Wednesday, September 7, 2005
Maybe this post will make a difference...
colors: brown and green
mood: yeah!!
kind or unkind thought for the day:
well, here goes... I didn't get a good enough night's sleep last night, so will try this evening to get to bed a little sooner. I need to finish the blog and walk the dog and take a shower first, because my scalp gets all itchy on the second day. I don't know how the people who leave their hair unwashed for long enough to grow dreads can actually do it - perhaps there's a trick that doesn't require not washing...
Anyway, here it is:
I was just looking down at a box of Stephanie's from The Body Shop, and on the cover it said "animals in danger", but from a cursory glance, I thought it was a kids book, because it had several animals drawn in kid's-book style on the cover.
Anyway, I thought what it would be like for a kid to grow up with that as one of their books for learning reading and how depressing that would be. And then my mind, never satisfied, thought of a more depressing book - "Earth in danger", and it could have a kid's-book style drawing of the Earth on the cover. Yes, that would be more depressing. I'm sure Zoloft and Prozac sales would find a new market in the pre-teen demographic.
Well, here's a little light for those youngsters. The fact that we ccould actually be floating the idea of the Earth, or at least our civilization, being in mortal danger is nothing short of staggering. Here is this place, unique for all we currently know, where sentient life exists in the universe. Who or what caused our lives to be here is not as important as the fact that we are here, and we could blow it.
The marble that bounced around inside my headd hard enough to make me do a double-take and turn the laptop right on was the idea that we don't realize what the consequences of blowing this really will be BECAUSE with our intelligence and creativity, we have been able to work out so many prophetic glimpses of a wide variety of futures (Blade Runner, Terminator, Brazil, Star Trek, Firefly, St. John of Patmos, Vonnegut, Nostradamus...) Very few of those pictures show our world in the fragile state it's really in. We believe (because we want to believe) that the world shown in Blade Runner, or Star Trek, the Book of Revelation, etc, is going to come true because that's all we've seen. Most of those visions are dystopian. Many of us have more utopian, or at least more egalitarian visions, and ways to get there given the opportunity.
If you're bothering to read this far, I encourage you to create your own vision. Spend a year on it.
First, we need to realize our visions in the mind, then realize/weave them into the fabric of this ttime stream.
Peace out.
starpower: 2.0 thurstons
chant/prayer/mantra: catch a fire
bus hugs to all,
joel
mood: yeah!!
kind or unkind thought for the day:
well, here goes... I didn't get a good enough night's sleep last night, so will try this evening to get to bed a little sooner. I need to finish the blog and walk the dog and take a shower first, because my scalp gets all itchy on the second day. I don't know how the people who leave their hair unwashed for long enough to grow dreads can actually do it - perhaps there's a trick that doesn't require not washing...
Anyway, here it is:
I was just looking down at a box of Stephanie's from The Body Shop, and on the cover it said "animals in danger", but from a cursory glance, I thought it was a kids book, because it had several animals drawn in kid's-book style on the cover.
Anyway, I thought what it would be like for a kid to grow up with that as one of their books for learning reading and how depressing that would be. And then my mind, never satisfied, thought of a more depressing book - "Earth in danger", and it could have a kid's-book style drawing of the Earth on the cover. Yes, that would be more depressing. I'm sure Zoloft and Prozac sales would find a new market in the pre-teen demographic.
Well, here's a little light for those youngsters. The fact that we ccould actually be floating the idea of the Earth, or at least our civilization, being in mortal danger is nothing short of staggering. Here is this place, unique for all we currently know, where sentient life exists in the universe. Who or what caused our lives to be here is not as important as the fact that we are here, and we could blow it.
The marble that bounced around inside my headd hard enough to make me do a double-take and turn the laptop right on was the idea that we don't realize what the consequences of blowing this really will be BECAUSE with our intelligence and creativity, we have been able to work out so many prophetic glimpses of a wide variety of futures (Blade Runner, Terminator, Brazil, Star Trek, Firefly, St. John of Patmos, Vonnegut, Nostradamus...) Very few of those pictures show our world in the fragile state it's really in. We believe (because we want to believe) that the world shown in Blade Runner, or Star Trek, the Book of Revelation, etc, is going to come true because that's all we've seen. Most of those visions are dystopian. Many of us have more utopian, or at least more egalitarian visions, and ways to get there given the opportunity.
If you're bothering to read this far, I encourage you to create your own vision. Spend a year on it.
First, we need to realize our visions in the mind, then realize/weave them into the fabric of this ttime stream.
Peace out.
starpower: 2.0 thurstons
chant/prayer/mantra: catch a fire
bus hugs to all,
joel
Comments:
<< Home
Sad to say, Prozac and other psychotropic meds are already being marketed/prescribed to pre-teens, even though we're really not certain what that might do to their neurochemistry in the long term. Oh, and I think there is a market for those drugs for pets too...but maybe I'm just thinking of dietary supplements such as kava, which are definitely marketed for your over-anxious pets...
Your more positive point is well taken though. Seriously, while it may be a bit much to say that an individual will have ultimate control over what sort of future humans will have (limited because of the complex interplay of all humans and many other factors), one way of making sure that the more utopian ideals will NOT become reality is to fail to develop them in our minds to the degree they need to be in order for them to be acted upon and shared.
My personal utopian vision is strengthened when my garden is doing well, so the more effort I put into encouraging my garden, the more hope I see for humanity - it will take a while to articulate this clearly, but I'll keep you informed as things develop. :)
Post a Comment
Your more positive point is well taken though. Seriously, while it may be a bit much to say that an individual will have ultimate control over what sort of future humans will have (limited because of the complex interplay of all humans and many other factors), one way of making sure that the more utopian ideals will NOT become reality is to fail to develop them in our minds to the degree they need to be in order for them to be acted upon and shared.
My personal utopian vision is strengthened when my garden is doing well, so the more effort I put into encouraging my garden, the more hope I see for humanity - it will take a while to articulate this clearly, but I'll keep you informed as things develop. :)
<< Home
