YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD - NOW !!!
Why
would I want to change the world ?
For
one thing, humanity is recklessly destroying it's own life support system.
For the past 40 years, hundreds of Nobel Prize winners have been
warning us that mankind is consuming and polluting the earth's resources
faster than it can rejuvenate itself.
Yet, we do not stop, nor even slow down.
If all the humans on the planet consumed at the rate of the 275
million Americans, it wouldn't be long before our planet consisted of
nothing but barren land, fishless oceans and unbreathable air.
But,
that's not my reason.
The
part of me that is connected to the soul of humanity, weeps for the billions
of people living in despicable squalor - dealing with conditions unfit for
the lowliest animal - surviving on inadequate diets that mark them as easy
prey to the ravages of debilitating diseases.
Two billion humans live on less than one dollar a day and two billion
more live on just a bit more than that.
Knowing how unnecessary this horrific suffering is, sometimes fills
me with rage.
But
that's not my reason.
My
reason begins like this.
Even a casual look at the long history of life on planet earth,
provides a few clear insights into the reasons it succeeded in it's battle
for survival.
Life established itself here between three and four billion years
ago. It
was tiny and fragile in the beginning.
Mistakes could easily have caused it to fail.
However, this did not happen.
Why ?
Ever wise, nature developed the process of natural selection.
A process intended to fulfill the prime directive established for all
life. Nature's
prime directive:
"preservation of the species".
Certainly, nature accepts the loss of species due to environmental
and catastrophic causes, but it has never wavered one iota from the original
prime directive.
It accepts it's losses and patiently applies every effort to preserve
the remaining species.
Sometime
during these billions of years, nature invented symbiosis to aid natural
selection in the difficult job of evolving higher life forms.
Symbiosis is a relationship system in which individual organisms,
living in close association, abide by the following rule:
each organism acts with a primary concern for it's own well being,
while at the same time showing deep concern for each other and for the group
in which it resides.
The human body is a marvelous example of this system at work.
Each cell in our body is an individual living organism - it eats,
grows, excretes waste and reproduces.
Each cell acts on behalf of its own well being but has equal concern
for the well being of the cells around it and for the body as a whole.
We are, each of us, walking examples of symbiosis in action - a
wondrous system in which all members benefit.
The
first creatures identifiable as hominid appeared between three and four
million years ago.
These early humans developed a system similar to symbiosis - living
in 25 to 35 member hunter gatherer groups, their basic social system was the
practice of cooperation and sharing.
Cooperation and sharing assured the survival of our ancestors for
over two million years.
It was standard practice amongst hunter gatherer groups right up to
the appearance of Homo Sapiens Sapiens (modern man) fifty thousand years ago
and continued for an additional forty thousand years.
Then, ten thousand years ago, the notion of privilege was discovered
and began to mutate - eventually growing into a mind boggling series of mega
systems which today would broadly be identified as political economics -
including such self serving systems as royalty, imperialism, dictatorship,
two party politics, profit making, preferential laws, accumulation of wealth
(which is always pyramidal), slavery and war.
Cooperation and sharing, a second cousin to symbiosis, has been
abandoned in favor of practices which are basically parasitic.
A
parasite cares about itself and itself alone.
It seeks a host to live on. This obnoxious creature mindlessly feeds
on the host until the host dies and parenthetically, the parasite dies with
it. Cancer
is such a parasite, it attaches itself to the human body and consumes organs
indiscriminately until the body dies and the cancer dies too.
In a manic feeding frenzy to acquire and preserve privilege,
political economic systems are consuming whatever is available i.e. natural
resources, human labor, human life.
For an intelligent species, this parasitic behavior
is both abhorrent and unnecessary.
For
billions of humans currently living on planet earth, the prospect is a life
of hunger and privation followed by early death from preventable disease -
there can be no doubt, we have lost touch with nature's prime directive.
Preserving the species is not a profit making enterprise,
consequently, it receives scant attention.
My
reason for wanting to change the world now is to reignite "preservation
of the species" as mankind's number one priority.
In l962, Rachel Carson warned that we must make changes to save the
planet. I
fear we are beyond that - we have mindlessly pushed the levels of greed and
corruption to the point of making change a necessity to save our species.
Every
school child in every country must understand the prime directive even
before they learn to read and write.
Tall
order ! - the big question is - how ???
It
gives me great pleasure to inform you that I know how !!
Here
it is in a nut shell.
Fill the world with happy people.
Wait !!!
Don't run !
Before you write me off as simplistic, hear me out.
Philosophers
as far back as Plato, wrote about the critical need for change.
Yet, here we are thousands of years later still living in a world
where greed, corruption and blatant abuse of power make a mockery of
"preservation of the species".
Billions suffer lives of unspeakable misery - human life is treated
as secondary to wealth and power.
We are an intelligent species, why do we seem so helpless to do
anything about it ?
Is it because humans are cruel by nature ?
The answer to that question is - hell no !!
Is it because the sufferers bring it on themselves ?
Stupid question, the answer is also - hell no !!
There
is little doubt in my mind that most people are good hearted and wish well
for others.
Knowing this, makes it that much more difficult to understand the
pandemic extent of the human misery.
I
believe the picture gets clearer when we realize that political economic
systems, be they government or business, are structured on fear.
The people who are successful in obtaining lives of privilege, even
though they may have a good heart, are dreadfully afraid of change.
They are the ones doing well in the current system.
They are enjoying the good life.
They see every suggestion for "basic" change as a threat.
A threat of having it all taken away from them - it frightens the
daylights out of them.
This paralyzing, often unconscious, fear, rises from our very deep
fear of survival.
Fear is such a strong motivation, it overwhelms
the goodness in our hearts.
We
are prisoners of systems invented by our ancestors and embellished by
frightened self serving people for thousands of years.
Political economic systems have actually taken on a life of their
own. Minor
improvements are served up as window dressing
and are boldly identified as progress - while in fact very
little of substance ever actually changes.
The
people in control positions become masters of rationalization - they form
party lines which offer justifications for even the most horrific behavior.
It permits them to feel good about themselves.
Do I condemn them?
No, I am sure I have done the same.
Sadly, they are the better players in a game that distorts the
thinking of the player.
If
political economic leaders have failed for two thousand years to create a
world in which humans can live a life of peace and harmony, then it would be
folly to expect that these people will ever do the job.
Albert Einstein said "The problems of this world will not be
solved with the level of thinking that created them."
The
conclusion would appear to be obvious.
Real change must come from people who are free of fear.
Happy people fill the bill.
Who are these happy people ?
Unfortunately,
modern society has turned the idea of happiness into a simplistic
cliché. The
word has become so trite as to defy definition.
So, it would be appropriate to agree on a definition we can work
with.
I
offer the following - I think mother nature would approve.
"when my mind is at peace, I am in a state of happiness"
Fear,
anger, jealousy, frustration, hatred, stress, rage, bitterness, worry, are
emotions which make us unhappy.
They all cause unhappiness in the same way i.e. they rob the mind of
its tranquillity.
Happiness
is not turned on by a joke nor does it turn off when some pleasure ends.
It is possible to have a good laugh while I am happy.
It is also possible to grieve the loss of a loved one and still
remain a happy person.
Happiness is a condition of my being - it does not come and go as my
emotions change.
We are born happy - how to be unhappy is something we learn only
after birth.
How do we know when we have reached the state of happiness ?
There are many signs.
Here are some key ones:
I
am Happy...
When I am satisfied to be me.
When I like me.
When my mind and body are in symbiotic harmony.
When I understand I am imperfect and its OK.
When I accept that I have no right to judge others.
When I come to know I do not have to be doing anything to be happy.
When I am confident in my own ability to deal with life.
When I fully realize success and wealth have nothing to do with happiness.
A
happy person does not fear the future.
They have self confidence, which assures them that no matter what
happens, they can deal with it.
This self confidence leaves them free to live in the present.
OK,
so how are these happy people going to change the world ?
What are they going to do that's different ?
Answer:
I don't know.
But
I do know happy people enjoy creative thought.
It is a form of mental play to an unafraid mind.
They will create new systems which provide survival assurance to all
humans. The
systems will be all inclusive because the happy mind cannot abide the
thought of hurting others.
To do so would risk their own happiness.
They
will surely make mistakes but have the courage to fix and move on.
Good to keep in mind that "we" i.e. humans are the product
of millions of years of trial and error and we are far from being a finished
product.
The
Happiness Crusade is intended to promote a widespread understanding of
natural happiness as outlined above - using every avenue of communications
from schools to print to television etc.
This might start with a small cadre of well informed people organized
for the purpose of spreading the message.
Post
Script:
There is an interesting phenomenon residing in nature.
It is well know in relation to disease.
I will use the example of the bubonic plague.
This is a disease which exists in trace quantities all over Europe
and has for centuries.
It becomes a serious problem to humans only when it reaches certain
density - then it becomes so virulent as to be irresistible and consequently
unstoppable by any force.
We all know it wiped out most of the population of Europe the last
time this happened.
It
is my contention that the same phenomenon is true when dealing with what I
will call Force H .
Progress towards changing the world might seem slow in the beginning
but once that special density of happiness is reached, POW !!!
Force H will become active and spread happiness like wildfire.
Greed and corruption and armies will be helpless in it's path.
PLEASE
HELP
- We
need funds to support research, to print materials and to broadcast the
story as far as possible.
Please send your check to:
Happiness
Crusade
85
Wisdom Lane
Lexington,
VA 24450
Or
write to Mike at mikelone@happyplace.net
