April. Fear is in the air.

 

The Simple Raven’s Post, 05-04-2018

April. Fear is in the air.

 

The natural reaction is to think, April, Spring is in the air. When I see the first little bit of new green grass, I usually rejoice. The flowers that I seeded indoors are sprouting, and the thermometer on my deck no longer shows a minus sign in front of the numbers during the day. There is cheerfulness expressed on the faces of people I meet outside. That’s the norm, but it’s changing.

 

Although most people I meet say that they don’t watch the news, either because it’s “fake news” or because it’s too depressing, they know what is going on. Needless to say that the news somehow filters into people’s minds and most folks are very aware of things that scare them. Unfortunately, more people worry about ISIS immigrants than about real dangers.

 

The first item, here in our mountain community, are the possible natural disasters that are by far more frequent then even the old people can remember. Floods have been plaguing our community and surrounding areas more frequently then most people remember. They call them hundred year floods or similar names, but it happens too often causing a lot of misery and huge expense. People may think that if we have floods, we will be spared the big fires that also occur regularly, but people are wrong.  All the bets are off. Nature is no longer predictable, and puny human efforts to protect themselves, are useless.

 

The warnings we have been hearing from our scientists for decades now are pretty much all the same. Humans emissions of greenhouse gasses are exceeding what nature was designed to deal with, and it doesn’t. We were told that natural disasters, big and small, would be more intense and frequent and they are. The melting of the polar ice caps was predicted, and there is hard evidence that its happening. Anyone with a cell phone can Google and see the satellite pictures. It is visible even in our little hideaway heavenly retreat.

 

I was talking with a famous Crowsnest Pass person whose name I will not reveal without permission. Here is what he said. “I am a Conservative, and I don’t believe in global warming. The amount of carbon that we produce is so small that it makes no difference, and the whole subject is still under debate.” Really? Is this a matter to be decided by our political affiliations or is it a life and death issue. Not life and death for a few unfortunate people in a faraway land, but our children and grandchildren. Our mountain towns barely survived floods and fires in the last few years, and some communities around us were devastated. As a side note, Tesla just installed the biggest Lithium-ion battery in Jamestown Australia, enough to supply 300000 homes, and wind powers it.

 

Natural disasters aside, unfortunately, we have a lot more to fear about, and all are men made problems. The economy is a big concern. I was talking with a 91-year-old economist who believes that our version of Capitalism is like cancer. We created a situation where money is not circulating the way it should.  Not enough ends up in the hands of average consumers who would spend it to keep the economy going. Most of the value of our ever-increasing production is hoarded and used for trading, never seeing the light of day. Looming above the economy wows is the threat of war. We can see what war does every day on the news. It is the first feer people have and justifiably so. Unfortunately, there is not enough room in this little article to discuss it.

 

Fear is a natural response to danger, and a person can't live without it. It is used effectively to control people. We often hear words such us, vote for us and we will deal with your worst fears. The politicians are ignoring real issues, such as Global Warming, and are promising to solve unemployment by providing relatively few temporary jobs in building a new oil pipeline. When it's built, and pumping bitumen to markets, they will find some other project for us to work on. Again there will be little benefit to the public and a lot to the Corporations.

 

I have been researching “happiness” and “fears” for a very long time. There is a  huge amount of material written about it, both religious and secular. The best conclusion I can come up with is “be not afraid.” We have a lot of problems, but we can deal with them if we set our minds up to do so. The main focus should always be on the picture of what we want not on what we fear. It seems as if God lets us use his power to get our dreams, but first, we must have those dreams. It’s a slow, methodical process, but it works. Humans exist in what they choose to think about.

 

I would recommend less attention to the Prime Minister masquerading dressed in Indian costumes for a picture and more attention to the potential millions of tons of carbon which are dumped into the atmosphere, causing fires and floods. I wish that people will see the heaven around them and fight to keep it, instead of destroying it. I wish to think about the resurrection we call Spring while knowing that I have taken steps to deal with the causes of my fears.