Looking where hope comes from

Looking where hope comes from - thoughts steming from the article, 12 Steps to Realizing the U.S.'s New Populist Movement. Article here

                                                                                                                photo by Jim Wells

After listening to the mainstream media and observing the political scene in Washington it seems many Americans don’t want to hear any more about political realities. Here is an article of the type I like to sniff out on how things can and are getting better. (12 Steps to Realizing the U.S.'s New Populist Movement). In an age when 1,000’s are dying daily due to human neglect, I find myself all too often focusing on where some missing airplane or child might be or the adventures of a celebrity’s efforts to avoid the police. Following such stories can give me a feeling that I am indeed paying attention to the world and I can more easily join in conversations with co-workers on coffee breaks. I tend to see paying attention and joining in as good things. On the other hand of course such pursuits can have very negative outcomes, leading me to wonder what news Germans and Japanese were paying attention to in the late 1930’s when it seems most were quite sure that “It can’t happen here.”

Like yelling at a child or putting down some poor soul on the internet, getting worked up about how bad things are can usually seem more satisfying than stumbling along in a world out of control and even gives the temporary illusion that, at least you’ve done something. Alas, none of us are immune to the attractions of ideologues and demagogues offering solutions to problems which bug us but which we don’t like to pay much attention to in reality. It can give the same good feeling that reading another self-help book or going to church on Sunday gives.

It’s complicated, which is the most popular relationship choice offered on facebook but maybe the best choice is love, which by it’s very definition is simple, if I can just find it. I think there must be, should be a simple answer out there, like it seems people a century or so ago had or going off with a wise guru offers.

I find that looking for solutions to real problems even in a world that witnessed poor Neville Chamberlin, try to make peace with a dictator actually mad with power, and then be disgraced when the mad man went ahead and continued a war which even we in the West had to get involved in, is the often touted as a good reason for military solutions to problems where people who aren’t necessarily mad are our adversaries. No culture it seems is immune to having a dark thread running through it saying that concessions and talking are really appeasement and only for losers to chose. The people who can’t see the way things really are and further who don’t like that people seem to like talking so much, come to the conclusion that we should fake a desire to talk just like the German and Japanese leaders did to other world powers before unleashing the horrors of war on our populations.

As it may be with our karma, I think people tend to find what they are looking for, regardless of how much value what they are looking for may have. My view is that the really truly actually hard part of changing the world for the better is to realize that we must start with people we know and the first thing to change our false belief that in spite of repeated heartbreaking and demoralizing failures to make things the way we want, we can actually find what we want when we combine our mind (thinking talking) with our bodies (taking action, moving ourselves).

The conclusion of this little rant is to express something which years of semi-successful teaching of children and their parents is that you will find what you are looking for. If you enter the classroom (read that world) looking for what is wrong you will certainly find it however if you enter looking for what is good, (perhaps in spite of some bad experiences) you will just as certainly find that as well. Using your mind to think of better courses and our heart which we all hope that perhaps could and should win out in the end. Our heart being physical and beating with life, constantly renewing the life of each and every cell, after all it allows us to eat and have sex.

At the level of Einstein, we might see that the world has a unifying law or we may find it is chaotic or beyond that, we may find it is a dynamic mix of both with areas where laws prevail and areas where chaos prevails but which somehow allowed our life to emerge and even find food and sex. The world/universe being a place where we find what we are looking for, yes in spite of the fact that people die senselessly every day. Since we are alive and capable, let’s be ones who look for law and order, let’s be the ones who truly find it. (and who get a little crazy sometimes).