-
If
you are committed to maintaining a clean house, you have
to, from time to time, go around looking for dirt.
No one likes to clean, but if you don’t look for
dirt you can’t clean up the mess, and if you don’t
clean up the mess, you won’t live in a clean house.
-
If you ignore
the liars, cheats, and thieves who take advantage of the
weak and defenseless, they will become very successful at
what they do.
And maybe if ignored they won’t stop, but will
instead grow stronger, as long as they are able to
continue to be successful at taking from others what
doesn’t belong to them.
-
Slavery was
part of the human experience for a long time.
It still is in some places.
Where slavery was ended, it was because some people
decided not to allow it anymore.
Stopping it was a very unpleasant task.
Many people lost their possessions, their
happiness, their health and their lives opposing it.
Those people made it possible for their
grandchildren and other people’s grandchildren to live
in relative freedom.
If those people weren’t willing to make great
sacrifices, how free would we and our loved ones be today?
In some sense, their sacrifice was also their
happiness.
Postponing their happiness seems to me the only way
their happiness ultimately could have been achieved.
I admit it was risky. Sometimes you have to take a
risk to find happiness.
-
If you want
to live in a world where freedom and happiness is possible
for everyone, it is important to engage in some amount of
unpleasantness in order to insure that those who would
take away everyone’s happiness don’t get the
opportunity to do that.
If you don’t protect everyone else’s right to
freedom and happiness, your happiness and your
grandchildren’s happiness is at risk too.
-
From time to
time each of us as individuals need to take a rest from
the hard and unpleasant work of looking for dirt that
needs to be cleaned up.
It’s important that while we rest, others
continue the work of protecting everyone’s rights and
freedoms.
If everyone takes a rest at the same time, the
amount of dirt that might accumulate could become
overwhelming to our later efforts to clean it up.
Too many parasites can kill a host.
-
We live in a
world of limited resources but unlimited potential.
If too many people squander those resources then
that puts limitations on what otherwise might be unlimited
potential.
Large corporations and wealthy individuals have
bribed those who have fiduciary responsibility to betray
those responsibilities, so that now those corporations and
individuals are able to destroy what does not belong to
them for their own profit, such as in offloading their
costs to society while reaping great temporary gains for
themselves.
The oceans are on the verge of collapse, natural
resources are needlessly being squandered on current
generations at the expense of future generations; the
atmosphere is being warmed to the point where life might
not be sustainable on this planet, and where great numbers
of people will starve and be forced to live in poverty and
degradation.
-
I don’t
write what I write to take away your joy.
I write what I write so that you might be informed
about what’s happening… that you otherwise might not
be aware of or understand… so that you might take
responsibility -- if you are capable and in the space of
being able to take responsibility -- in order that more of
the joy you do have is not stolen from you or those you
love.
-
I don’t
write for everybody.
If what I write depresses you or takes away your
joy, I didn’t write what I wrote for you… I wrote it
for someone else.
There are many people in my life who I don’t
believe are in the space to make proper use of what I
write.
I worry that what I write might confuse them or put
them into a place of despair or hopelessness.
But I have to leave it to God to work with me on
this, to help protect those who might read what I write,
so that rather than depress them, my words might inspire
them, or at least allow them to be at peace with it.
But how do I know what process they have to go
through to arrive at an understanding that will allow them
to act appropriately given their education, resources, and
abilities to deal with the unpleasantness in the world
that needs attention.
My understanding is limited.
I need that help.
-
How can I be
sure that I am not doing more harm than good?
Well, I’m just doing the best I know how
according to my own education and understanding.
Maybe I am a fool who needs to learn an important
lesson in life.
I think I am trying my best to be responsible.
-
I realize
that some of my writings and these comments are unpleasant
for some to hear.
The question is, are they true and if so, what is
the best way for a person to be a person. How
should one begin to think about what their place, their
attitude, their philosophy of life should be in the world
for the world to end up being the kind of place they hope
it might one day be?
-
I sometimes
feel like giving up, because I feel like I am sacrificing
my life for nothing; that my sacrifice along with others
who have been engaged in the unpleasant and unrewarding
task of ringing the warning bell are falling on deaf ears or ears that are too sensitive for this kind of
input... (warning that too much
dirt is piling up for the relatively small number of
people trying to clean it up to handle it by themselves).
-
.
I have no
doubt that I have lessons to learn that I am in the
process of learning.
But at the same time, perhaps there are some
lessons I have already learned… some lessons that I am
in the process of helping others understand.
-
There are those who say that when I feel disconnected,
depressed or otherwise out of sorts, it’s because I am
not living in alignment with the real me, the spiritual
me, my true self. Maybe that’s true. But
what does that really mean? Perhaps we are all
connected—we, the whole human family—and if I feel
disconnected, depressed, or otherwise out of sorts maybe
some of that discomfort is due to the suffering of others.
Maybe their suffering cries out to me and I sense their
pain even if I can’t hear their cries with my ears.
We all live on the same spaceship. Maybe
experiencing happiness is at least partially a function of
me doing what I can to make sure that everyone on our ship
is treated fairly and with dignity.
-
I don’t
know for sure if it is appropriate for me to feel that I
am capable of taking responsibility for those ills in the
world I write about.
I suppose if I become depressed and overwhelmed by
these circumstances, that I have then reached the limit of
my abilities and the level of my incompetence.
In any event, I can see that I live on the edge. I
fall.
I quit.
I get up and try again.
I fail and stumble.
I hurt but then I get up and try again.
I know what it feels like to be tired.
-
I am seeking
happiness by following my truth and at the same time I
fall sometimes into states of unhappiness trying.
If I continue on my current path, maybe I will be
overwhelmed by a task I can’t handle without much more
help.
And yet if I give up, maybe I would feel even
worse, thinking that I have sold out my grandchildren and
my ideals.
-
I am resigned
to find my happiness in this unpleasant work that is not
much fun to do.
I think that is as close to happiness as I will
ever get.
Maybe someday I will finally quit for good and find
some temporary peace.
Or maybe things will turn around and my joy will
increase.
-
Your
friendship is important to me, so I will do my best never
to judge you harshly for living your truth in a way that is
different from mine.
Perhaps your job in life is different than mine,
even though our best efforts might on the surface look
like we are pulling in opposite directions.
Maybe our efforts are equally appropriate and
necessary to achieving the happiness we both want for our
children, our grandchildren and the rest of humanity
.
-
God works in
mysterious ways.
I strongly suspect that he loves us equally well as
we each struggle or don’t struggle to find our place in
the world.