The political atmosphere is heating up along with temperatures in Southeastern PA - record breaking. The sky is literally (and figuratively) falling in the south with the deluge of rain, rioting, and cries of revolution. Our environmental climate mirrors the current political climate. And people are getting hurt.
In rehearsal today, we reflected, again, on mattering. Who matters? How? Why?
As I listen to the onslaught of Trump's attacks, I am reminded that often, the people who are left behind are also denied some sort of access. There's an inequality and a power struggle, but the struggle is not about a critical exchange of ideas and resources. It's a struggle between those who have a lot and those who have nothing.
I wonder... how can American be great again if everyone doesn't have equal access to health care? education? job opportunities? housing? food?
No, we don't have a perfect system, but how can we without the ability to trust our leadership? Can we build from the bottom up without the ability to share resources or have access to the talents of each other?
I don't have any answers... just a lot of questions and a desire to create connections.
I believe we're all interconnected with our environment. I can't help but draw a metaphor between the angry weather patterns across the country and the storm we're in politically, racially, and economically. I'll keep looking for the rainbow...
have spent many years examining implications you raise and many others in the struggle for fairness as we advance into the future. on the one hand we can argue that there has never been an equality wth resources and never will be. that doesn't work for me. but the political process guards status quo. it only gets worse in the out years. we are on the threshold of two revolutions that will augur for a step change in the human species, but only for those who can pay for it. a few years ago an "aging" scientist argued that the first people to live to multiple hundreds were in their fifties. we are already experimenting with direct computer synthesis with the human brain. ten years ago or more scientists at Carnegie Mellon taught rat braincells in a petrie dish to fly the microsoft flight simulator on a PC...I'm a pilot and I know how difficult the flight simulator is. imagine a subset of the human population that can live to several hundred years old and have computer enhanced brains...but only if they can pay for it...all our wonderful conservative and progressive heroes will be lined up for theirs...just another thought to confuse...so very sorry I was just looking for problems and opportunities not how to go get them for everyone. if you have time to read entertaining stories, a couple scifi novels by John Scalzi (Old Man's War and Ghost Brigades) show off the advanced brain power and genetic applications in a military setting. at the time I was just working the computer links to the brain. we have been teaching pilots to fly with thought. both political parties have let us down struggling to maintain the status quo and their large pieces of the pie. a constitutional convention and term limits are in order.
ReplyDeleteMichael, I've been digesting your thoughts for several days before responding and I always return to the question - do we as a society and a culture look externally for solutions that can only be solved by internal change and reflection? Computer enhanced brains are external, but how much of the human brain, currently completely internal, goes untapped or unimagined? What more could we do with our own potential? I studied non-Western religions as part of my graduate studies and the work revealed some powerful individuals who were not interested in money, wealth, or political negotiations, but ways to connect with nature, the spirit world, and other people. These individuals transcended known scientific principles through their own being.
DeleteHow much more could we accomplish if we stopped fighting an invisible timeline and listened to each other? Really listened? To our bodies, our stories, our dreams, our impact? Thank you for your suggested readings and your musings. Let's continue the conversation and find ways to enact positive, nonviolent, social change.