Hugging Grandma.

 

Hugging Grandma.

So many people now lament that they can’t hug their grandparents. Stories surface about old folks dying alone and care workers stretched to the limits unable to take care of them or even hold their hand while they die.  

I have a few older friends who need regular medical help to stay alive. They have done their share of work and were looking forward to the “golden years” when they would use their lifelong savings and enjoy life without a need to work. What they saved for is not what they have. A group of political “representatives” who use them for their advantage governs the worker’s savings and investments.

Most of my life I worked, studied and volunteered on top of it. My understanding was that we had a social contract. Wake up in the morning, make yourself useful, and look for ways to make yourself even more useful. People were ashamed if someone discovered that they were not contributing their share to the best of their ability. Work was honoured and laziness abhorred.

The problem we all faced was that most of us ended up doing things we didn’t feel very fulfilling. Our work was contributing to someone else’s wealth and doing more didn’t advance our personal well-being. A few did, but most didn’t. People became clock watchers and most looked forward to the weekend or the next holiday. Why are so many of us doing what we don’t like?

My group, which we can name the middle class, lived by a simple rule. You survive, save for retirement, build a good health care system, and provide education and work for those that will come after you. Our loyalty was to family, community, and country. The rest of the world only mattered as competition.

We are born helpless and start growing, learning about life by playing. School is considered “education” and after school comes “working.” We call God “father” indicating that we are children. Let’s assume that we are children and this whole life we are playing. The world is enormous and provides us with all that we need. The only way for some to not have enough is if others take more than their share.

Humans are social beings and soon after birth indoctrination to groups begins. Catholics baptize, Jews circumcise, and the child is initiated before it knows it. You learn your religious beliefs, your language that sets you in a nationality, your gender practices, and prejudices, and so on. Later you will join the class you belong to, intellectual, noble, or peasant as well as your race. The child learns to distinguish physical characteristics that set it apart from others. These are all learned behaviours.

When children are educated about their assigned groupings, they learn about traditions and other cultural aspects that set them apart from others. We all do this without ever realizing what we do. Soon we are willing to fight others and dominate them, viewing it as winning the competition.

The choice that we make is which game we are spending life playing, and is one game better than another. We all know what would happen if we left a group of pre-schoolers unsupervised in a nice new show home and came back in an hour. Play is great but must be regulated and safe. We supervise kids but neglect adults who are just larger kids.

We all know the feeling of joy that comes from winning. Here in Canada, most people have their favourite hockey team. People spend many hours of their lives being emotional about “their team.” The team has nothing to do with them aside from residing in their city. Most players are not local, the owners and shareholders could be from anywhere and wins or losses are mostly related to the amount of money spent on buying contracts of the best players of the time.

Loyalty to a group or a team is admired, and people see nothing wrong with competition. After all, competition is a driving force that advances humanity in all directions. We made some of the best discoveries during hard times like wars or lately even pandemics. However, it always leads us to rejoice at someone else’s loss and even deprive them of life’s necessities without feeling shame or remorse.

Since we are material beings, we must have some land from which we draw the resources needed for life directly or indirectly. As we go, we learn how to sustain more of us on less land, but competition leaves many without the necessary minimum. Even knowledge is rationed, hoping the less fortunate groups will contribute more to the leading few. This will lead us to disaster.

In my lifetime, I observed wars and analyzed the results. Mighty armies and powerful nations can destroy countries, cities, and infrastructure but not the human spirit. People will find ways to get other people back.

This leaves us with two options. Destroy the enemy and ourselves or abandon teams and other groups and figure out how to hug grandma and all humans. It is not hard.

There is enough “stuff” in the world to sustain all of us. In short, learn what the Daycare teacher told us when we were small. Play all the games but take turns and share. Remember that we are just big kids playing a game called life. We can easily make it a great game. Instead of a teacher, we can set ourselves a list of rules and follow them, adjusting when needed. The rest God, or whatever you call him, takes care of.

Just as we have laws setting the top speed limit, we can regulate how much each individual or group can hoard and share the rest. We can ensure that all people have what they need and let the top performers compete for what they want without keeping life’s necessities out of reach for the needy, and they will not need to fight.

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