It is a strange current reality in which we all find ourselves existing. Every eleven, or so, years, the nauseating housing market bubble bursts, and we all, property owners or tenants, have no choice but to face life in a climate of austerity, high rents, low incomes, depressing governmental forecasts and bank foreclosures. Meanwhile, amid the ongoing climate of austerity we are swamped on TV and Social online networks by both, adverts urging us to borrow money regardless of our maybe low credit rating, and also more and more adverts aimed at tempting us to gamble our scarce money in the unlikely hope of winning a fortune.
Nothing new about this so far, but the difference this time is that confusion encircles Planet Earth. The confusion ranges from voters' disenchantment with broken promises from the well-heeled elites including politicians, to so-called religious wars fought by definitely ungodly blood-lusting killers against each other and against peace-loving civilian communities. Just like a planet-wide virus, the ongoing lust for killing has now spread around the planet, with countless copycat hopeless misguided individuals murderously driving vehicles into crowds, or shooting at pupils and staff in schools. This infection is now planet-wide, and certainly signals a need for drastic changes in how each individual human being regards and values his or her self.
Not so long ago we all watched in cinemas or on TV, many films where people were killed or killed other people. Film producers, known for copying the successful ideas of each other, soon tried to make these films more and more violent, bloodthirsty, sadistic, and horrific, and as a result, unwittingly coarsened the sensibilities and expectations of their mostly passive audiences. This was and is bad enough, but now we have a couple of generations that have been and are totally immersed in playing computer games where the player, no longer passive, kills, not only fantasy monsters but also screened disposable human beings. For the misguided, fear-filled without hope, in their angry confusion, it cannot be a vast mental leap to regard any and all human beings as disposable. Now we have people unemotionally guiding via monitor screens, drones poised to destroy distant targets regardless of acceptable collateral damage (the politically correct term for killing nearby but not involved human beings).
Driven by fear, self-doubt, and uncertainty as to why he or she exists in this vast universe, Mankind is at war with itself. This war enters and pollutes every aspect of Mankind's existence and has done throughout the ages. The war ranges from actual battles, ancient and modern where the young cream of a nation is brainwashed by their elders into fighting and killing the young cream of another nation. It also ranges and pollutes the worlds of sports, business, politics, and religion, always competing to be the fastest, the strongest, and the most powerful to always win a futile, pointless competition. We could describe it as an evil or a virus that has corrupted our thinking throughout the centuries, and certainly, it has to burn itself out before Mankind will choose to change for the better.
Yet the true virtuous value of Mankind is revealed and displayed when somewhere on the planet tragedy strikes such as earthquakes, for then we observe the rescuers and aid workers, not selfishly competing, but fully cooperating with each other. In turn, this suggests that cooperation builds mutual trust, and competition in all of its forms builds selfishness, fear, and mutual distrust. So really it is time for each freewill-endowed he and she of Mankind to choose, to compete or to cooperate. This is a personal choice to be made by each individual, regardless of the choices made by other individuals. Only then will the ongoing war end to be replaced by a Mankind that chooses to live in harmony and balance.
Best wishes from David & Yvonne Brittain
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