Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Maintaining Sense in a Senseless World



Unless you have spent the last few years buried in an avalanche, you may have noticed that few things going on in our world today make sense. At least if you consider yourself a sensible person. The question that hangs in the air is simply, why?
To understand the big picture requires a focus on human nature itself. Rather than striving to find common ground between ourselves, humans seem determined to be "right" above all else. As soon as we identify that someone thinks differently than we do, the tendency can be to end further communication and look for more "like minded" people with whom we can connect.
The past several years, (while neglecting this blog), has been spent trying to understand why our world is so divided on ideological lines. The need to be absolutely right on every issue is a pervasive trap that can infect our psyches to the point that a simple disagreement on "how" things should be done births the emotion of hatred for anyone with a differing opinion. 
If it comes, the end of the world will be the result of this irrational hatred manipulated by those who wish to use that hatred in their quest for control and power. Perhaps the people of the world have become too weary to see what is right in front of us or perhaps, we have become too conditioned by being able to listen to only those opinions that agree with ours that we abdicate our ability to think for ourselves.
The need of our collective societies has never been greater to rediscover the common bond that unites each and every one of us. That bond is simply called "humanity". Our struggles as individuals are ubiquitous, beginning with the need of survival and the need to find purpose in our lives.
If we fail as people to discover that each of us has more in common than not, we surrender any chance we have of working together to find solutions to the dogma of hatred that is destroying everything we hold dear. 
Hatred is a powerful emotion that makes us susceptible to manipulation by those who value power over the common good. There is no shortage of people willing to use our emotions for their own gain and simply being aware of the predatory nature of those willing to sacrifice common good to enhance their power allows us to dissect the real meaning of their message.
In the coming new year, may we all take off the blinder of hatred so we can see each other, regardless of ideology, as united more often than divided. Perhaps, this is an unrealistic idea but if we don't, the end result will not be something any of us want to face.