the universality of love and the earthly, daily battle with hate.
The best expression of love… and the best way to multiply love, is marriage and children. It is a simple, not quite infallible formula that has worked for millennia. It is a formula that, like changing water into wine, changes everything in the worlds of the husband, the wife and the souls entrusted to them as co-creators with God. Love expands in families.
Hatred, on the other hand, usually is not generated inside of families. It steals into families, perhaps because of drugs or alcohol, or because of some human vector that generates unrequited angers or, worse, self-hatred. It spreads. The wise society maintains a social – perhaps religious – infrastructure that can mitigate, if not resolve, familial dysfunction. It would strengthen everyone. It would assure that subsequent generations of citizens will be smarter than the last, and well-balanced and nurturing.
If unchecked, hatred becomes a means of judgement, both of acquaintances and friends or family. Like other addictions, it begins to look for reasons and justifications for itself. Soon, it’s pleasurable and satisfying. Those who don’t hate seem less wise than the one who is smart enough to hate those who deserve to be hated. In short order, correspondence is reduced to only the circle of co-haters – all enjoying the satisfaction of being more discerning than those who float along disregarding the hateful qualities of this or that person, or group, that are so obvious. Society, the civil, unregulated cooperation that reinforces everyone, can break down at this stage. The visible and invisible lines of hateful judgement create unbridgeable chasms that advance some at the expense and pain of others. There is no longer society… only an uneven police state in which most trust very few others.
The aging individual must choose, now, what his frame of mind will be when the hour comes to leave. Leaving immersed in hatred would seem to be the wrong “way” to face whatever comes next, and this should include self-hatred, possibly the most common form of hate. Hating oneself leads to a search for confirmation from others, perhaps from society, that the self-hating individual is correct in his outlook. If he is “confirmed” as a member of a properly hated group, he will then have found a mission to either spread the hate or better define it, or to find a way to correct the reasons or balance the reasons it is hated. Inevitably this “balance” is perceived as an economic one: forcing people who have nothing to do with why a group is hated today, though long dead, to pay reparations to others alive today, who have virtually nothing to do with the hated people, again, long departed. It is illogical in its conception and unfair in execution: a reward for hatred.
It appears that hatred is a personal matter, one that individuals can control or reverse. Historically, however, most starkly described in “1984,” hatred is a political tool. For many movements, for whom to hate is the sea-anchor that keeps them on course. It is part and parcel of psychological warfare where repetition and cross-citation becomes “truth,” not because it is true but, because it is believed. The same process works personally, creating self-hatred. It is all destructive: from simply feeling like a failure, to rejecting opportunities to triumph… to attempting suicide. “Satan” wins.
Some are unable to process love, which is one of the most difficult mental states to overcome. It is the enemy of self-worth or self-esteem. One should not prepare to die feeling this way.
Nor should a nation die in self-hatred. Good national “health” and a good future, depend upon knowledge of real history, good and bad, and accepting that the imperfections of humans have happened, are happening and will happen, and that we are willing to apply steps of improvement to how we act. Nationally, we can do better for ever larger numbers of people… if we believe in our ability to do so. Hating one another, or our nation, or ourselves, is the recipe for failure. Do we know better?
Congratulations are truly in order. This is a milestone. You have a diploma, but what does it mean?
That is, what does it mean to those who do not know you? The LACK of a High School diploma would mean a lot to people who knew only that much about you, but the fact that you have a diploma simply places you in a group of hundreds of thousands of young people who got one. Now what?
Some kids are lucky. They have a strong direction and interest by the time they finish highschool and they go right off to college to learn more about what interests them and some of them even wind up working at what interested them when they began college.
Many don’t. They go to college, spend tons of money to get a degree and eventually wind up doing something entirely different. However, the fact that they have that COLLEGE diploma, means a great deal to potential employers and colleagues. That’s because there is no law that says a person has to attend college.
Gaining a college diploma means that an individual had enough drive and self-management to complete a course of study, and almost regardless of what the course of study was, that diploma marks the person as a good do-er – someone who could get his or her homework done even when parents weren’t there to nag and remind. So, maybe that person can be trusted to do valuable work in exchange for money.
Some kids are even luckier. They have a drive to learn and excel in a particular field and then go on to master that field and strive to “make a difference” in the “world.”
For many, the easiest way, or, at least, most certain way to make that difference is by becoming a teacher, and there is some truth to that. As a teacher one is able to affect the minds and beliefs of dozens and hundreds of children – affects that will be part of them for the rest of their lives. So teaching is pretty significant… but it’s not the path for everyone.
Sometimes the best difference that a person may make in the world derives from what he or she teaches just one or two other people – maybe children or grandchildren. You never know.
The world, however, is still there, ready for all those “differences” to be made in it. All those differences are not made only by high-minded diploma-holders: the greatest ideas will evaporate if some do-er doesn’t make them real. Often, the thinker and the do-er is the same person, and we celebrate those people. Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Eli Whitney, Edwin Land, Thomas Edison, Clara Barton, Marie Curie, and a host of other industrial, military and political leaders are among that group.
Then there are those who are famous for having done what others dreamed up: people like Neil Armstrong. He didn’t conceive of the machinery that took him to the moon,
but he had an ability of courage and good thinking, combined, to execute the great ideas and engineering of others.
Most of us are not like that. Most of us are pretty-well occupied dealing with “life” as it comes along, earning a living and meeting our responsibilities. Eventually, in the course of doing what’s best for ourselves and our families, many of us also give to others in time or money or otherwise, and make our own little, un-heralded “differences” in the “world.” This applies to most, and is the greatest, cumulative force for good in the “world.” Some turn criminal for whatever reasons, but most are good and civilization and society move haltingly, unevenly, even stumblingly toward an average better life for all people. You can see there is a long way to go.
Which means there is plenty of room for you to make your own difference as you make your own way, your own life, your own living. Eventually you will do your own good. But, how? Ay! There’s the rub.
I know you didn’t have the most happy, care-free experience through school. Neither did I. But that’s done, now. Now – right this instant – you are alive, healthy and strong, smart and good-looking and existing at the time of greatest opportunity ever! Right now is when you can’t shuck your responsibility to yourself because you “deserve” a vacation or a little “rest” after your twelve grueling years slaving over textbooks.
Right now is when you have to make a map, of sorts. It’s not a map that shows roads, trails, paths and correct turns at every intersection. It’s a map of decision, though – definitely of decision. You are very fortunate – lucky, even – that you are where you are with the people in your life who are here. You have a smart brain. And, it’s time to make a decision about making decisions. Life on this planet is based on assumptions, beliefs and decisions. And love. It’s also based on love.
First, let’s examine what love has to do with it. You are a product of love, for example. Your mom and dad loved enough to go to the trouble of creating you, but not simply as a gift to YOU, but as a gift to each other, and with some expectation – an assumption, if you will, that whoever you were would give love back in return. That is the real circle of life.
Love is not infinite. It’s huge, but it has limits. People who never return love that you send their way, can literally suck all the love out of you, leaving emptiness. By returning love, you can multiply it, and the person to whom you returned that love not only has as much love as he or she originally had for you, but more than that. Multiplication. It’s a really cool phenomenon. We don’t always call it love.
Oftentimes the energy or effect that we might call love, is called and expressed as trust. When you are trustworthy, when you keep your word, when you keep a secret, when you deliver on a promise, when you meet right expectations… you are expressing the force we call love. People who learn to trust you develop an assumption about you that is called trust, but is a form of love. Like love, trust given in return tends to
multiply trust between people. There are very few “good” accomplishments that do not include a lot of trust between people. It is the unwritten contract of honesty that enables most of the commerce of life, both monetary and personal. Honesty, trust, love. Obviously it’s important and you know you have already learned to trust quite a few people in your first eighteen years on Earth. Have they all learned to trust you back? That’s the first decision on your decision map: am I willing to do what it takes to be a person of trust? Am I willing to sacrifice, sometimes, to maintain that trust? Am I willing to do what it takes to deliver on promises I have made? Will people who know me always know that I may be trusted to keep my word? That’s the first decision, Jon.
People who live in accordance with that decision generally GIVE as much as they RECEIVE. Like emotional love, people who accept the trust of others and don’t return it by action and discipline, will soon suck all the trust out of a relationship, leaving emptiness. I hope you decide to be a trust generator.
You are bound to encounter people who are not worthy of your trust and you must be wise and careful of where you place YOUR trust. You know someone like Frank Allen, for example, can always be trusted, but there are those who will lie to you, take advantage of your trust, even steal from you, and you must recognize when trust is the wrong thing to do with that person. Trust is big but not infinite, and it’s extremely fragile. A solid trust relationship is worth more than gold, and you are obligated to protect and nurture it. It’s everything from doing what you said to saving the life of the soldier next you in battle – or him saving you.
We all live on a path built out of assumptions… assumptions that are part of our personal belief structure. For example, we assume that the sun is coming up on time each morning; we assume that when we put our foot down on the floor that it will be firm and able to support us – same thing with the ground. We expect – or assume – that tap water is safe to drink. There are thousands and hundreds of thousands of assumptions that we have learned to depend upon. Most accidents, surprises, shocks, injuries… the list is long, that happen, are when something we assumed to be true or real, is not. Or it’s when something that we are in the habit of assuming, but which can actually vary, has varied and we fail to observe it – we fail to adjust our assumptions.
For example, a driver may assume that the person in the intersection who appears to be signaling for a turn is actually going to make that turn. We have experienced enough instances when a turn is signaled and then actually made, that we “let down our defenses” and assume that the turn will be made this fine morning, too. Unfortunately, sometimes the signaler is not aware he or she is signaling and instead drives right into you, or, worse, you drive right into him or her.
Assumptions can let you down. Assumptions are created out of one-way trust. Since the ground has always been solid, you can assume it will be today, also, but you can’t “trust” that the ground will be solid, can you? The ground has no heart. It can’t love you, it can’t “return” your trust. You must recognize that making assumptions is strictly
a one-sided activity. Make a decision, please, to never assume too much. Maintain conscious awareness… and a sense of skepticism. It is an old saying, but totally true: “Things are not always what they appear to be.”
The greatest pain and emotional injuries occur where someone has assumed a certain relationship exists – perhaps one of trust, or even love – when it does not, or that it is of a particular nature when it is something quite different. The assuming party then acts or trusts in a certain way and is thunderstruck when what he or she expected would happen is completely different from what actually does happen – like assuming the other driver were going to turn – and great pain is the result.
From that might spring great anger or hatred, two things you want to avoid with as much power as you can muster, for they are corrosive, like a strong acid, eating away at your abilities to love and trust. Don’t assume too much.
You know something about the “scientific method,” I’m sure. An observer takes note of a phenomenon – maybe as simple as a pin dropping to the floor. He or she measures how long it takes for the pin to reach the floor and creates an experiment where the same pin can be measured falling to the floor, again. After two or three repetitions, the observer, armed with the recorded observations, may make a statement that gravity has a “rate” of attraction. In other words, a weight equal to the weight of the pin will fall the observed distance in so many thousandths of a second, every time. Others won’t even try the same experiment – they begin to assume the truth of the observer’s statement about falling pins. Can you already see how many mistakes the others are making? Let’s list a few:
Does a square chip of metal the weight of that pin fall at the same rate?
Does the pin dropped head down fall differently than point down?
What if the pin is dropped sideways instead of head or point down?
Is it different in a vacuum than in the air?
What about if it were dropped in humid air, or bone-dry air?
What if it were dropped in a freezer at 32 degrees below zero?
If you climbed a mountain and dropped the pin the same height at an altitude of 10,000 feet above sea level, would it fall at exactly the same rate?
What about if you went to the shores of the Dead Sea and dropped it there?
What if you went to another place on Earth at exactly the same conditions, would it fall at exactly the same rate?
Wow. Such a simple experiment with so many variables! Who knew? The point is, just like relationships in life, work, families and friendships, a single observation can’t be the basis of trust or love. You must decide that you will test for some variables before you start assuming that something is true, real or honest – ie. trustworthy – between yourself and new acquaintances. This also means that you can’t assume that you have the trust of other people, or that you have the right to be combative or quick to anger with others. You have to find a pattern of truth from multiple observations. When you have a basis for trust, your relationship with others will be the best it can be. If you assume a level of trust and it proves to not be real, you will be hurt and so will the other person, and so will some around you. Please, make a decision that you will be a wise observer: ready to trust, but only when it’s proper and good.
Of course, a lot of these decisions and observations and even skepticism, apply to you, yourself, as well. Do you keep promises to yourself? Do you trust yourself? What if you said to yourself that you were going to become an expert at… gaming software, for example. Are you willing to do what it takes to become that expert, to gain that expertise? Will you keep your word to yourself?
Or, if you find that it is hard work to keep that promise, will you talk yourself out of caring about that promise?
Or, are you willing to find out what the steps will be to gain that expertise, so that you can then plan to achieve it? In other words, are you going to become a great do-er or simply dream about becoming one?
Maybe simpler terms are easier. If you lived in an apartment and there was no food in the cupboards or the refrigerator, would you be willing to do what it takes to buy some food? Or would you go to a soup-kitchen and beg for a meal?
Those are promises you make to yourself. Everyone has relationships with others where he or she keeps a high trust level, protecting confidences, keeping promises, stuff like that, yet fails to keep a promise to him- or herself. You are the only person who can make that trust decision; you are the only person who has the ability to observe whether you have proven to be trustworthy to yourself.
It is that tiny, tiny sliver of distance between trusting yourself or not, that determines how we live our lives. “This above all, to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man.”
So, you must decide, and now is when you must. How will I live? And you can’t leap, in one step, one experiment, one observation, from where you are to some ultimate dream or goal. You need a number of observations. You can try college or junior college and find it a perfect fit for your “map.” You might observe that it is not.
You could “apprentice” yourself in a field you are interested in, and work for a while before going to college. You’ll have a lot of observations on which to base your self-trust.
You could take a minimum-wage job and master it. You will be amazed to see how many doors open up as a result. It doesn’t matter what it is. It is YOUR decision to be a drudge or a dynamo. You took that job with Frank at the Elks and became a dynamo, gaining an excellent reputation, there, while helping a lot of people you don’t even know. You TOOK the $25.00 but you GAVE much more. It’s a formula for a good life. You also gained many observations about cause and effect, work and rest, starting and finishing, cooperation and independence, expertise and apprenticeship.
You can do hard jobs. You may not always like what has to be done, but you can do hard work. That’s pretty important. The greatest successes in America are based on starting at the “bottom” and working your way up. Every famous general started at the “bottom.”
Finally, you must never stop learning, reading or teaching. Learn things so that you can teach others about them. I hope you make this decision / promise to yourself. None of us knows enough. The mind is always at a new level, having accumulated the education of yesterday. Now, it’s today. You can’t stay here, for tomorrow is coming. You can try, but you’ll fail in everything if you think today is your forever.
Today is the only day in which you can prepare for tomorrow. Whether you intend to (which I hope) or not, you ARE preparing for tomorrow. It’s almost like magic. No matter WHAT you do today, it is preparation for tomorrow.
In Methuen, Massachusetts a young woman is trying to prepare for a very early death. It’s not her fault; she’s done nothing wrong in her nearly 27 years. Indeed, from the very first she has been a bright, delightful person, quick to learn, quick to love pretty much everybody.
Inside her genes, however, something is not the same as most people’s. She can’t fight off dysfunctional cell growth. Her first cancer arrived when she was about 6, it’s not completely certain when, but she had been complaining of “back pain” for months before her mom finally got her to a “pediatric gastroenterologist” whose connections at Tufts Floating Hospital for Children found and diagnosed neuroblastoma. There can be no worse day for a mother, unless it’s the one approaching inexorably, almost exactly 20 years afterwards.
That’s a short dash, 27 years. In between those dates were 5 big battles with cancer, excellence in school, swim team, graduation from High School, excellence in college that included trips to New Orleans to help repair Katrina-damaged homes, trips to England and Ireland, visit to Paris through the Chunnel, Graduation from Wheelock College, Masters degree through Merrimack College, friends’ weddings, even one she coordinated, a trip to Peru and Machu Picchu only to run headlong into the fifth cancer struggle, now stretching into the last. Loving teaching, early childhood and special needs, was not enough. There never will be the full-time teaching position of which she dreamed.
How does one prepare for death? I don’t know. My good friend, Tony Fusco, prepared for his when an undiagnosed tumor in his brain stem proved inoperable, impossible to biopsy and ultimately fatal. I got to sit with him the last Sunday afternoon before he re-entered the hospital to try some other treatments multiple neurologists had only the faintest idea might help. I’d brought some nice scotch thinking we might enjoy a sip together but his gag reflex was so impaired he dared to sip only water. It was a good afternoon and I expected he’d be home again.
When the only option of a feeding tube was offered, Tony realized – decided – that it was a tube too far: no further treatments, thank you. His world shrank to a room at a beautiful hospice facility that was always busy with visitors and family. He had a huge heart; it took a couple of weeks for it to go to sleep.
Clearly he’d prepared for the end. He was 71. At his funeral I told him that I knew where to hide a flask for when I’d join him on a porch where he now lived, where we could enjoy a sip and analyze the world situation. He was a year younger than me.
How does one prepare at age twenty-six and three-quarters? Without an abiding religious faith it is hard to imagine. She believes in God, but hasn’t had a lot of religious education. I try to explain, but it is uncomfortable, certainly it was a year ago when the lung cancer appeared. It represented a third kind of cancer, and her tiny body could tolerate no chemotherapy. They operated and radiated, but the treatment was still a variation of repair and destroy with the overarching hope that the cancerous cells might be killed before the patient, herself. Her breathing hasn’t been very good – or comfortable – since then. Within a couple of months lesions were found in multiple places: brain, bones, pancreas and more. Now at Dana Farber, they’ve radiated as many places as possible and she’s been taking an oral chemo pill with side effects. It tended to slow down the growth, but never stopped it and now isn’t slowing it much, either.
There’s only one door open to her… to a place where the weaknesses of her body will no longer be a problem – a place where her health will become perfect. One needs a reason to hope in order to contemplate passing through that door, alone. Observers might say that she has no choice so “…she just has to deal with it.”
What does that mean: deal with it? If one has any trust in God it should be clear that trying to pass through when angry and bitter is probably not the right approach. One school of thought is that when you pass you’ll find exactly what you believed you’d find. If that is a fade-to-black scenario, and hopeless, then that is what it will appear to be. I believe that there is an eventual judgment, an audit if you will, of how well your tests were passed – tests you knew were coming when you agreed to accept the lifetime just ending. Your “you” or your soul, may or may not have aced everything. The life just ended may or may not be the last one you need to make your ascension, but Redemption is the unfailing lesson of the Bible. It doesn’t make sense that in the matter of life and death itself, that the opportunity to redeem oneself would be absent.
For the soul, the agreement to accept a new life that includes the needed tests, is the greatest act of love expressable.
Another path of spiritual guidance says that not only are we responsible for our un-passed tests, or “karma,” but also for our reason for being, our “dharma.” Both are part of judgment. The more aware we are while on this side of that door, the more likely we are to meet and exceed the reasons for this life. Life is not a knife-edge: Hell on one side and the gift of Heaven on the other; it is a path made broad by our free will. The choices we make have meaning.
When someone passes very young, there has been little time to make bad choices, which is to say, few sins have been committed. At the same time, few opportunities have presented for passing tests. Maybe a life that ends in youth is lived sacrificially so that those around you can pass their tests. Living that life is your test: a unique expression of love.
From the limited, somewhat fuzzy understandings of a human lifetime, this is my most comforting perception of the young lady’s life: one of sacrifice. Neither I nor anyone else on this side of the door is privy to the purposes of the lives of others, and barely able to grasp the meanings of our own. Still, this observer has recorded no imperfections in our young patient’s life.
Is she comforted thereby? Does she perceive the success of her life? Or does she feel she’s been punished or singled out for “bad luck?” I try to tell her to not fall into those ideas, but to approach the door with an open heart and mind, accepting of the possibilities of immense love on the other side.
Life is a philosophy, as is death, one could surmise. Another philosophical thread might be spun from the question of whether death and life are opposite one another. The observer of, say, a live frog and a dead one can readily note the obvious differences, most specifically that the live one is capable of independent action while the one considered dead, obviously is not… but, are the two states opposite one another? Given that death is the natural end of the limited period called life, it ought not be seen as the opposite of life.
Let’s jump up a level in our contemplations. Philosophy implies belief and wouldn’t exist without it. Truth being immutable and untethered to belief, the death of, say a frog, leaving a dead, stiff carcass, is subject to only one belief: the formerly live frog has ceased the stage we call “life” and now exists in a state we call “death.” There isn’t any room for conflicting descriptions of the change of condition or, for the rational, conflicting meanings of the change, as well. Humans, however, are immersed in a sea of philosophies and, in the presence of a large smattering of scientific knowledge, our philosophies are concentrated upon – if not entirely concerned with – life and death… of humans. We believe humans are unique for whatever reasons and philosophy enables our explaining those beliefs.
One might distill that fact into simpler terms: philosophies are based on how to create life, how to live and on how to die. Too simple? Let’s consider a few. The most widely known are religious, the fire that has forged most of our beliefs: marriage, rearing of offspring, educating them and launching them into marriage, conducting our personal lives, dealing with crime and anger and unfairness and injustice, meeting our obligations to others, and being honest and honorable and fulfilling our duties… and how to worship our creator and perhaps other gods. Every religious belief structure includes dietary and sexual laws, ways to punish and ways to exact revenge, as it were… or avoid it. Structures of belief.
There are philosophers who explain the meanings of our beliefs, of our lives, our emotions and our hatreds. They try to explain why religions are complete or incomplete, why life has meaning or it doesn’t; they rationalize failure, success, happiness and depression, loneliness, gregariousness, hygiene and filth. Philosophers have, and will again, endeavor to explain industry, work, laziness and entertainment… even complete nihilism and the need for suicide. In a way, they are all explanations or understandings (opinions) about creating, living and ending life… of humans, mainly.
Humans build things. There’s a philosophy about this need to construct more than is necessary for basic shelter and safety. Humans invent ways to grow more than enough food – then we eat it all. There are philosophers trying to explain why we eat more than we need, even if it hurts us. The same is true about alcohol, drugs, tobacco, coffee and chocolate. Why are these things so important to humans? How is it that we can abuse one another and even children? People try to think about and reason about, explain and understand these odd behaviors. What do they mean?
Much of religious thought / philosophy is about the end of life and the existence or absence of a soul living in the spiritual self of every human. The majority of humans alive today believe to some degree that there are rewards or punishments awaiting them after death. It feels Prudent to consider those possibilities. If we live a rotten life do we, should we, “get into” heaven the same as the most charitable and saintly people we know? Do non-religious people have a last minute choice to win or possibly earn a ticket to heavenly realms? How good a life must one live to be acceptable to get even a decent room in the many mansions of heaven?
Do we have to leave earth, or just life, to get to heaven? What if you aren’t good enough to take up residence in heaven? Do you remain stuck on earth somehow? Or are you wiped from creation, every record and memory, any act of love or anger toward others that you created while alive – just ‘poof’? Gone? The people who run heaven wash their hands of you? Maybe you are parked in a halfway village – or a one-third way or one-quarter way – until there is either a lull in new applications or one of the staff in heaven thinks you can be rehabilitated. These are philosophical questions because each is laden with meaning. For some.
It is possible to drift through, or fight through life without ever thinking of what your actions mean. Philosophically this seems like a sad outcome for years of living, and implies a certain sociopathy: complete disregard for others, something that has to be learned; no one is born that way. Some people, unfortunately, learn a rare but real philosophy of hatred or disregard for others, even in their families. These are they who have a high likelihood of incarceration and other interactions with government agencies. Those interactions, whether with social workers, foster care or special schools, fulfill the philosophies of others.
That is, a large fraction of society believe in government as a better source of decision-making than any family unit or parent. We can see a constant push from these types to remove children from parental influence at ever earlier ages. It reflects the philosophies of socialism which are also anti-religious. At the same time, there are smaller societies where communal child-raising has worked beautifully for centuries, only thanks to a culture supported by shared philosophies toward rights, wrongs and the stages of life. These beliefs are too rare in complex industrialized “societies” like ours. Here and there small “communes,” often religion-based, attempt to maintain cleaner and simpler cultures and child-raising is shared somewhat.
This can practically, and honestly, be done in the United States in only small, restrictive communities, because ever growing fractions of our “multicultural” nation do their best to be as different from our actual heritage and mores as possible. Parents relinquish control of their children for more than brief periods at great risk. Their teachers, counselors and coaches are increasingly likely to believe very different things about what children should believe , learn, memorize or think of the world, than what their parents believe. Those whose philosophy includes greater trust in government(s) than in individuals will tend to separate children intellectually – philosophically – from their parents. These are the ones whose guiding philosophy is that we cannot enjoy a true society until we all accept the “common good” ideals of socialism, and reject all the old ideas and ideals, including that pesky freedom we try to enjoy and pass on to our kids. Religions are an impediment for this type… unless the beliefs they espouse are destructive of the awful principles that formed the United States.
Try to find out the philosophies of your children’s teachers. If they don’t believe what you believe, why let them screw up your kids? Because the government says to?
There are a lot of money-related philosophies, too. Some of these – most of them, actually, are destructive of the lives of ordinary people: the kind that go to work and try to provide for their families and save for retirement. Most of the people who form the backbone of free-enterprise capitalism don’t have money philosophies. Money is simply a tool for negotiating life… which could be a philosophy, but isn’t worth the time. For the ultra-capitalists, worldwide bankers, central bankers, money isn’t money, it’s their lower-than-secular God. They worship the stuff.
Money is not the “root of all evil,” it is the love of money that has that effect. Those international, ultra-wealthy, celebrity and relatively hidden titans of finance, are among the most evil, amoral humans on the planet. The small-business entrepreneur who winds up wealthy is the example to emulate; the financial wizard who earns through speculation and trading and who controls multiple fortunes internationally, is not. While both may cause envy, you will have to forego your moral bases and patriotism to emulate the latter. Prudence is skeptical of entrepreneurs who become extremely wealthy because they are smart, but then decide that they are also wise. These same then try to sway governments or major institutions to follow the wealthy person’s philosophy on how life should be lived. The wisdom of history and heritage, they often deal with as impediments to the “better” or more efficient ways of life, education and freedom from which the oligarch is far removed and insulated by wealth.
There are philosophies of money and wealth that derive from the love of money. They are perceived as entitled control of others, and are divorced from the beautiful chaos of freedom.
Philosophies about human differences are key to civilization. Rarely do philosophies derived from ignorance of “others” include automatic trust or love. A philosophy of tolerance will erode natural distrust and lead to acceptance and then love and trust. One’s philosophy must include belief in a path toward acceptance – the alternative is mental barriers that devolve into hatred. Either philosophy must be taught to offspring.
Can we make laws that require belief in eventual acceptance? No, not successfully. But we can, by trusting citizens self-governed by largely shared philosophies, create a legal structure where acceptance is possible. Our Constitution is the best example of this structure. “e pluribus unum” is the clearest statement of the philosophy of acceptance: “from many, one (people or nation).” Recent failings of American constitutionalism have resulted from the intrusion of alternative philosophies into the fabric of liberty and responsibility, and from the denial of other philosophies, primarily religious.
We must remain vigilant.
Each of us will pass on, but not, Prudence’ philosophy says, like the stiff and lifeless frog. We have an obligation – one we accepted – to leave this plane of existence having lived, loved and served for the benefit of others and thus for the benefit of ourselves. A wise and Prudent soul once observed that “…you get to keep only what you give away.” Only our acts, loves, angers, hatreds go on with us to be judged. That’s a Prudent philosophy. The United States of America provides unmatched opportunities to live in ways of which we might be proud.
The most powerful organ in the body is not the heart, or the liver, or even the descending bowel! Athletes might think the greatest power is in the “glutes” or the femoris and adductors. In obese America even the stomach is way behind the greatest organ.
The organ we’re describing is the source of the greatest hatreds in the world. It moves armies and populations to hatred and dehumanization of outside groups, so that they might be bombed and killed without conscience. It is so powerful that it can change the meanings of words to the degree that murder is no longer murder and crimes are now “rights.”
The most powerful organ is the MOUTH! I know, right?
The most comforting words of love and compassion can issue from a mouth connected to one’s heart – a phenomenally useful combination. These can lead to love between friends… and even between strangers. They can lead to procreation and great parenting, recognition of strengths in others and acknowledgement of heroism. They can educate in great principles and improve one’s society, culture and public good.
The mouth is fairly close to the brain. This doesn’t always mean there’s a connection, however. A mouth can spew corrosive vitriol directly at people we love, even to the point of destruction of marriages, families, companies and governments. Mouths sometimes, well… run off at the mouth, so to speak. Friends of the mouth’s host will then ask, “What on Earth were you thinking?”
Nothing, probably. Recently, for example, that great philosopher, Madonna Louise Ciccone, proclaimed for as large an audience as she could find, that she had thought about blowing up the White House (based, apparently, on its legal resident). One would hope that her mouth had spewed with no forethought, but she claims there was some. She should know, no?
World-famous deep thinker, Stephen Colbert, said on broadcast TV that the mouth of the president of the United States was good only for holding the penis of the president of the Russian Federation. That was scripted, evidently, and probably practiced, but it still is not evidence of a connection between the Colbert’s mouth and his brain… hmmnn, unless, Lordy, maybe it is!
I wonder if that is where the term, “Full of(euphemism for turd)” came from?
Social media provide ways to “speak” by typing, and those who enjoy the process seem to act as though typing out text makes one an “author” or some sort of “journalist” and not a “speaker.” Verbal crap that people – most people – would never say face to face, might be magically insulated by virtue of social-medium “publication.” This is proof that there is often no more brain-connection to peoples’ hands than to their mouths.
This is true for Presidents and paupers, liberals and conservatives. One need only be able to discern unfounded – or unbounded – hatred in texted speech, as opposed to reasoned criticism, to gauge the connection of brains to much of modern “speech.”
