Sick world, or not?

 

 Sick world, or not?

The Alberta sun is blood red and going down. Here in the Crowsnest Pass, we happen to live where there are no wildfires this year, but most of our people are not that lucky. The map on the weather network shows around a hundred fires and a helicopter pilot just got killed around Peace River. Reports from all over the world say that this is the hottest year since we have been recording. It’s the worst in BC.

In 1975, I learned at university that fires, floods, and changing climate, will happen. We believed it would not happen in our lifetime and ignored the predictions. We like to hear only good news. Many still do, even as they drown in floods or lose everything to fires. In my opinion, humble as it is, those who profit from carbon released into the air should pay for the damages. Why should we pay with taxes for damage caused by private enterprise? Their own scientists warned them.

My wife and I were driving back home from Pincher Creek and highway paving forced us to wait for hours. Locals like us took side roads through the towns and came back to the highway ahead of the traffic, causing us to wait in the heat much longer. Soon some motorcycles passed the line on the right and inserted themselves into the waiting line ahead of us. A friend told me the next day how he was smart and made it to an appointment on time, while another, a mother coming back from work was late to pick up her kids. Someone is ahead since others are set back.

A politician rose to fame by criticizing another politician much like himself. They both had only one thing in mind: to be powerful and force poor workers to work harder for less. I attended a meeting in which the politician plainly said that the workers were stupid and didn’t deserve more. The politician made millions, but the workers couldn't afford rent and good food for their children. I wanted to shout. It’s not fair, but we all know.

Those are examples of what happens to a society that lost its morals. On the world stage, it translates to wars and other disasters causing horrible suffering and uncountable loss of lives. There will be a price to pay for Russia destroying Ukrainian grain, for example. There is only one human world and all humans are a part of it.

I figured out years ago that humans like me appear as individual entities but are all parts of the same body. Even the old bible says so. We gain an advantage by taking from other people. If we could regulate ourselves and not overdo it, the world would be a different place, but we don’t. That is why the Lord’s prayer mentions, “Lead us not into temptation.”

We all know the feeling. I can buy something shiny new or do a good deed with the money. Just like a raven, I grab the shiny and fly away, letting others worry about the needs of those who are not as well-off, saying that I worked for what I have and that they can do the same. A few can, but there are always many who can’t.

The planet we inhabit was designed to sustain all of us if we do the following. We must use the wisdom of the planet that we used for millions of years before developing into what we are now. It is called “Mother Earth” by primitive people for a reason. It gives us life and takes care of us to maturity. We are made from it and exist on its gifts. It demands however something in return. We must accept with our free will to share the bounty with others who are not superior humans, as we are, in our opinion. The Mother demands that we will love our brothers and sisters or perish by our own hands and go back to nothing. Complete nothing, no created things.

It’s a hot day and I am sitting by a keyboard living up to my commitment. My readers get a new article every week. Many thank me for it. My body is sick but I keep a mask on. We all do if we admit it or not. The world from where I am looks great. Is it just a mask? I ask, or is it me thinking that it’s a sick world?

If it is sick, then we have a way to show that it can be cured. We have a spot that is blessed by God, or the universal mind. Not so cold in the winters, or hot in the summers. The people help each other and feel safe. There are people here representing all the major religions, nationalities, and age groups. People with disabilities are safe here and outsiders are competing for the privilege of living here.

I see many faces of visitors around and I think we are exporting the goodness we are blessed with. I look at the setting sun and it’s not red today. I hear kids’ voices from a holiday home. The church was full of visitors this morning. Thank you, Lord, I whisper and I feel an answer. Keep it up, good people, and I will be here with you.  

Thinking Education and beliefs.

 

 

Thinking Education and beliefs.

All my life I loved animals. I chose to live the rest of my life, after retirement, in a place where I can be close to nature and the four-legged creatures. The animals are much like us and have similar bodies, emotions, feelings of loyalty, and even a sense of humor. What they don’t have is our ability to think. We can think about life, ideas, and death. Our thinking allows us to solve problems, invent things, and be creative. It also allows me to remember some things and forget others. Without it, I may lose my mind. If my conscience existed before the moment I was born, I would love to remember where I was and predict where I will be after death. I must consider however that there could exist a good reason why that knowledge is hidden from me. This life may just be a holiday from another life that we can’t see from here. Our senses don’t detect much of the universe.

When we see a newborn baby we realize that there is something in it that makes it a person. The newborn doesn’t yet know anything that it can do by thinking and acting. It knows how to breathe, eat, and clear the waste from the body but not much else. The rest comes later mostly after observing those who already know. For the animals, it happens much faster. They act more on the sub-conscience while we learn ideas.

At one point I learned to use my hands to grab and at another to walk on two feet. How did I do it? I don’t know. I learned millions of little things that I use throughout life and can’t remember when or how. One thing is clear to me when I think about it. I am not free. All of what I know, like how to be a human being, I learned from those around me. Not acting that way would have been unpleasant for me since society made those myths we learn and insist that all humans learn them. I learned what others call common sense. Much of what we learned in the past turned out not to be true. The Earth is not flat, and we are not the center of the universe.

Year after year the people around were teaching me more about how to be like them, therefore human. If I had any ideas of doing something my way I got criticized and when I did it their way I received praise. Each year I was working hard to do things like my elders. The kindergarten turned to grade one, in which I was waiting to be in grade two. The kids in the next grade were always bigger, faster, and knew more things and I couldn’t wait to be like them. The biggest change was graduating from grade eight. The kids looked like adults and I assumed that adults had all the freedoms of the world.

When I came to Canada there was a different graduation system. At eighteen you could pass a test and drive and at twenty-one you could drink alcohol. Young people joined their older counterparts in the race to see who can make more money. They divided their time between work and pleasure. Work provides money that will allow to buy happiness, but it never does. The work is something they do but wouldn’t have done without pay. The money is promising to buy pleasure but can’t. The reward is always in the future and after a brief moment is in the past. The “life” remains unfulfilled. We are always living in anticipation of something better coming. A trip perhaps or a long-awaited visit. Possibly a move to a better place.

People go through the levels of education, train for work, get promoted, and discover that they are making someone else rich or more powerful while not improving their own lives. Retirement comes and they don’t have the energy to truly enjoy it. The human race is growing new humans to be like us and tell them that this is freedom, which they believe.

The biggest questions are never answered. Who am I? I am not my body. I have seen living people die and leave the body. Where did they go? Religions try to answer that question but never agree.

Humans tell stories and stories become reality. Religions are stories that often were written by the smartest humans of their time drawing upon stories of humans in touch with the divine. Other humans worked hard to shape the stories and make them improve what humans do, and we teach those ways to new humans. They always have some promises for a better future but the ultimate future is not seen by the living.

I am convinced that the Universe is not dumb and that we are not a mistake of nature. The universal mind is guiding us in some direction and acts like a loving father or parent. It leaves us in charge giving us free will. It exists regardless if we are alive or after we die. It allows us to destroy ourselves or improve our existence. We choose with the help of our stories.

Now  I am old and perhaps at the end of my life. I don’t know if the animals may have a better life without my ability to think. They don’t have a religion or God and don’t think about the afterlife. I can’t avoid it.

New Canadians and old traditions.

 

New Canadians and old traditions.

In 1967, I flew over an invisible border to become a Canadian. It was Canada’s 100th anniversary. I left a country where I was the middle class and came here to be an immigrant that many people disrespected and most people wanted to exploit if they could. It was all worth it since Canada was a place living in peace, not in a perpetual war like many other countries. Although we had to work hard and do menial jobs until we assimilated, some people were socially lower than us. The native population was treated badly and, to my surprise, so was another group. They were Ukrainians.

Eventually, I managed to have a job with the CPR and met Ukrainians who were not at the bottom of the social order. One I remember was a lawyer in the old country and here worked as a mechanic. Some years later, I had some business with a high-level officer of the RCMP who was Ukrainian. Another group took the bottom place, and they were the people with turbans. Sikhs were called “Pakis” by the masses of uneducated people.  

This was a group that invited punishment upon themselves by visually being different. They were formed into a religion based on some high ideals, like feeding the poor. Their originator insisted they should look different from the rest. The men are forbidden to cut their hair and must wear a turban. Over the years, we in Canada have seen many groups that wore attires unique to their cultures, often demonstrating something related to their faiths. I welcome the mixture of pieces that make the Canadian mosaic. We have the most international country in the world. It is a magnificent country.

There are many other signs of multiculturalism in our society. For example, one aspect that drew me to the Crowsnest Pass was the sound of church bells on Sunday mornings. The bells that in cities we hear no more, greeted Christians to their religious practice for hundreds of years. Here the Catholics amalgamated some older parishes which, like the rest, became smaller when mining days were over. They formed one larger parish and built a beautiful new church. The architect was commissioned to construct a bell tower with electronic bells and merge modern methods with the preservation of heritage.

The bells on a church are a tradition but also an ancient marketing tool. Bells throughout the mountain valley remind Christians of all denominations of Sunday worship. I honor all faiths.

One person complained the bells made too much noise, and the bells were silenced, or damaged and not fixed. Sadly, they didn't consider my opinion and the opinions of many others like me. I would have gladly contributed towards fixing the bells. The community here invested much money into building and equipping the bell tower but now does nothing.

People changed the church design, not considering the importance of symbols and symmetry.

My city-born grandchildren think that God and all the rich heritage that we inherited from our various religions is fiction and only science is real. They don’t realize that for many thousands of years, science and religion were one. The Greek philosophers of old did some serious thinking that planned how humans formed society. Before them, there were others, Persian, Indian, and more. Humankind became what it is thanks to them figuring out life and reality and communicating the knowledge to us. In the last quarter of a century, humans finally discovered machines, electricity, electronics, and later artificial intelligence. The greatest discoveries are still not understood by the ignorant masses. However, people all over quit learning the great human knowledge from the past and adopted the opinions of not-very-sophisticated modern philosophers, preaching that all past knowledge is nothing but fiction.

The results are not impressive. Yes, we can have fast vehicles, better medicine, and all forms of modern entertainment, but we are facing extinction at our own hands. One wrong move or neglecting to take the right action can spell our end.

Society could have advanced to benefit humanity and understanding of the Universal mind. We chose to believe that a few technological discoveries placed us above God or even that there is no God. It’s possible, but the smartest humans, from whom we came, had other ideas.

The latest research that I have heard about is also surprising. Just asking people all over the world if they believe in God in some form reveals that most do. Hardly anyone subscribes to the theory about a “sky God” as portrayed in old art. Most don’t believe in a God who is a bigger or greater human, but Christians believe in the holy trinity. That is the belief that God, who is a spirit, created a human son for himself to ease communication. People hold different beliefs about the Son. Some consider him as a divine entity that is one with God, while others regard him as a superior mind sent to reveal some otherwise incommunicable truth.

Depression 2023.

 

Depression 2023.

Many years ago, I was growing up on a farm in Israel without electricity and all its benefits. My father had a small encyclopedia with a lot of drawings. One that I remember was a picture of a large bird, an ostrich, burying its head in the sand while a tiger was running toward it. I asked my mom what was going to happen to the gigantic bird, and she said that it will get eaten. Why would it do it? I wondered, since it looked like he could run very fast. Mom said that some creatures think that if they don’t see danger coming, then nothing will happen to them. I was only six but couldn’t understand and I still don’t. I was living amongst those who survived the greatest war ever.

Years went by and that picture never left me. As life went on, the word depression became common, while drugs called antidepressants became popular. Soon people were talking about depression being a killer disease. The number of suicides increased, and the law changed to allow doctors to use their skills to make suicide painless. I live with chronic pain and cancer, so I understand. I am not sure that it is OK for us to take a life, even our own, but someday I may understand. Is depression somehow related to hiding from all the ugliness and evil in life and the world? You tell me.

Stress and depression are now commonplace, but I question why. Overall, the world is improving in so many ways. All we have to do is bury our heads in the sand, not listen to the news or what we call “negative people” and enjoy the sunshine while it lasts, but it doesn’t.

I believe that thoughts have ways of materializing in the real world. We think in words and we believe God created all there is with words. “And God said, let there be light.” If I or anyone use words to point out that which we don’t like, do we create evil? Do other people avoid evil by not being exposed to it? Is the opposite true? Can we watch only the good and have a better life? I sure wish I knew. In my early life, people often said, don’t even think about something, or Don’t mention this or that. My mom believed bad thoughts woke the devil up. I am not even sure that I believe that there is a devil, but I leave room for the fallen angel, the one who is competing with the good God. There is something that creates temptation. In the Lord’s prayer, we say “and lead us not into temptation.”

Competition and temptation are the base of the theory of evolution. The strongest survive and the weak disappear. Often, what we consider the strongest is not necessarily the best. Albert Einstein was not the strongest, but the world wouldn’t be what it is without him. Somehow, the Universal Mind caused him to stay alive and take humanity a notch forward. Hitler might have won the war if Einstein was on his side.

Hiding from evil thoughts or realities reduces stress, and stress causes depression. Not being aware of danger can often lead to disaster. I look at the world that was changed significantly in my one life and I question, what is the best way to deal with life? Should people pursue happiness, try to win all competitions, or do something else? Which will offer my children and their children the best chance of survival?

When I went to school, we were practicing going to bomb shelters and what to do if a foreign army invaded the town. Some time later the cold war was on and we were told to hide under our desks in case of an atomic war. There were lots of pandemics and each time it took forever to come up with vaccines. In high school, we went through a lighter form of basic army training and learned how to handle guns. There was never a time without some threat to our lives. The one radio station that we had was our lifeline, and most adults that I met read the newspaper. I also never met anyone who wanted mental health specialists. When my mother had emotional problems, the doctor suggested smoking to calm her nerves.

Now we live in a different world. The biggest threat is us destroying our world by not resisting temptation and overusing our resources. We are burying the world in garbage and destroying the atmosphere and the freshwater that we can’t live without. Wars are still there and pandemics come and go. Our substantial labor force now is stagnating when there are no good jobs except in technology. For many of us, it is a scary world. I may be called negative, but I see reality and don’t sugarcoat it.

We get stressed, suffer from depression, and don’t know how to deal with it. People around me budget their time and money to have more of something. They do that and later “downsize”. Life has no meaning, and they get depressed. Changing gender or forever traveling doesn’t help.

Should we reevaluate where we're going, backup, and take another road? Instead of being depressed, we can try to do our best, and as the fiddler on the roof said, “We shall leave it in God's hands.”