Someone asked me the other day, when did i think ISIS would bomb the US.
Is this how far gone we are?
Is our lives and hopes and dreams been reduced to squandering our time watching the News and living in fear that the gun toting, tea partying, radical liberals, ultra conservatives, Muslim Judea Christian fanatical teenage rampaging threat will come down up us and the end will come to all we think we have held as dear and important to our lives?
So that was a long sentence.
Or to be brief: "Has the world gone mad?"
The answer I have is, a simple no.
No, the world is no worse than it has ever been. It is somewhat better, if one stops to consider that the miracle of life and humankind is our ability to not be violent, hateful, apathetic creatures capable of mass murder and pitiless cruelty.
That's what I choose to focus on.
Humankind is historically, a savage and selfish race of beings who often finds it easier to kill, hate and fear the entirety of Creation.
I see the birth of Jesus as a sign that the Creator/Universe decided that we were actually worth bothering with us.
The truth for me is that anyone of us is capable of becoming more than just the base being that is ruled by overpowering emotional instability and jump to conclusions decision making that drives us to do the very horrible things that scare the bejeezers out of my young friend. The miracle of belief is one thing that sets us apart from all of it.
I think the one boon and curse that America had was a reprieve from the world when we were mostly isolationists back in the late 1800s-early 1900s. I mean America was still involved with some of the world, but Americans at large, were nearly completely ignorant of how bad things were. It gave Americans this amazing resilience as we tromped into two World Wars. Then international interference (that was us believing that we knew how everyone should live) and war correspondence- which grew into this amazing form of journalism started the change.
The disappointing result of all this good intention is that Americans as a whole were not welcomed and we quickly wore out our welcome, becoming seen as interlopers, intruders and mostly an annoyance. An annoyance with the most power weapons on earth.
Americans became arrogant and egotistical ('we saved the world") at least- in perception and at best- in reception. Even our allies, stopped thinking of us as this desirable group of self-sacrificing people intent on making the world a better place.
Let me just stop and state that I am speaking from the benefit of broad experience and observation of decades. There were and might even be, are, places that still see America as heroic, self-effacing do-gooders, but they are few because like the rest of humanity, our good intentions and accomplishments are all too often over shadowed and overrun by the worst of what the few do for themselves.
The Quiet American (book/movies) is a perfect example of this.
The saddest loss was that out of the war correspondence/new journalism, our modern media grew into its own right and for several decades shown with its own integrity and accomplishments of truth and knowledge. However, I speak more of how the average American took all this news about our chaotic and tumultuous planet.
Pretty much from the get go out of Korea (following on the heels of victory in WWII) we-as Americans, learned what it was to be afraid. We learned to fear the Red Menace of Communism with its nefarious rise to power and popularity on a global scale.
We watched it's demise decades later, in many ways it is all but extinct.
Did we get a reprieve?
Yes, Berlin wall came down. We celebrated with the world, but we left the party early.
There were rogue nuclear powers and equipment to fear.
It didn't matter, really, the news/media/US world power had found plenty of other threats to scare Americans with by then.
Fast forward (through a ton of triumphs and tragedies) to the present where it's now the Muslim Threat and by Muslim I mean the misguided perception that it's a "Muslim" threat that really has little to do with Islam at all.
I think it is more with the idea that Americans have always been afraid of the world -at large.
The older I get, the more I feel this way and wonder if there was truly ever a time when we (a very young country) were not afraid of the world. In the beginning as Colonies we were constantly threatened by Global powers of the day. It's kind of Miraculous and fortuitous that none of them got determined enough to take us down.
One factor was that it took a long while in the terms of global expansionism for Americans to discover the elements that would normally lead to invasion and subjugation of a land/people. By that point, we were enough of a global power to partake along with the other powers in the subjugation of other less protected countries.
Still, I put this down to pure luck and a total lack of global media.
So, where does that leave us.
My answer is not good. In the broad strokes of History and Art, we are a nation of fearful people who react more than act. Our policies are insane and we cower (as a whole) under the immanent threat of the ever present invisible enemies of which many of them we made or invented.
The media has devolved into a fear-based entertainment/preoccupation disaster that will generate new and old things to fear on a hourly basis.
If, by some miracle, humans stop killing each other and even threatening to kill each other, the media focuses on the weather, geology, pollution, or a rogue asteroid to keep up our addiction to being terrified of the invisible threat that no one (mostly everyone) cannot see.
Which brings me back to ISIS invading us from Mexico.
Not Canada. (sorry Canada- no one ever gives you guys any credit as a threat)
I shall now quote one of my favorite movies:
Fran: *How* is it different? You're just like the rest of them! You think you're different, but you're not, because you're just, you're just really scared! You're really scared to give someone new a go, because you think, you know, they might just be better than you are! Well, you're just pathetic, and you're gutless. You're a gutless wonder! Vivir con miedo, es como vivir a medias!
Fran: A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
These are from a movie called Strictly ballroom. The quote; "Vivir con miedo, es como vivir a medias!" has stayed with me since I first saw this movie.
I recognized this same fear within myself since I have lived over half of my 45 years in fear. Fear of nuclear war dominates much of it- although I had plenty of other fears that rode side saddle to that one. I have since stopped being afraid or at least, stopped allowing my fears to rule and determine my life. I want to live, hell I want to dance!
So, let ISIS come (which I doubt they will).
Let Mexico stand up and say that ISIS be damned and the media be damned along with them.
Turn off Fox and CNN and the rest, go find the Truth for yourselves- it is out there.
Stop and realize the world at its very, very worst is still better than it has ever been. Maybe not for some single country but overall more people know peace and happiness than ever before 9this is partly true because there's a helluva lot more people).
Then the wonderful idea might hit you like it hit me.
There is actually enough of us, and by us I mean dreamers, to change the world.
All it takes, is living your life without fear.
I believe that it can be done.
I am going to try
and that is my life according to Mike.
Is this how far gone we are?
Is our lives and hopes and dreams been reduced to squandering our time watching the News and living in fear that the gun toting, tea partying, radical liberals, ultra conservatives, Muslim Judea Christian fanatical teenage rampaging threat will come down up us and the end will come to all we think we have held as dear and important to our lives?
So that was a long sentence.
Or to be brief: "Has the world gone mad?"
The answer I have is, a simple no.
No, the world is no worse than it has ever been. It is somewhat better, if one stops to consider that the miracle of life and humankind is our ability to not be violent, hateful, apathetic creatures capable of mass murder and pitiless cruelty.
That's what I choose to focus on.
Humankind is historically, a savage and selfish race of beings who often finds it easier to kill, hate and fear the entirety of Creation.
I see the birth of Jesus as a sign that the Creator/Universe decided that we were actually worth bothering with us.
The truth for me is that anyone of us is capable of becoming more than just the base being that is ruled by overpowering emotional instability and jump to conclusions decision making that drives us to do the very horrible things that scare the bejeezers out of my young friend. The miracle of belief is one thing that sets us apart from all of it.
I think the one boon and curse that America had was a reprieve from the world when we were mostly isolationists back in the late 1800s-early 1900s. I mean America was still involved with some of the world, but Americans at large, were nearly completely ignorant of how bad things were. It gave Americans this amazing resilience as we tromped into two World Wars. Then international interference (that was us believing that we knew how everyone should live) and war correspondence- which grew into this amazing form of journalism started the change.
The disappointing result of all this good intention is that Americans as a whole were not welcomed and we quickly wore out our welcome, becoming seen as interlopers, intruders and mostly an annoyance. An annoyance with the most power weapons on earth.
Americans became arrogant and egotistical ('we saved the world") at least- in perception and at best- in reception. Even our allies, stopped thinking of us as this desirable group of self-sacrificing people intent on making the world a better place.
Let me just stop and state that I am speaking from the benefit of broad experience and observation of decades. There were and might even be, are, places that still see America as heroic, self-effacing do-gooders, but they are few because like the rest of humanity, our good intentions and accomplishments are all too often over shadowed and overrun by the worst of what the few do for themselves.
The Quiet American (book/movies) is a perfect example of this.
The saddest loss was that out of the war correspondence/new journalism, our modern media grew into its own right and for several decades shown with its own integrity and accomplishments of truth and knowledge. However, I speak more of how the average American took all this news about our chaotic and tumultuous planet.
Pretty much from the get go out of Korea (following on the heels of victory in WWII) we-as Americans, learned what it was to be afraid. We learned to fear the Red Menace of Communism with its nefarious rise to power and popularity on a global scale.
We watched it's demise decades later, in many ways it is all but extinct.
Did we get a reprieve?
Yes, Berlin wall came down. We celebrated with the world, but we left the party early.
There were rogue nuclear powers and equipment to fear.
It didn't matter, really, the news/media/US world power had found plenty of other threats to scare Americans with by then.
Fast forward (through a ton of triumphs and tragedies) to the present where it's now the Muslim Threat and by Muslim I mean the misguided perception that it's a "Muslim" threat that really has little to do with Islam at all.
I think it is more with the idea that Americans have always been afraid of the world -at large.
The older I get, the more I feel this way and wonder if there was truly ever a time when we (a very young country) were not afraid of the world. In the beginning as Colonies we were constantly threatened by Global powers of the day. It's kind of Miraculous and fortuitous that none of them got determined enough to take us down.
One factor was that it took a long while in the terms of global expansionism for Americans to discover the elements that would normally lead to invasion and subjugation of a land/people. By that point, we were enough of a global power to partake along with the other powers in the subjugation of other less protected countries.
Still, I put this down to pure luck and a total lack of global media.
So, where does that leave us.
My answer is not good. In the broad strokes of History and Art, we are a nation of fearful people who react more than act. Our policies are insane and we cower (as a whole) under the immanent threat of the ever present invisible enemies of which many of them we made or invented.
The media has devolved into a fear-based entertainment/preoccupation disaster that will generate new and old things to fear on a hourly basis.
If, by some miracle, humans stop killing each other and even threatening to kill each other, the media focuses on the weather, geology, pollution, or a rogue asteroid to keep up our addiction to being terrified of the invisible threat that no one (mostly everyone) cannot see.
Which brings me back to ISIS invading us from Mexico.
Not Canada. (sorry Canada- no one ever gives you guys any credit as a threat)
I shall now quote one of my favorite movies:
Fran: *How* is it different? You're just like the rest of them! You think you're different, but you're not, because you're just, you're just really scared! You're really scared to give someone new a go, because you think, you know, they might just be better than you are! Well, you're just pathetic, and you're gutless. You're a gutless wonder! Vivir con miedo, es como vivir a medias!
Fran: A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
These are from a movie called Strictly ballroom. The quote; "Vivir con miedo, es como vivir a medias!" has stayed with me since I first saw this movie.
I recognized this same fear within myself since I have lived over half of my 45 years in fear. Fear of nuclear war dominates much of it- although I had plenty of other fears that rode side saddle to that one. I have since stopped being afraid or at least, stopped allowing my fears to rule and determine my life. I want to live, hell I want to dance!
So, let ISIS come (which I doubt they will).
Let Mexico stand up and say that ISIS be damned and the media be damned along with them.
Turn off Fox and CNN and the rest, go find the Truth for yourselves- it is out there.
Stop and realize the world at its very, very worst is still better than it has ever been. Maybe not for some single country but overall more people know peace and happiness than ever before 9this is partly true because there's a helluva lot more people).
Then the wonderful idea might hit you like it hit me.
There is actually enough of us, and by us I mean dreamers, to change the world.
All it takes, is living your life without fear.
I believe that it can be done.
I am going to try
and that is my life according to Mike.
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