Synergy- Israel for example

It was late R. Buckminster Fuller who demonstrated the synergy in the way 2 equilateral triangles are hinged to another to create a fourth equilateral triangle. Synergy is the behavior of a system as a whole unpredicted by its parts.
You and I can be represented as equilateral triangles. We are both locked in a struggle to be viable in context of the rest and do we not produce something unseen by either you or me?
For example the creation of Israel was to give Israel a national identity. The land was carved out of area where Palestinians had lived for centuries. Many of the Palestinians were displaced into camps while many were absorbed into the national mainstream. At present the Israeli-Palestinians constitute 22 % of the population. In terms of those Palestinians living outside and who also dream of a nation is like the equilateral triangle hinged to the other two viz., Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians.
Synergy of these is what one ought to worry about. It is so charged that Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and the USA are all drawn into it.
benny

A Story

Free Expanding Consciousness©
The boy was mentally challenged and his parents left him to die on top of a craggy mountain. The parents thought a child of seven who could not count beyond three would only bring discredit to them. But he was found by a pack of lumberjacks loitering in a most piteous state in the wilderness where bears abounded. They all wanted to adopt him but wiser counsel prevailed when the Indian guide pointed to the boy’s features and said,” See those special markings on his skull? Extraordinary things he shall do. No authority of human kind can hold him down.” The lumberjacks gave up the idea of adopting him.
The Indian however took the strange boy by his hand and said,” I shall teach you all that you need to know.” The boy left silently with the Indian.
The brave Wolf-by-the tail after taking care of the hungry child gave him a place to sleep. He slept under the starlit sky and at one point he saw the stars clustered at a particular spot in the sky. He heard in the middle of that cluster the sky had cleared as if by some divine hand. It struck him as odd. Slowly he could see stars forming strange symbols and it began to make sense! They coalesced and parted and made so many combinations and the boy could not keep up with the celestial lesson. He slept.
Next morning when his adopted father took him to the chief he amazed the wizened old man by saying, “ I had a dream. I saw stars forming themselves into some pattern.” He called for some strings and he tied them in an intricate design and said,” This was how the night looked at first.”
The elders looked at each other in wonder. “I shall tell you how it is going to look two weeks from hence.” He folded the design in another fashion and held out, “You may check if I am wrong or not.”
The chief found the boy was accurate.
The boy explained that his parents abandoned him because he couldn’t make two and two into four. “ But because I was adopted by you I was given a new way of adding by that Great Spirit over the blue yonder. It is what you can find use for.”
That extraordinary aspect of life is wisdom when coupled with power makes the conventional arithmetic all wrong. What past confers on us can take us freely and ever expanding, in context of others and for greater good.
Did the boy receive a special gift from the departed spirits of the Indian tribe that had adopted him? You bet he was.
Benny

Time Out

Taking The Name Of God In Vain

"I BELIEVE that God wants me to be president." George W. Bush

=
"I would like to thank Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of all people to be allowed to wage this battle for Germany," Hitler - Berlin March, 1936
Both Bush and Hitler have found God very useful to their cause.

God is n't interested in creeps. For that matter He hates politics, whether in office or at the national level.
Why God hates politics? Because he knows the moment a creep wants to hoodwink others it is Him that he will remember. As a reflex action. So the creep has already pigeonholed God, and God hates to be made a fool of.
benny

An Invisible Enemy

In the beginning was Life: but with it came two laws. Is it good or bad that you have got right into the play off of these two laws? It all depends on what you intend to do with your own life than these laws. In an infinite framework of Time-Space your frail bark must traverse.
2.
Joan of Arc embarked on the impossible because she had tapped into that mysterious force that I call virtual energy. Historical records show that she was let down by those who owed their rise to her achievements. Notably among them was Charles VII. Was there any need for her to vindicate herself against the treachery of men when she had put her basis for action as a divine mission? She heard voices, didn’t she?
Each of us ought to obey voices as the Maid of Orleans and what do they tell us? ‘Know Thyself’ for one. The other? ‘I am subject to the same laws that operate from time began.’ Jesus could for this very reason forgive his enemies even on the cross. The maid of Orleans compensated her ‘frailty’ ( for being a woman) by enthusing a ragtag army against the English. If there was the other law also in operation so what? She hearkened to the inner voice to achieve what others thought as impossible. Being a woman in no way detracted from her sterling achievement.
benny

Two Laws

Virtual energy must be nudged into action. Honoré de Balzac ( 1799 – 1850) was goaded into writing because of huge financial burden he had to bear owing to his disastrous foray into business. ( Before and during his career as a writer, he attempted to be a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician. He failed in all of these efforts.) La Comédie Humaine reflects his real-life difficulties, and includes scenes from his own experience.
His magnum opus was a sequence of almost 100 novels and plays presents a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1815. His aim was to equal with his writing what his hero Napoleon set out to achieve by sword.
Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac with boundless energy didn’t stoop to hack writing but transcended a feat never before attempted by any writer in the annals of French literature. He is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature.
2.
In Balzac’s case real time energy must have been pressed into paying off his debts but somewhere in the process of transforming his bitter experiences by fleshing out the society that he knew well he had tapped onto something else: at one level his novels dealt with a society under seige by social changes which were inevitable after the fall of the emperor, but on the other hand it had become timeless. His writing influenced many famous authors, including the novelists Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James and Jack Kerouac, as well as important philosophers such as Friedrich Engels. Many of Balzac's works have been made into films, and they continue to inspire other writers.
He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities.(ack: wikipedia). Oscar Wide in a review of one of balzac’s novels said thus: ‘A steady course of Balzac reduces our friends to shadows…who would care to go out to an evening party to meet Tomkins, the friend of one’s boyfriend, when one can sit at home with Lucien de Rubempré (one of Balzac’s characters...)’
Law of deprivation we see in the financial loss from which Balzac would not fully recover. However the other law that of law of compensation is well established in the way he gave the literature new direction. He had tapped on virtual energy indeed.
benny

All Rounded Man

Real time energy keeps its finite end giving every life form to do its tasks for its finite ends. It does not give a total picture of a lifeform. If one would judge life of man merely on that basis, what one misses is his ability to inspire or give direction to future generations. Karl Marx would have been considered a failure as a social philosopher.
What availed a peasant girl like Joan of Arc from the Vosges to risk her life in face of opposition from every quarter? If her life was a mere case of delusion why would that all-powerful Church go on her knees in 1920 to admit fallibility of her Pope? It might take five centuries to clear her name but truth of nature proved its otherworldliness. Then it is but reasonable that unity of life be expressed in terms of real time energy wherein virtual energy is an essential component. This is what gives volume and direction to lives despite of all odds and in most cases to win belatedly recognition from all. Gender does not count; neither does age. It is the demonstration of virtual energy. It is skimmed out of real time by every life form who has found his or her niche in life. Virtual energy. Without this no life form can be considered as justifying its role as representative of its species.
Virtual energy is democratic in performance. Howsoever humble your trade is you demonstrate the quality of your life. What volume or direction a life in such anonymity and under constant economic restraints could have? Much in every way. Such a life makes its impact in that it is useful to the society.
benny

The Man of Sorrows

Is there anything by way of the antecedents of Jesus of Nazareth that can connect flawlessly with what followed, I mean by way of a movement? I beg to stick to the historical Jesus and not with what the synoptic gospels and the epistles are largely concerned with, which my reader according to his own preferences and persuasions may accept or reject. As much as I believe Jesus was the son of Joseph of Nazareth a carpenter, he subjected himself to the powers-that- be. He paid the tribute money (St.Mk 12: 17) with the scrupulous care of one who as any visitor to a kingdom would fulfill his obligations to the letter. His kingdom was not of this world and his many parables point out to this fact. It is true that he did forsee in Peter the making of a rock that shall bear the burden of his Church. (St. Matt 16:18-19) Would it mean he implied the Church of Rome or Papal dispensation would represent his command by any stretch of imagination? In fact Jesus, in the subsequent passages shows how his disciple was far from founding one. He calls St. Peter thus: “ Satan: thou art an offense to me:” Of course Peter was a man who thought and conducted himself like any other. Let us now draw our attention to the closing verses of the same chapter. We read that Jesus hinted of his soon coming in the glory of His Father( vs.28) and as such founding a church was not of the immediate priority. We can very well reject the claims of the Church of Rome that the Church was indeed what he had in mind.
There are no authentic evidences by way of archaeological sites or by scholarly accounts of contemporary historians whose impartial judgment we could rely on. Where he was born but in a manger; where was he buried after his death but in a borrowed tomb.
Notwithstanding these the world was never the same: the pagan world gave way to people of the Way. The pluses and minuses of the new belief are still with us. Did they make the world a better place or made it more crude and coarse?
To judge the role of Jesus( ‘My kingdom is not of this world’) by the manner his disciples fared subsequently cannot be fair. He cannot be blamed for if the Church amassed control into their own hands or interpreted the Word to suit their needs. He didn’t initiate the Crusades, Salem Witch trials or Inquisition. It would be apt to remember the Wildean epigram,”It is always Judas who writes the biography.”
Tailpiece: ‘Save me from my disciples! They are defending me to the point of dishonor’.

benny

A point to Ponder

“Measuring a man’s life by his material attributes, of name, riches or
years tells only a partial story: for the mediocre minds it is enough. A man’s true worth lies in his ability to have impacted on others that his society can no longer be same. Thus a complete assessment of our lives must take ages. A mind hasty to write off people must surely be a sign of shallow intellect.”
benny

Virtual Energy

Energy which a life form would require in order to achieve the impossible is something other than real time energy. Let me explain.
Truth of actions may work from contrary positions and in pursuit of contrary agendas. It may not at times make sense to others immediately. Those whom we now revere as great artists, poets how many of them were denied of their rights by their contemporaries!
At the moment I am reading the life of Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann. Wilde was the first to expose and ridicule the hypocritical Victorian Age and paid the price for it. He accepted ignominy of prison life stoically and after having paid the unjust price the society exacted from him, he did precisely as he chose to live. In his own admission he put his talent into his art and genius into his life. The hide-abound Victorian society may have treated him as a Pariah but the later generations would reinstate him in their acclaim as a true rebel and a genius.
Look back at the lives of artists like Van Gogh or Paul Gaugin. What they sought was something new that was lost to those who had their eyes to the commonplace. Quality of their truth often misunderstood at times and even brutally checked it is natural then in the eyes of majority if their lives have been considered as in vain. It is Oneness and identity in particular, that take care of relevance of a life form: where we go by appearances or by finite time we merely deceive ourselves.
Virtual energy is part of real time but transcends its finite slot. How one may ask? It is in that energy being counted as relevant even where its ‘handler’ has ceased to exist. In that chain of events, which a life- form has handled, energy keeps holding on to which there is no mistake, though the sequences may merge into many other waves. Every time we rely on the past we have come a full circle: in our ability to overcome our present needs we acknowledge our indebtedness to the pioneering effort of our forefathers. In a manner of speaking they are still relevant. Their energy, virtual energy that is, is connected with ours. If we can thus connect with Time-Space it must be conceded that real time energy does indeed hold a bag of tricks.
Unity of life where energy component of every generation is reconciled on a common standard in which no species or matter are excluded: time-space is transferred into Time-Space mode. In order to indicate this unity of life I attribute the ability of creative geniuses -or pioneers in whatever field, art, literature, science or technology, to give new directions to others to a different source. Virtual energy.
benny

The Gift of Icarus

My absolute position ( I have defined it elsewhere. So I shall not elaborate on this concept or of Me- factor. For the present purpose assume each of us holds a total distinct viewpoint of the world about us. )
My Me-factor is not yours. Admittedly our views are incompatible and it will not settle the question of our relevance within our lifetime; neither shall the question of success or failure be settled so easily. The anomaly of matter which drives the engine of unity of life precisely works because it can splice up from conflicting ideals into one.
How we solve every problem that faces us is experience and goes into the collective experience from which anyone may take inputs for his or her further development.
Let us consider the history of airborne flight:
That grand folly of Icarus could only be vindicated by Wright brothers in 1903. We address to time and place but unity of life works on a Time-Space framework. Unity of life binds many sheaves with varied names, as the time in which each lived, Icarus, Cyrano de Bergerac, da Vinci into one.
It is curious to know if the wright brothers were helped by mysterious forces from beyond the realm of natural by the spirits of all those who attempted to fly unsuccessfully? It wouldn’t be too far fetched if they did.
There was the laughter of the impossible over Icarus; as with da Vinci when he sketched the helicopter. That laughter must stop when one is set to solve a problem whose time has come. The gift of Icarus is the laughter of the possible. The Wright brothers could have well understood it.
benny

What Mischief We Are Capable Of?

A life-form is also unity of life, interacting with every other life-form in context of Oneness; it is engaged even before it has come into the world in a web of events, cause and effect which go back beyond mists of time; already certain impressions good or bad have left their mark; It is driven by these influences and in real time and place.
Killing By Other Means©
The man was a convict’s son. The king of that mountain kingdom drove him out and said,” Your father ended his life at a rope’s end. We fear for your life. You may do much mischief if we let you a free run among us.” The man went off.
Yes he was a convict’s son. He came from a community given to depradate travelers. His folks lived in environs of a mountain pass and targeted merchants who passed their way. He dared not go back to the hills infested with bandits.” I shall also die as my forefathers!” he cried and went instead to the plains.
It was the time the Church was all too powerful and their priests were listened to. He was sure that he would turn a new leaf. He found refuge in a monastery where he served on the monks and slowly became one of them. Brother Anselmo showed himself as a man of God and had a large following that thought the grace of God indeed dwelt upon him.
When the Pope called the faithfuls to join the crusade and free Jerusalem from the infidels, Brother Anselmo exhorted tirelessly to recruit volunteers. So many joined up trusting on the stirring words of Anselmo.
Many of these who went into foreign lands never returned. No one ever realized the number of innocents were sent to their death by Anselmo. He never had to pay for his guilt. He died as a holy man.
Brother Anselmo knew how to make use of his time and ride the temper of his times.
benny

The Glue That Holds Us Together

A question shall accommodate several answers all of which may be equally admissible depending on the context. Who am I? How I may be to my coworkers in my workplace isn’t how my wife sees me. You and I are individuals. Even so each holds different layers. How I as an individual connected to the rest of my species gives me multitudinous options to follow my drive. It may be that I want to hold my family together and pass for an useful citizen among my community. Or I may have much more grandiose plans to leave a legacy of sorts for the future. Whatever may be my ideal I can only make that happen in relation to others. I make use of my drive and energy and also hop on that of others. Synergy has come in when I can lift myself farther than using strictly my own level of energy.
I move in this visible carrying an inner world where energy is is an essential component. It is what must solve my two-in-one problem of being in the manner I prove my relevance to others.
2.
Visible and inner World. Each of this world can be represented as body and mind.
Body and Mind working as one: Two-in-one body problem is solved by real time energy. In case of every life-form it holds true.
Every life-form holds a position determined by the fact that he or she expends energy and has a part in Conservation of Energy. That position is on two sets of coordinates. How self shall express in time and space and also in a Time- Space since this conservation requires an infinite scale within which every sequence of energy ever put into use is tallied: birth of stars as well as its death have its place; in similar fashion Cosmos keeps particulars of every with the same exactness as any scrupulous accountant would balance the books.
benny

Making of A Pioneer

Working Within Limit ©
The first farmer who settled from a nomadic existence after a couple of bad starts, reproached the wind thus, ‘Didn’t you tell me to go ahead and plant wheat?” “Yes?”
“Because you gave your word that you are everywhere, I took you on your word and the result,- entire field ruined by water! “ “Oh, it was the clouds which brought on early showers” said the wind.
” Next season it was a drought that did me in” wailed the farmer. “Blame it on the sun,” said the wind. “Aw shucks, What benefit is to me that you are everywhere?”
To be everywhere is not to be anywhere in particular’. This is the result of two laws of Compensation and that of Negation.
Every one of us individually and collectively as species is subject to these two laws.
Our finite factor allows us only a fragmented view of Oneness. Bits and pieces of what Oneness means we know: our Me-factor consequentially is not put to its optimum use. Instead of drawing from Oneness direct we can only supplement for all shortfalls from what the law of compensation allows. Working within a limit we gain and also lose out. Success and Failure shall therefore have interchangeable values.
Al Gore lost out to President Bush in the Presidential elections in 2000 and that election shall ever remain a controversy and a blot on the escutcheon of American form of Democracy. While President Bush by exceeding ineptness made everything he touched turn to ashes what did Al Gore do? It gave him time to concentrate on environmental issues. By winning a Nobel prize in 2007 for Peace he brought the stature of America a little higher from the odium of a war-mongering nation.
Al Gore could handle defeat. By interacting with the rest in whichever way the laws may play off we create a body of evidence for ourselves. Thereby we establish our relevance.

benny

Peace and Truth

Three craftsmen met at a way-station. One was a silversmith the second, a jeweler and the third a carpenter who was more in a daze than the other two.
Having spread their beds for the night they spent time chatting away. Their topic was on hereafter.
The silversmith said the heaven was like a palace with thousand gopuras each shethed in silver and the finials decorated in bells.
“ When the wind blows these bells with tingle and it shall be a signal for me to be escorted by apsaras before the Lord of Three Worlds.”
“Why this special treatment? The carpenter asked.
“ The silversmith without hesitation replied,” I toiled without ceasing in carving images here on earth and through sickness and indigence I did for the honor of the gods.”
The jeweler was sure that he also struggled as much. He was the devotee of the Lord Vishnu. He added the Lord shall specially call him to check the jewels in his crown and assign the chiefest place in his work-room. “ I shall have the best and most precious jewels under my care. Will I not bring glory to my Lord?”
The carpenter who was smoking opium drawled, “ Oh I may not be called to do anything. I have already spared the Lords from all ridicule. Notwithstanding silver one can easily make a god look ridiculous if the design or the quality of silver doesn’t fit the godhead.”
The jeweler was sure that his creations were all well thought of and fitted the crown exactly as it should.”
The carpenter laughed him to scorn. “ A ruby could make the blue-throat( Lord Shiva) look ghastly. You must first know for whom the jewels are meant.”
The silversmith and the jeweler took offense at the carpenter and they removed themselves to the far corner. “ Isn’t it terrible if we were to spent eternity in a heaven in the company of such a foul-mouth?”
The two felt that the paradise wasn’t anymore as brilliant as they had conceived it to be.
The carpenter went on puffing and he thought nothing else mattered than his drug-induced sleep.
2.
Peace isn’t built on external matters; peace is what any one may tease out of one’s inner world, where truth of nature, truth of experience and truth of action can explore the visible world in a constructive manner.
Truth and peace are indivisible.
Thus escaping the present realities by drugs or some other short cuts one doesn’t create peace. The experience has to be genuine by which one may interlock with others in a spirit of peace. There by one tests truth in everday life; truth of nature sounds to each the indescribable Life in a mode one may resonate. The truth give his or her life a special flavor.
Truth of action is where conditions of peace created by you outflow into others.
benny

Peace in Action

My friend had a longstanding quarrel with his eldest brother that was largely on account of their basic personalities. My friend is a bohemian and an artist while his brother is an attorney and very conservative. Their temperaments and politics were poles apart and my friend’s lifestyle, well it had been a bone of contention between the two. In any argument they were sure to take the extreme views. While their parents were alive they somehow tolerated each other but barely.
Years later when my friend chose to step out of a loveless marriage and take a woman of his choice they quarrelled. It was a very nasty one. For years they chose to cut each other off. Each brother pretended as though the other didn’t exist. But how long can they keep their differences unattended?
A time came when they decided to confront.
During this meeting in a spirit of amity the elder brother wanted to rationalize his quarrel and and my friend stopped him from raking over the past.
“ We begin new and I accept you as you are.” My friend said. He wiped off from his mind every injury and spite and his brother also did likewise. My friend said that they could build their affection from that point onwards. Peace among brothers was restored.
My friend was sure memory at best was faulty since time glosses over the real and any analysis over their past would have only skirted over the real issues. By bringing light to what was ages past meant putting different emphases over their clash of personalities and it seemed to my friend a vain exercise. Arguing over the origin of their quarrel or its effect would only made their reconciliation worse. By completely burying the past they could build on the present and allow future to make it grow.
Peace has to do with past, present and future.
benny

Re: Peace

Peace isn’t merely an inert state as though one is thrown into stupor; peace is not merely absence of conflicting issues between two parties.
In one of my earlier posts I had defined happiness as outside circumstances. Happiness is synonymous with Life. Peace is where any man may back up with his inner resources to let happiness has its free working. Is it possible?
In Christian scriptures we read of ‘peace of God that passeth all understanding’. Life is positive and doesn’t care a fig for the issues or the outstanding causes for conflict. Life isn’t legalistic and doesn’t bring up some claims as we hear nowadays from some Jewish quarters that their claim to such and such land is unassailable since God had promised the land to the Patriach Abraham. Yes are we to dismiss their claim as untenable? Since the name of God is invoked I may also quote a verse from the Old Covenant. ‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof…”(Ps.24:1) Are the Arabs not the descendants of the Patriarch? Is it an impossble feat in such a case to let your brother live in comfort even as you have been sufficently provided for? No that is impossible for our security, so says some. Security must come from a spirit of accommodation.
Much before the gold rush of ’48 Bozo the Bugger took mining rights from some bank that was going bust. He went west and found gold. Immediately he bought a mule team and some work hands. He in the months to come fenced in lands as far as eyes could see. He put up a notice stating he was the owner and anyone who came anywhere near would be shot.
When one came near and he was seeking gold, Bozo fired a warning shot and said, “ Keep off my land!”
Bozo had acquired rights by possession and he was ready to fight it out to hold what wasn’t legally his. Yes he would need more guns and more fire power to make his false claims stick.
Israel could have made peace;equally the Palestinians could have accommodated their brethren and taken an effort to live in amity. But they didn’t.
How can there be peace when both parties cannot take their eyes off the issues and cases of bloodletting that have occurred since the birth of Israel?
Peace of God (or Peace that life has instilled in every one of us) is outside circumstances and beyond our limited understanding. If there be a statesman who makes peace, overlooking all the past injuries,- with the ‘enemy’ do you think he shall be welcomed as a hero by his own nation?
Issac Rabin, I salute you.
Tailpiece:There have been many such instances. Michael Collins for one and he was shot dead in ambush by rebel IRA members for making peace with the English in 1922.
benny

Me-Factor

Oscar Wilde the wit had become a celebrity and was beginning to outshine Whistler the painter. His erstwhile mentor found it irritating. Once they came across one another after the newspapers had printed some news over their rivalry. Whistler having brusquely dismissed the gossip, said that whenever they got together they spoke only over one subject, indicating himself. The Irish wit genially retorted, ”That maybe, Jamie, but I think only of myself.”
benny

News On The March!

Did Columbus bring Syphilis to Europe?
The most familiar theory suggests that syphilis came to the Europe in 1495, three years after Columbus set sail for what proved to be the New World.

Harper and her colleagues tried to track the evolution of syphilis by examining genes from it and other diseases related to the pathogen known as Treponema.

The researchers looked at 21 genetic regions in strains of the pathogen from 26 parts of the world. Treponema causes syphilis and a disease known as yaws, a "flesh-eating" infection of the joints, bones and skin found in tropical regions.

But yaws first appeared not in the New World but in the Old World, Harper said.

Yaws appeared in Africa and eventually made its way to South America and the New World as humans migrated. Then the germs made their way to Europe with the help of sailors and may have evolved into the venereal disease known as syphilis, perhaps because of different environmental conditions.

Europeans brought measles and smallpox (to the Indians). But this is an example of disease going the other way. That seems kind of fair."
What would this mean? We need to see Mankind as one and where man in any one part suffers under some local disease like tropical yaws would undergo changes over a period and affect other parts as well. We have seen the ugly side of giant pharmaceutical companies, which deny the Third World nations free use of anti-retoviral drugs to fight the scourge there. To them profit comes always come first.
benny

The findings are published in the Jan. 15 issue of the Public Library of Science Neglected Tropical Diseases.

The Two-in-One problem

we are all interconnected.
We are the cause and we are also the effect. As I said before we are both but not at the same time. We create progress and does it not run on the ruins of what went before? The first man who was footloose and fancy free called himself a nomad and did he not thumb noses at his ancestors who were content to their arboreal existence? A nomadic life came unfashionable as soon as man invented agriculture. Progress is a kind of monster that eats its own kind.
Progress at any given point of time and space is only as good as what is yet to come.
We all arrived the moment we cultivated crops and owned a piece of land. That joy was short lived as soon as some discovered they were too late to claim lands for themselves and instead must work on the lands of others and be bonded to serve. Well progress sounds good on paper and in working it is only designated to undo all that advantages some tout as fruits of progress. The landed gentry who were called to pay up for the right to own lands to the nobles must have soon realized progress is merely a catch- all for both good and bad. We are connected to both good and evil. We are important enough to lay down rules for who are below us in station but not worth sitting down with those who are above us.
So those who escaped servitude and slow death in the monotony of agriculture went over to cities. Of course progress they called in their ability to choose their own trade or make a living. How good was it anyway?
From the above it is clear we create conditions for escape while we shut out ourselves in some manner or other.
You and I are equally responsible for this whether we took sides in any part of the problem.
The two in one problem explains the basic dilemma of being material being with an abstract dimension attached to every element that makes a man.
benny

See No Evil etc.,

One day I saw a man about to make a hole in a river right across my front yard. I closed my eyes and said,” I see no evil.”
Later in the day I heard an altercation going on across the lane; two fellows argued about their gods till a mob came there in support of one. They were there to let a river of blood flow for their religion; they said it was so divine that any insult could only be washed in blood. So they threatened and I dared not speak up. While another mob equally hellbent for mayhem headed to the spot I could have called the police. The phone was right in front. But I said “ I speak no evil.”
I did nothing.
Then came the scream and fire. Rows of houses in the neighborhood went up in flames. So much of noise they made. I saw the mob on a rampage and they were heading towards me.
I had no religion and I was nothing. But the violence had taken an ugly shape that spared nothing.
“ Oh save me!” I ran in circles and begged some who were in the neighborhood. They replied,” We hear no evil.”
benny