Warning from the Universe.

 

Warning from the Universe.

It was 1967. We rented a one-bedroom apartment by the Holy Cross Hospital for the four of us. Newcomers can’t afford much. Next, I went for a walk to look for a place to buy groceries. I passed by a Safeway but couldn’t figure out what they do. Looked inside and concluded that it must be a wholesaler’s place. How could there be a space this size for people to grocery shop? Two blocks away there was a small corner grocery store and to my surprise, the owner could speak Hebrew. It saved me. We had food and shelter if we could get a job that would pay before our money ran out.

There were private little food stores every few blocks, many laundromats, bakeries, and even little shops selling and fixing TVs. Unemployment wasn’t a problem. Little private businesses filled the city, paid taxes, and provided employment even for the most unskilled folks.

Two years later, we had a used car. It was a Chevy ll ($900) 1965, and we took care of it better than people today look after $50,000 vehicles. I was now a regular at the local gas station with a two-bay garage where the local guys hung out most days. There were gas stations and garages almost at every corner. Little mom-and-pop restaurants filled the rest of the space.

I loved how capitalism worked. Half of the people were self-employed and street competition kept prices low, leaving little room for small business owners to boast about their work. The others were wage workers. They mostly made lower income than those in private business but had fewer things to be concerned about. Someone else took care of pensions, health care, keeping up with inflation, and all the rest. Unions were just as concerned about the well-being of the business as the owners. We hadn’t yet grown to believe that workers were a resource to be exploited and considered employees to be our most valuable resource. When I quit one job, the big boss came out with me to convince me to stay, even though I was the vice president of the union. We all worked together.

The years went by. Slowly the lives of the workers became just a bit harder every year, as the wealth of those who “made it” ballooned out of proportion. In Europe, the cradle of our colonial civilization, the emphasis was to look after their national population, while in America, the winner took it all. No one cared about the people who were not born in the affluent part of the world. We let them in slowly, just to keep the wages of unskilled workers low.

The period between 1967 and the early two thousand is significant in one way. Humanity did advance in some respects but was overproducing to satisfy the industrial sector. Marketing ensured that we would borrow, buy, and exploit the planet without consideration of what was coming. Now the results are in. Garbage is killing nature, air, water, and all. Some of us are trying to fix the problem while others are making it worse. Both sides are not doing anything unless it gives them political points.

I believe in a universal mind that silently oversees what humans do and uses natural forces to make corrections while letting us make our own decisions. We don’t expect a rock called Earth flying in space to have a mind and take action, but it does. When we hurt it, it fights back, using us to punish ourselves.

Our scientists are all interested in what we can see and not at all in anything else. The smartest people from the past had other ideas. They believed in a universal mind that doesn’t register an image based on light and human vision. We are just now starting to investigate the possibility that invisible “things” can exist and be intelligent or able to act. Some of us even noticed that most of the universe is not an empty vacuum as we imagined, but something that has gravity which we can measure. They call it dark matter, amongst other names. It co-exists with us, but it is older and more knowledgeable than us. It has the power to mark us as a failed experiment.

We possibly took the wrong road soon after 1967 and the force is watching what we will do. Science is great, but shouldn’t replace God.

If I were that force, which I am not, I would set up to be ready for the human experiment failing but ready to assist if they change. The planet can slowly become more hostile yet able to recover from the right action from humans.

Most people never read the Book of Jonah in the Old Testament. He reluctantly warned the city of Nineveh that God would destroy them, but they repented and were saved. Could the story of Jonah in the Old Testament have a message for our generation if we are willing to learn?

If you think it is, develop your capacity for love, compassion, empathy, and higher consciousness. Give up the chase for money, power, fame, and self-importance. Take care of our world.

The art of leadership.

 

The art of leadership.

A long time ago, I applied for a promotion and received my first supervisory appointment. I was in charge of a group of people and had a mission to accomplish. The people all had their own ideas and were concerned about how to achieve their personal goals ahead of those of the employer. Mothers needed to raise their kids, students had to pass exams and so it went. I was representing the employer while the workers all needed the pay, but considered their personal needs ahead of the employer’s goals. I did not even have the most minimal training in supervising people. All I had was the example of my supervisors, who mostly failed. Supervisors in those days existed by threatening to fire people and often abuse workers if they could. My boss told me that supervisors were not in to win popularity contests. I assumed that success would mean workers achieving their needs by making the employer achieve the company’s goals.

I and other young supervisors were the first generations born after the war. Our elders were educated with army discipline while we learned new ideas about psychology, self-improvement, motivation, team building, and more. The employer sent us for a week of training in the Japanese methods of leadership. At the time, Japan was devastated by the war they lost, but came out of the ashes with glorious results. They built a new system based on loyalty. They built up industry, mostly car manufacturing, that successfully competed with the pride of the US automotive industry.

There was no conflict between labor and investors. The supervisor’s job was to provide the workers with what they needed and aim them toward the company being number one. The workers worked hard, were proud of their achievements, and involved their families in the company's future. American companies stumbled over each other to adopt the Japanese business model and workers enjoyed a good middle-class life. Employers also didn’t need to waste effort on micromanaging. The products gained a reputation for being reliable and cheap.

As often happens, the unions quit just trying to keep up with inflation, demanding to get ahead with less effort. Employers found ways around them and hired temporary part-time people who had no benefits and often not even a regular schedule of work. The consumers paid the price. Soon employers started searching for ways to get the work done with less or even no front-line staff. That is why we have automated cashiers, automated banking machines and so much more.

The attitude of prioritizing personal gain over loyalty to employers replaced the old way of thinking. This came with additional costs, resulting in reduced quality of products and services. Countries with loyalty won while industrial nations used intimidation as a business tool. The world changed.

If we aim at producing the most for the lowest cost, forced labor will be our choice. Slaves or machines can do that. The old colonial system worked well and made some people very rich. However, over time, it failed. The same is true for using natural resources irresponsibly. The natural disasters of 2023 are proof of it.

We've been producing too much for too long to benefit a few of us, but at the cost of workers and the environment, mainly the energy.

Another worthy goal could be to use what we have wisely and supply what we need, aiming at durable products while paying fairly for them. This could provide a good living for all and the workers can be our best consumers if they are paid well. It is a win-win situation, with long-lasting benefits for the world and the people. It can only work if the political will supports it.

We love games and admire winning. Unfortunately, we forget that for every winner, there must be a loser. For me to be recognized or rich, some others will have to be ignored and poor. Their resentment will grow, the world will suffer, and peace will not be possible. Our society may end up being another great civilization that disappeared from the pages of history if it has not already done so.

In my youth, I looked at life as a great possibility, with hope being the primary motivator. Now I look back and think, how can we salvage the most out of the mess we made? The red sun reminds me that life on Earth is a journey with a beginning and an end. My experience dictates that the only way is going together, covering each other’s backs.

My management textbooks aside, I focus on one line, not from a manager’s course or book. “Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.” Another line pops up in my biological computer I call the brain. Forgive us as we forgive others. I think I have what we need to save ourselves if we choose to do so. I will let this be the ending of the article about human leadership.

Two weeks’ holidays.

 

Two weeks’ holidays.

Two weeks in human life is not long, but not insignificant either. We are designed to live about sixty to eighty years, but many live longer or shorter. There are accidents, sickness, wars, acts of nature, malnutrition, and much more. Just listing the causes of death can easily fill a page. There are also people with a genetic disposition to live longer than most. There are people who can afford to live lives of leisure protected from most dangers.

Insurance companies are excellent at using statistics to predict how long people will live in a geographical area. I am not sure about the accuracy of this, but I heard that life expectancy is declining and infant mortality is increasing in the United States. It’s not what I would expect.

When I started my work life as a teenager, two weeks was the normal holiday. We worked eleven and a half months a year and holidayed for two weeks. Few people in those days had the means to go somewhere on vacation, but family visits were a common pass time. I remember the excitement of waiting for the holidays. Often I had projects lined up to be done when I was off work. Even though we didn't always have summer holidays, we enjoyed our time off. No one in my circles traveled by plane to other places because the only way to finance such was by giving up on other important things in life. I didn’t know any folks that were born into money. If I met them, they looked down with curled lips, often saying that they hate immigrants.

Later came a new period of holidays. We started camping. Holiday trailers and boats showed up on the highways and an industry developed around catering to vacationers. Now a holiday is longer for many folks. When I retired, I had seven weeks of vacation a year plus accumulated time from working extra. I chose to spend as much time as I could in the Crowsnest Pass, but my children prefer to endure the airports and the rush. They still mostly do a two-week vacation and the rest “as needed.” It is a prestige show item and people spend a lot of time talking about the exotic places they visited.

Now I am old, fighting cancer, and no longer care about holidays. My whole life is a holiday, spent in my choice of place, but I am not who I used to be when holidays meant so much to me. As a child, I lived in a tourist destination but didn’t know it. Holidays were a time away from school when I was alone on the farm. Later in life, when everyone was traveling, I was happy to be in a place that satisfied all my needs, stayed there, and thanked the Lord.

My work now is writing a column in the local paper. I receive positive comments which motivate me to write more. When I get two weeks of holidays I don’t rejoice, nor feel neglected. The world moves on. However, this year I wish it didn’t move as fast. First, there was a strike in Hollywood, the center of world entertainment, consequently well publicized. Shortly after a costly strike by the shoreman paralyzed sections of the economy. We found out that the Hollywood people were not being paid living wages. Both striking groups had a new demand. They want guarantees not to be replaced by Artificial intelligence. Another disaster showed its ugly face.

The economy went into inflation. We discovered Canada is suffering from a severe shortage of housing, while we are short workers. Money was set aside for housing but may have enriched people who do not provide the type of housing that is needed most. Many seniors and people on fixed incomes are using food banks.

As if that is not enough, global warming is here ahead of predictions. Canada is on fire. Droughts are threatening the food supply and there is no money to pay for the extensive fire and flood damage. Now even the tropical island of Hawaii is burning. I am trying to get away from all the bad news, but there is no break.

Every day there are reports of people trying desperately to migrate to better places and perishing in the attempts.

In desperation, I close my eyes and pray. God, please help us. We lost our way. In my mind, a voice says, you humans abandoned faith in me. Even those who say they believe in me honestly don’t. They either believe that their science will save them or argue about the stories I used for teaching what humans must do to save themselves.

I go back in my mind to what I know about holy books or scriptures. Eastern religions talk about reincarnation and eventually uniting with the Universal Mind. Judaism is built upon being the chosen people. Islam doesn’t shy away from using force to convert. Christianity appeals to me the most, but we divided it into over a thousand philosophies. Somewhere in all those volumes full of words, there is a truth hiding that all the believers claim to know.

What we need, now more than ever, is to change a few things.

Co-operation instead of predatory competition.

Less effort to please our desires and more to be moral creatures.

Understand each other as before the tower of Babel.

Listen to the collective unconsciousness more than to the private consciousness.

I will leave you with that and face the coming two weeks. May God watch over us all.