OK, I've had enough time on other projects to forget about the first draft. Now that I can read it with fresher eyes the second draft will begin. Some bits could be cut, new chapters could be added, who knows? Not me, that's for sure. It is still a lump of clay, the moulding will begin now but there will be later drafts. I prefer to let the project grow organically until I know all the ideas are in, then the final shaping begins. But until then, stay tuned for draft two!
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A common theme in today’s teens is the feeling of powerlessness. This isn’t a “defect” of the young people but rather a bi-product of the toxic culture we were all born into. From very little we are inundated with images of death. Children’s fairy tales start them off with many orphans and wicked characters - often family members - and so it goes on. From cradle to grave we are never allowed to forget about our own mortality and just enjoy life. Combine that with a frightening global economy where “losers” have nothing - no food, shelter, health care, love… and what do you see? The foundations of our youth (the security of family love) are being undermined with constant reminders of death and the “bigger world” they move towards in adulthood is cold to the point of needless cruelty. On top of this terrible dynamic our teens are told that the very planet they need to live on is dying and with it all the animals they love so much will die and suffer too. They often fixate on finding love (very sensible) and yet are again reminded in movies, magazines and songs about cheating, infidelity and the objectification of both genders. Then we (the adults) wonder why teens are increasingly disillusioned and suffering from mental health issues - really?
So, dear teen reader, let’s see what you can do to help yourself in this situation. You can’t untell yourself all the stories you learned as a kid, you too are part of this culture (as am I) - but you can refuse to tell them to your future kids, maybe write some better stories yourself, kids love stories! Then, as said in chapter one, protect yourself from overload of the “death and fear” industry (the news). This media exists to make you feel vulnerable/unsafe even if your society is very safe - people in this state don’t think about the “big picture” at all. They become fearful for their safety, using their primitive brain more and become increasingly selfish (survival of the fittest mode) and their intelligence drops (gravitating toward group thinking instead of as an individual). This mode goes into overdrive once people have children, it is our strongest natural instinct to protect our own kids; then all the craziness on “the news” keeps us hopping from one irrelevant topic “du jour” to the next. The adults leading the youth are too often tired and insecure in their personal relationships (look which celebrity is having an affair!), they are scared of not having enough money for their family, they feel taken for granted, they barely have enough brain left to absorb what the media tells them to think. But there is an alternative way to be, it’s a bit radical by current standards, but given how tightly controlled our societal norms are, what isn’t? Let’s pretend you stopped watching the media, sure you miss a few things, but not much changes otherwise. You listen to your favourite music (with no adverts) and experiment with trying out jazz, blues, reggae etc… Instead of living under a cloud of fear and anxiety you notice the little things more - how nice the weather is, how much you really do love your family. Without the constant “input” it is far simpler to realise that all the debates in the global media are pointless. We can take a look at a few of things you are supposed to be most anxious about now and see how hyped up they are. The biggest ticket item on the planet’s global stage is climate change. Everyone it seems has picked a “camp.” You are either passionately a “yes” or a “no.” If you are in the yes camp and believe climate change is true then what do we need to do? We need to cut pollution, stop being so wasteful, move on with green technology, take care of the ecosystems of the planet. If you are in the no camp, what do we need to do? You aren’t sure? Should we stop polluting the air, sea and land? Should be protect the ecosystems we ultimately depend on? Should we protect the genetic diversity we depend on? Do you want pristine habitats protected? Yes? Well then, both camps are agreed and the “debate” is a pointless distraction from what we should be doing - looking after the ecosystems and genetic diversity. Only people who want a healthy planet for future generations and a healthy current global population should be in charge of anything. If all they want to do is line their pockets they aren’t fit to run a corner store let alone a planet. The entire global warming debate is a pointless waste of time, the biggest distraction we have ever seen in peacetime and the distractions don’t stop there. Whatever your personal prejudices are there is a “debate” for you. Are you secretly bitter toward the other gender, let’s do men vs women! Are you a closet racist? Let’s talk immigration and national pride! Are you zenophobic? We can hate entire religions based on the actions of a few given the right debating angle. Are you an elitist? Are you a luddite? Are you an entrepreneur or a company worker? Are you a socialist or a conservative? Democrat or republican? Are you for abortion or against? Did you ever form an opinion for yourself or are you recycling hateful garbage instead of listening to what both sides have to say and forming your own independent thought? Have you ever thought in a debate that both sides raised good points and set about finding a new position based on the best of both? Have you ever wondered why our societies and cultures are so consumed with “middle class worries”? Did we ever make it out of the spectator stands of ancient Rome, or are we still there, gawking foolishly at the spectacles paraded in front of us? Are we in a state of merely reacting to disasters, and in between them rolling from one “sparkly” attention grabbing thing to another, instead of proactively seeking how to improve life on earth for everyone? The climate change debate and all the other pointless debates are there to stop us asking the really important questions - about how come we are all still allowing the same banking families to dictate how billions of people live and die in their world of artificial scarcity and rigged money system. We have enough food for nine billion and there are only seven billion. While we debate every little thing, billions go hungry, starve to death, die of easily treatable diseases. Is it because these precious people have no economic importance? Really? We humans aren’t naturally this brutal as a species - for evidence of that think of all the people you really know, not what you see on television. Look at what is really going on - the more brutal the lives of others around the globe, the more the folks in the west are both highly entertained, kept insecure about their physical appearance, scared of their personal financial positions and terrified by the global news. So instead of feeding people around the world the developed nations make ever more deadly weapons, stockpile food they don't to eat, secure the borders and spy on people at home and abroad. In all this chaos we behave less like a sentient species and more like a virus - but we aren’t one. We are intelligent, we are caring, we are kind and thoughtful. We are capable of great personal sacrifice to bring about the right outcomes, we are noble and brave. We are a brilliant species. So why are we acting so dumb? Fear makes us dumb, insecurity makes us dumb, artificial scarcity of resources makes us dumb, wrote learning (victorian education system still being used with fear tactics) makes us dumb, stress makes us dumb, vanity makes us dumb, greed makes us dumb… How do we change? Cut out the things that make us that way. What are those things? If you’ve been reading this book in order you already know. Shake off that powerless feeling, awakened minds are powerful, they don’t get kicked about. They say “No,” “I won’t” and “shan’t.” They are the lifeblood of a free and prosperous world, they are humanist and they understand/respect the importance of a loving God to most people (even if they don't believe in one). Now let’s move on to the next chapter - looking at how to build strong personal relationships that last a lifetime in a “disposable” world. When we find that person we were destined to fall in love with, we should all know how to keep that love alive and burning bright. Chapter One (first draft/book for teens) - You are Great - It's Global Culture that is Toxic5/12/2015 "I wish she (Susan) would grow up. She wasted all of her school time wanting to be the age
she is now, and she'll waste all of the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time in one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can." - The Last Battle C.S. Lewis (p.168, End of Chapter 12) There are billions of dollars resting on you being insecure and vain, sorry, there are. My generation went to school like yours are doing right now - eyes on the prize of some highly paid career if you’re lucky. Some of us became doctors, some bankers, some psychologists, some advertisers, some car mechanics, some teachers etc… Now your generation are encouraged to make all the same choices. In this pattern nothing changes. We continue to kill the planet by damaging ecosystems and disrespecting natural genetic diversity. If you follow the same path as us (generation X) then some of you will learn how to trick your future children (and grandchildren) into feeling so bad about themselves that they will addictively buy products they don’t need even though they know that over-consumerism is bad for our planet. These children will feel empty on the inside since the adults in their lives are very likely spending so much time earning money that they have spent their lives being passed from one professional caregiver to another - a nanny if you are well off, corporate daycare if you’re not. They will be twice disadvantaged (as many of you are) in having a weak emotional base from “professional” care instead of love from a parent and being advertised at ever since they could focus on a two dimensional image and comprehend language. They will be easy for corporations to direct, easy for governments to control, living fodder for the global “economy.” To save your future children you must first save yourselves, and that is what this book can help you with, all you need to do is keep reading. If we go back to a time before television the most beautiful person you know in your close circle of friends would be the most you ever felt like you had to “compete” against. They would most likely be the size of a regular person in your society just with more symmetrical features than the average person. There wouldn’t be many of them and likely being pretty would not be a significant advantage. Fragile and emaciated people would not be good at most tasks that needed doing, in fact, they would appear sickly and thus unattractive. The sexier folk would be the more robust ones - for both genders. So how would you get from that society to the one we have now? Let’s see. For rich folk being less robust would not be a problem. A well-to-do man could take a small petite wife and not worry about his sons not being able to do the farm work. Soon, such a wife would be a status symbol (trophy wife). Whatever rich people have is quickly desirable. That’s why in suburbia we all have grass lawns, once upon a time they were a symbol of excess resources and time, likely a paid gardener. The same goes for white folks wanting a sun tan - tans were a symbol of those who could afford foreign vacations. Simply put, individuals in a population want to stand out in their local group as successful to enhance their breeding prospects (sorry, basic biology). This is just one of the known facts of human psychology that is abused by the advertising industry. One problem you have as a teen is that for anyone with internet access or a television set you aren’t comparing yourself to fifty people in a village anymore - it’s whoever is paraded in front of you to loosen your purse strings. The average girl isn’t pretty enough to make enough of the population insecure, so who are our beauty yard-sticks? Supermodels and actresses, people starving themselves into the same clothing sizes as pre-pubescent girls and so facially symmetrical as to be freakishly attractive in any population. Just seeing them occasionally wouldn’t be enough either, human minds are quite resilient, to be affected you need to see the faces the beauty industry knows 98% of females can’t compete with daily - they must be in the vast majority of television shows, adverts and music videos. They are selected and paid vast sums of money to “entertain” us. Why? Because billions of dollars and an important form of population control ride on us sucking it up, enjoying it even, defending it, wanting it like a heroin addict wants their poison. It isn’t easy to get resistant to the media, but when you do those shows you used to love, those adverts you used to let slip into your head (building brand awareness) will irritate you. I’m not saying don’t try to be healthy, do try, but when you stop allowing the beauty industry to make you feel bad about yourself you will make choices for the right reasons instead of the wrong one (insecurity and low self-esteem). When all that rubbish isn’t filling your head you may discover walking, cycling, swimming, gardening, looking after the neighbour’s dog - who knows what? Building a resistance to the media isn’t as simple as just being aware of what they do. Most people are aware of it to a degree and it still controls their behaviour like good little “commercial zombies.” Try cutting adverts out of your life as much as possible for a week or more (the longer the better). See if you can cut out all television, radio, magazines… take a vacation from the dominant global “culture” because it isn’t a culture at all - it is how the corporations prey on you, get inside your head, make you feel crappy so they can redirect your behaviour toward a purchasing of their product. By stepping away you can reclaim your own mind, get to know the real you and what makes you tick. Is it saving the whales? Is it planting trees? Is it raising money for sick kids? Start to feel great about who you are on the inside - without all that nonsense streaming in you will form opinions of your own. You are a wonderful person, I know it, it’s time you knew too. The take way ideas from Chapter One - The beauty industry (includes fashion, cosmetics etc) deliberately harms the mental health of young people, especially girls, to make profits. To build resistance to this harm you need to step away from all forms of media for as long as you can - news, adverts, movies, magazines, computer games, social media - and when you start to feel better (it comes after the boredom stage!) you'll naturally find things you enjoy doing, things that make you feel good about yourself. ***This book will start a bit slowly, I have a few things going on right now, but I will keep coming back to it! ***
As an adolescent today, you are raised to chase money. Perhaps your folks have a social goal in mind for you also, but from the time you are deemed an adult you must spend much of your focus on the acquisition of money and then the converting of any leftover money into a more tangible form of wealth - some form of property. Our teens are told an array of confusing and often opposing ideas, not given the mental tools to deal with them, advertised at without mercy with clever campaigns designed by psychologists, brought into the culturally “correct” way to think by the dominant culture in their society and herded into the same type of life that so ill-suited the older generations. In a world of rising teen suicide, war rhetoric and ecosystems under threat, it’s time someone helped the teens out with how to unpack the array of confusing information in the world and make more progress than their elders did. It isn’t at all hard to see why the world is in such a mess and if we don’t learn from previous eras - the islamic golden era, the Italian renaissance and the enlightenment period - our global societies will deteriorate and the measures already in place for population control will become more authoritarian while we tweet about celebrities and wonder if we really are too fat. Part of the problem with our modern society is that we are rapidly losing track of what is real and what is not, and unless you understand these relatively simple ideas we are all destined to go on repeating the same mistakes - destroying the ecosystems of the planet we depend on and allowing billions to go hungry when there is enough food for all. If I go into any bank today in my home city of Vancouver and ask for a loan of thirty thousand dollars they will check my credit worthiness, type the numbers into a computer and “poof” the money will then exist. I will owe this newly invented money back to the bank with interest even though it was never theirs. It is important to stress that this money did not exist before, but once the loan is made, it does and it must be paid back. If I go into a small local store and ask for thirty thousand potatoes they won’t have them, they can’t just type the numbers into a computer and “poof” have thirty thousand potatoes. That’s because potatoes are real and money is not. We can represent it with notes and coins but money is a fictitious system, or game, with complicated rules called “economics.” The inventors of the system understood very well what they were doing but believed that those who knew how rigged and corrupt it was would never blow the whistle - why do you think bankers are paid so much? Long ago in London, England, the Rothschilds were founders of the banking system the world is still shackled to today through the financial markets.This is what they said back then: “The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from its profits or so dependant on its favours, that there will be no opposition from that class.” - Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863. “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws” - Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild Once this is understood the entire notion of “third world debt” can be seen for the sham it is. There is no such thing as money, so there is no such thing as debt. To keep our eyes off this one central idea that controls us all, keeps billions in hunger and the elites at the top, we have western societies based on narcissistic principles - facebook/twitter/beauty industry/movies. In addition to the thought diversions we have fear on the media or “The News” - a nasty collection of the most vile stories from around the world delivered by coiffured and pampered presenters, spliced with nonsense stories. This is not a society engineered to enlighten, but one designed to decrease the intelligence of the generation that should be demanding better - the young people. Every generation that comes wants to change the world as teens and then fails as the world gets worse the distractions become more “all encompassing.” In my generation (around forty years old) almost no-one thinks beyond the vapid tid-bits offered up by interest groups. They repeat arguments seen on Facebook, forwarding them, promoting them and then drop the idea. After all, with work, the kids, a mortgage, buying food, buying clothes, social media etc, where is the time for real thought? Isn’t philosophy something boring those ancient Greeks did? - And that’s how entire generations are subdued and controlled and it will happen to you too unless you start to think. That is what this book is for (and the first book on the blog - Are You Awake Yet?) Awakened minds are powerful, they are hard to distract, they awaken other minds and sow the seeds for a new period of enlightenment. No-one needs revolution - but an evolution of our societies with progressive humanistic principles that don’t threaten anyone’s faith and use ideas like “virtuous cycles” to improve every system - now that’s something we all need. We have enough food for two billion more people than we have, so why is there hunger? Fear is damaging to our intellectual and emotional health, so why are we constantly drinking it in in the media? Why does the globe allow the artificial system of “economics” to bully developing nations? If we stopped using money and instead simply cooperated for the good of each other and our planet we’d be just fine. This isn’t the middle ages anymore. Why don’t we learn from the golden periods in history to see what they did right? Typically they were tolerant of the religion of others and humanist in their secular thought. They esteemed knowledge and learning - the “celebrities” of the golden era of Islam were the scholars. They had hospitals that treated everyone the same, regardless of their ability to pay, including foreigners - can we say our societies are better than that? Human societies do best with a separation between religion and other forms of learning but keeping a respect for the spiritual aspects of life. Too much secularism will lead to a backlash, religion becoming too dominant ends periods of enlightenment and learning. Just like the human body itself, a healthy society is balanced in respectful ways - not warring at every level like we are. We have men vs women, old vs young, country vs city, faith vs secular, religion X vs religion Y, poor vs rich, art vs science, left politics vs right politics, nation X vs nation Y. Chapter by chapter I will show why none of these debates matter and why even the notion of “debate” needs remodelling into something that allows each side to learn from the other and show respect rather than fighting to “win.” What is it they “win”? Superiority? An inflated personal ego? *** This is just one for fun, it doesn't "fit" with the rest of the site - a darker piece, but here it is anyway. I'm still spring cleaning my house but went to a coffee shop last night and of course, for me sitting still means a new story starts. This one is nothing to do with the new book, it arrived like a daydream. It was written as chunks not in sequential order so I'll tidy it up later, make it flow better.***
The coolness of the early morning is deceptive; the sun has barely risen and this altitude is always cooler. My destination is low down and deep into the interior, well away from the onshore winds. When I get there the heat of that region will make my kitchen on baking day seem like a friendly warmth instead of the inferno it always is. So when I see the bus pull in, an old model with worse suspension than a homemade pram, my heart sinks. Once the temperatures spikes that tin can's gonna stink worse than a half-time locker room. Then some infant will puke and and old man will puff on some homemade blend of tobacco. These buses have one rule – sit down and keep your mouth shut or get off. Well, that is the rule unless you have more brawn than the driver, then you can say whatever the hell you like. That's not me though, skinny girls like me sit and try to blend into the never washed seats with faces pointed at the window and never catching anyones eye. If I can manage to look sickly so much the better... no-one wants to get sick where we're going... no doctors, no hospitals, and no police that isn't bought and paid for by the local mobsters. The bus stops, the driver pulls the doors open by hand and stands to take the money – crinkled notes and pockets of coin. I spy the tires, bald. The paintwork is barely a hint of white under the the thick red dust of the region. The windscreen has only a section clear to see through, the rest is baked on dirt. This clanker is older than the driver and he looks like he's living on borrowed time too. He's no bouncer that's for sure; time to pull my hood right over my head. Mamma begged me not to go this year, but she knows I must, every year to the same spot with a single rose that lies wrapped in damp cloth in my shoulder bag. The countryside passes like a bad movie I've seen too many times before. I can't think how long I've been on this bus. We left the monotony of the highway behind a long time ago and now the heat and the bumps of these unmade roads are lulling me into an uneasy sleep. My thoughts become random, crazy really, sometimes faces from last week and sometimes bizarre like a marvel movie. But never comes the face I want to see, Caspian, my brother. His face comes only in deepest dreams, handsome as ever, laughing, teasing, eating all the chicken and holding a drumstick over my head. I'm glad the I don't dream of him now though, because that dream always ends in the same nightmare. But unlike everyone else I know, when I wake I remember that my nightmare was both real and worse than the fragmented reenactment my brain offers . Instead of relief on waking I get the trauma made fresh and raw. I get to see Caspian screaming at me to run as he pulled an inadequate eight inch blade from his faded jeans. How grown up he'd seemed at seventeen, how young that seems now. But no matter how many times the nightmare comes, I welcome it the next time again, hope for it even... because the beginning is the only time I will ever be with him, hear his laughter and bask in the warmth of smile I took for granted every single day of the short time I had a brother. Then from the back of the bus comes a wail from a kid, not that I care. It's amazing the things you can shut out on a long trek like this. Things that would drive you crazy on a two hour trip are just expected on an all day journey – of course kids are going to cry, of course someone will throw up, of course someone will smoke something pungent and acrid. That's the way it is, twelve hours in a wheeled can with these human shaped beings who don't care if my next breath is my last and no Caspian, not ever again. ***The story isn't complete, this next bit is after the bus has arrived and she's walking *** Each year I wear the same shoes just for this journey. Once white they are now rusty brown with dust and the soles are as worn as my own. The laces trail on the ground, over-long as they are and frayed like some old goat-tether. With each step I watch the lace flop in its random pattern, random and predictable at the same time. I alter each footfall just a little to watch the effect, anything to not think about where I'm heading, where I will be when there are no more steps to take... I'm sure behind me are soft prints in the dust, slight movements of grit and stone that prove I am really here on this path... but I walk this path every night when I close my eyes and part of me thinks I am still in my bed with the regular chores waiting for me – fetch the water, grind the grains, bake the bread. The smells are making it real though, this dust has an aroma of its own and it transports me back to childhood so fast I think if I do look back the imprints of my slow steps will be too small for the adult I am now and too light for the woman I have become. I know my journey is coming to an end when the warehouse is in front of me. I should have expected it. The houses gave way to empty barren road a full twenty minutes ago and the verge became more of a junkyard than the junkyard. The old machinery lines the road covered in dirt and scavenged into skeletons of whatever they were. I force my mind back into the present so I can take in its form. Still it has the curved roof like an aircraft hanger and the walls are corrugated tin. The broken tarmac around it is empty except for a forklift – it must be in use again, just like it was all those years ago. There is something new this year, a chain-link fence surrounds it. I don't care though, there isn't anything that would keep me out, it's just a matter of time before I am within the walls. It's not as brave as it sounds though, at this hour of day everyone is sleeping somewhere cool, even the thieves – so the chance of there being some guard on duty is pretty much nil. ***I haven't written the part of how she gets into the warehouse yet, this last bit is actually the first bit of the story I wrote*** The hessian sacks are dusty; in the total heat that bakes me from the inside out I can taste it. In any humidity I would be dripping with sweat, soaked like I'd just jumped in the lake at our old summer house, but in this utter dryness I'm desiccating just to exhale. Perhaps you'd think I don't want to be here, in a heat more oppressive than our new government - how quickly the revolutionaries take to the sweetness of power. But you'd be wrong. I've travelled all day to this very spot. Thirty years ago Caspian stood here, Caspian, my brother. This is where he told the gang they couldn't have his sister and told me to run fast and not look back. I don't know how long he lasted, how long they made him last, but there was very little left to bury. So here I stand with a limp white rose in my hand. I close my eyes, reach out with the flower that is already loosing petals and will him to come out of the darkness and take it. I want to open my eyes to see his black hair hanging over his left eye like it always did, I want to see the half smile he used when he teased me about being short and skinny. Most of all I want to go back in time and make my stand with Caspian, die with him instead of living without a heart beating in my chest. Now though... now there is no choice at all. He died so I could live, so live I must. Still with eyes shut I release my grasp on the stem that already feels like week old asparagus. Just for a fleeting moment I think I can hear my name called in his newly dropped voice, echoing softly and I feel the composure I have built up over the past week evaporate. My face buckles like some kid being left at daycare for the first time, my arms move up and down on their own in jagged moments and my legs refuse to hold my weight. Now the hessian sacks press into my face leaving their weave in my skin, an imprint of yesteryear, an impartial witness to my utter undoing... Alas, no writing this week! I need to spring clean my house... could take longer than a week, we'll see... :(
***My writing is again changing, I'm am now moving in the direction of writing a self help book for teens so that they can be confident and have a real voice in our chaotic world. It doesn't have to be this way and I can show them how to make a real difference instead of repeating the mistakes of my generation.***
When we teach children and teens to think in critical ways we move right to the "debating" model without thinking about what the model itself teaches. Debate is a system where by each side picks a "camp" and wants to "win." What is the result? A "civilized argument" (or not) where no progress is made to a solution. Why? Because each side wants to win and so has to "defend it's intellectual turf." I say this model is damaging to society and this is why... We carry on this debate style into politics and personal relationships. We go on through life picking sides, but worse than that, our "side" is often predetermined by our "camp." Are you left or right? Are you male or female? Are you this faith or that? The whole notion of debate is so antagonistic most people simply walk away, find a camp and stay there. But why is this a problem? I'll tell you... We don't learn from the other side what valid points they have we just shout them down. Let's look at the highly polarized "abortion debate." Is the unborn sacred? Yes. Does a woman have the right to choose? Yes, it's her body. The way forwards is not to make it illegal or picket clinics, but build a society where by babies and women are really cared for. Do that and the abortion clinics will close over night. A woman having an abortion is more like a trapped animal than a person choosing a meal from a menu. It is a choice, but not like people normally use the word. So while we fight or "debate" the issue, no forwards motion is made. While the left and the right fight if it is wrong or right like infants, real infants are suffering. But who cares, right? They have their ego's to think about. The Climate change debate stunts progress on preserving genetic diversity and ecosystems from degradation and pollution. It doesn't matter who is correct, we need to do the same things either way if we want a planet to live on. Debating is killing our societies, our planet, because we don't respect each other enough to listen, really listen, to what the other side has to say. We debate the war on drugs. It's dumb. Of course the drugs are unhealthy, of course making them illegal is a sure-fire way to fund mob bosses and other criminals. We debate poverty and debt of nations when money itself is an artificial construct, a rigged game of monopoly to benefit those who control the money supply and the elites. We could solve world hunger very easily, but where is the profit in that? It's time to end debating and start listening to each other. Perhaps the person opposite you has good reason to say what they are saying.. perhaps their life experience is different to yours. Have you tried listening, understanding and trying to find a common way forwards you can both accept? And I mean really try, because just like having a healthy marriage, peace takes active consideration of the other, it isn't "luck." All arguments are a product of mental rigidity, with a flexible mind a solution can always be found. People always seem to want to be in a "camp" with others around them who share the exact same opinions - it feels "safe" but it is merely a way to keep a rigid thought structure in place. Flexibility comes when you understand your core principles and know what is negotiable. In this way it is possible to find peaceful outcomes.
For instance - 1. All religions come from a sense of "divine love" and the rest of the religion is a construct built on top of that concept, a sort of FAQ for the divine seeker. So from that perspective finding common ground between religions is simple, it's just a matter of uniting the underlying concept of divine love and respecting each other's differences where folks can't "let go" and feel the need to be "safe" inside a degree of mental rigidity. 2. In the case of climate change peace can be found by realizing that the debate is pointless, what we need to do to protect habitats and our ecosystems are the same either way. 3. We accept world wide famine and death from basic diseases when we have enough food/resources to stop both. Mental flexibility quickly finds all the arguments/reasons for non-action are invalid. There is enough food and "money" is a human invented concept - a rigged game of monopoly designed to benefit those who control the money supply. This game induces "artificial scarcity" as we all run about trying to get "rich" in the rigged game rather than doing what humanity needs to do to be a healthy species on a healthy planet. With such mental flexibility that keeps the core principles of many faiths - generosity, charity, forgiveness, grace, humility, honoring others, perseverance, charity, hope, love, fraternity, do no harm etc, anything is possible. Time to shed the shackles of rigid thinking and dream big. Don't be in a "camp" but instead find ways to unite people and bring peaceful resolutions that drive the global story forwards into a future of prosperity and freedom. **This is a good fun piece blending religion and space aliens. I might make this one into a novel later, but I have too many ideas to work on this right now, if anyone wants to collaborate let me know :) **
It had been the law among those who travelled other worlds for an unimportant amount of time (for time had almost no meaning to them) that the fate of a planet could only be decided by the morality of the dominant species. It had long been accepted that the morality of other worlds was irrelevant and could not be applied, when the battle for Earth began it was not with lasers or bombs but with careful argument to the umpire of the universe, a logician who specialized in interspecies conflict resolution. The Creator of Earth was aligned with its spirit, Mother Earth quite naturally, but the opposition told the umpire that she was not in her right mind - that the dominant species were killing her and that for her own good she must be handed over to them for care. They brought up old cases where it had been decided that killing ones homeworld was deemed insane and such a species, left unchecked, would be a curse on the galaxy should it ever work out how to roam. The fleet of rectangular ships carried the aliens of bug origins and they argued as follows. The rules of the dominant species state that more intelligent species may eat less intelligent species, we can help the earth with a cull and then keep the population in check by eating some. We won’t eat them all, it will follow their rules of “farming.” We see how they farm other species so close to them in intelligence it’s hard for us to tell the difference, so we can put them in pens, feed them, eat the young, make the milk into cheese… That is their rules. They believe in exploitation and greed only. On planet earth the ones with the biggest weapons eat and the others starve, we would be improving things for most. For most of these organisms death would be the merciful option. On the circular ships the organisms were sent by the Creator of Earth and their own worlds, they were there to prove that the human species were in fact ruled by the Power of Love and could innately follow His laws. They had to prove that it was the influence of the Bugs that was causing a temporary cultural insanity that was curable. The umpire found more logic with the Bugs than the other side but since the Earth was created by Love, He was awarded the chance to prove His side was correct. The umpire said you can select only one champion of the species and the Bugs must agree on the choice. The Creator selected a male who, without any religious belief, “spoke the language of love like he knew what it meant.” The Bugs stropped, “No,” they said, “This species is more like us, they need a strong queen.” And so the Creator 'reluctantly' selected the mate of his preferred champion and the Bugs agreed with glee. They had run through the fiction of the species and found the females to be weak, narcissistic, greedy and lazy. The Bugs sat back, sure of an easy victory. Even if the female succeeded she would never hand the power back to the male, never. Then either way they won. If she failed to prove she could navigate only by The Power of Love, the Bugs won. If she failed to hand power back to the male and sought to be a queen, the Bugs could either win by claiming she was obeying their rules or demand a rematch. The odds were stacked against the Creator and so he began to cheat (according to the laws of love you can cheat and lie to save those you love, so no laws were broken according to the logician). The Creator went forwards and backwards in time to weave a story to beat the Bug invasion and prove that they were the infection and not the saviours. He found Abraham, one who could hear him clearly, but the Bugs hacked in and almost caused him to kill his own child. Now the Bugs knew that the Creator was cheating and so they began to cheat too, but now it was permitted by the logician who said they could do it under the rules of "fair play." The Bugs knew that His plan involved the Jews and so they set about planting ideas to have them exterminated. It was also possible that the solution could come from their close genetic kin, the Arabs, and so they set about trying to get them eliminated too. The Bugs ran forwards in time to find that it was the First Nations that were the most likely champions of Mother Earth and set about having them destroyed too. The game was so much fun for the Bugs that they swarmed the earth in cloaked ships, hacking and hacking. They promoted greed, promoted money systems, hunger and famine. They promoted the idea of celebrity culture and set about making divisions. They set men and women against each other, they set divinely inspired faiths against one another, they set environmentalists against one another while the ecosystems crashed… Then the Creator appealed to the umpire logician. “You see,” He said, “it was the Bugs all along. These time travel cases are hard to prove but it is them killing My earth, She needs My protection, not theirs.” The umpire agreed but said the fate of the humans was still to be decided by the champion game. The Creator could have Mother Earth, but if the humans no longer obeyed Him and were more like the bugs, then they belonged to the bugs as kith and kin, that was 'logical.' So the game went on. The Champion succeeded, she understood the Power of Love well, as did her man. The Creator went back to the umpire logician. The Logician was set to agree with the Creator and award Him the humans when the Bugs appealed (only one appeal is allowed for each side). “The Creator of Earth has won a single pair, an Adam and Eve. That is in their literature. He does not win the rest of them. They are genetically flawed, we will save their earth by taking the rest of them away. The logician thought it good logic that played by "the rules" but the Creator was not finished. “They all deserve the chance to be saved if they come to the Power of Love to learn and know that Love is not a spoken language but one lived and felt in the heart, mind and soul. Those are the rules of My Creation, by my Son, Jesus Christ, I may offer them salvation even if they have behaved like "bugs."” The logician thought. It was a popular notion in the culture, it was as logical as any other rule and, also, he thought, it was "logical that the others might achieve something similar given their genetic relatedness was very high. The Bugs had been influencing world history since the beginning. The humans were still strong in Love to their offspring for the most part and the vast majority wanted a loving Creator. Their fiction showed great fear of alien bugs and that could easily be taken as evidence of a shared nightmare for their kind." He said, “Stop.” The case of Mother Earth was over. The Logician Umpire had to award one way or the other by law, but this time, because the importance of Earth he made intergalactic legal history. He awarded the care of the Earth to Her Creator and the care of all the species of the planet that were not human from that point onwards. For the humans the logician said that they would decide their own fate. Either they would listen to the Power of Love and be saved by Him, and He would know His own regardless of what “badge” they wore. Either they were strong in the Power of Love or not. The bugs could take the ones regarded by their own species as psychopaths and sociopaths, The Creator, Love, could only keep the others. The Creator knew that the Bugs wouldn’t simply eat their winnings but keep some for breeding and so get non-psychopathic humans to farm and bully. The creator could not bring such an argument to the logician because the notion of likely future crimes was not admissible. The Creator appealed the ruling, His one appeal under the law, He argued that “psychopaths” are simply defective humans that should be isolated from the population while the humans find a “cure” rather than hand them over to the bugs. The logician thought, if all of that logic held, then the true dominant culture (uncorrupted by the bugs) on earth should be the Power of Love and so the Creator of Earth had the right to try to save the defective ones also. That meant the “Bugs” had to leave. The appeal was granted in favour of the Creator. The Bugs had no sooner thought of fighting it out than the Creators fleet became so vast the Bugs could not detect the end of it. Either way The Creator of Earth was going to win, and by the Law of The Power of Love, He was instantly acquitted. The Bugs hailed the Logician Umpire for safe passage to leave but the umpire simply stated, “At this point it is not logical for the Creator of Earth to let you leave. There is no other system in outer-space than logic, neither of you are on your home-worlds.” In the instant the ruling was made the Creators ships opened fire killing the Bug armada. There was no point going to the Bug home-world as the Creator must obey the logician and on the bug home-world they obey their Queen and live in highly logical brutal ways. The Creator sighed. Now either His humans would either learn and take care of Mother Earth or not. It was a gamble but a necessary one to save this Universe. The creator needed a species strong enough in the Power of Love to understand and obey, but with enough grit to fight a battle to the very end without leaving a way for the enemy to regroup and come back. He turned to His humans and said “You must become stronger in love for each other, your fellow animals and Mother Earth. I, the Creator, and thus your only God, must obey the logician, otherwise it is not logical to permit Me in this system, but you don’t. You have been granted free will to choose your own fate, a part of the ruling that was never overturned. Thus you must only obey the logic system called 'The Power of Love' to be safe with Me. If you ever find the Bugs remember it is 'End the Game,' not 'Enders Game.' By the Power of Love you can do anything to keep those you love safe, so love everyone, your fellow animals and your Mother Earth. Then you will truly be free - the rules of Love are the only ones you can't break. So if you find their queen, you’ll know what to do. And I believe the logician will find all this quite logical. And this is my proof to the power over the logician that creativity wins over logic in this system, mind over matter, and that is how a God beats a logician, takes back the universe and wins. Now I am the only "Umpire" and judge (guess who's side I'm on, haha). I won, I am the only God. I am Love. Enjoy your lives because it is your destiny to win this universe for Me, for Love. Your future is brilliant if you really live by My rules. Creativity is more important than logic, but logic has its place. The Power of Love is the only thing you are fighting for, the only thing you should adore, and that is Me. I suggest you have a party and some beers before you get to work on saving your ecosystems, eradicating world hunger, curing diseases and designing spacecraft. If I solved the whole thing for you what would you do with yourselves? Really?" Dear Children of the Soil,
I love the Creator too, He is the one who brought me into being. You though are not only children of His spirit, you are mine also. You have a Heavenly Father and a Mother Earth. Why don't you love me too? Why do you worship concrete so much? Why are you so content to let me die? Why are you letting most of your own species suffer too, who is winning? You are killing me faster than He can heal me, you pollute me in every way you can - by ocean, sky and land. You chase around after a wealth neither of us gave you. Gold is only a shiny yellow metal and money - I don't understand at all. What is it? Is it worth killing me, your mother planet, over? Where will you go children? Where will you go? Do you dream of other worlds in the stars? Do you dream of eeking out life on some barren rock with lakes of poison surrounded by technology? Should you find this other world your hearts will still be broken, broken beyond repair. No species can ever recover after killing its home world, its mother. To do so is spiritual suicide, you love me, as I love you. Abuse isn't love though and you abuse me with your lust for material wealth you do not need. You live in fear on a planet so achingly beautiful that there is no other like me. I am the best He ever made, you are supposed to be the finest species but you have a cultural insanity we are trying to cure. Children of the soil you need clean water, healthy soils and diverse crops. Your fellow species are also my children, they need habitats too. You were never supposed to be greedy like this, you were suppose to respect the spirits of all. Life is sacred, ecosystems are sacred, even you - killing me though you are - are sacred. There once was a culture who loved me as well as the creator, they knew us both. Other cultures have abused them even worse than you have abused me. They are my children and I love them most. Please listen to them, they know things you do not. As sung by Bob Marley: "Preacherman don't tell me, Heaven is under the earth, I know you don't know, What life is really worth. It's not all that glitters is gold; 'Alf the story has never been told: So now you see the light, eh! Stand up for your rights. Come on! Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights! Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights! Love always, Mother Earth |
About DaisyI'm a Vancouver writer. I live with my husband, our three wonderful children and two dogs. I strive to inspire, spread Love and increase hope. Archives
April 2016
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