Escape to Here Now

 Well, if we go by the last few ( whatever few you choose ), you might expect that we will face some challenges in 2023, and probably big ones, small one, maybe a few medium size ones, along the way. Probably the biggest challenge for 2023 is the issue of clarity.  Right along the way with that, is some sense of privacy, on a personal, government, or industrial/business kind of sense. Now with all these challenges, and of course, a variety of others, I'm pretty confident that because the human race has done pretty well, for the last 10,000 years, most likely we will do " pretty " well for the next, 2 - 3. Nevertheless, meeting challenges works best when we are united.  This is simply because when we are united, regardless of how (you draw the boundary'), we have greater confidence.  When we are more confident, we are also, coincidentally, more effective. At the same time , I see, at this point the true glimmerings, of world peace,  In part, this is because, at t...

  So oceans, lots of oceans. Oceans of water, oceans of light, oceans in clouds, oceans of space, oceans of time, and then you must stop, remember, the ocean of the Word of God.

  Something about the end of the year, makes you want to think about the future, where you want to go , who you want to see, just things like that.  But at the same time there is always some pre-occupation with the past as well, and so you are kind of in a rush to maybe organize old stuff and so you kind of have a bit of a tug of war between these to different directions. Now, it may or may not be safe to assume that any time you are progressing from the past to the future, it would be pretty much the same, as in fact we are doing that process continuously or at least it appears to us as some kind of continuity.  Now it seems to me when considering a collective future, especially for the times in which we live, we have a hard time avoiding a somewhat simple , yet extremely difficult issue which is that the world we live in is quite complex, yet generally we try and shy away from complexity.  Complexity is a bit hard to embrace, although certainly in the past Islamic ...

  It may or may not be appropriate to peruse " our many " battles over time, like ancient, sort of in the  middle, and of course more recent battles through time, as we approach our celebration and holiday of Peace on Earth, and Good Will toward Men, of that type.  Of course, there have been quite a few, in fact, many.  And of course sometimes you have to remember something like which side of that battle was I on ?  And then, did we win or did we lose, that one?  Of course these battles do tend to weave themselves into , you know, wars, conquests, " imperial " ambitions of various proportions, well, just lots and lots of them all kind of blending together, and which side was I on then. Of course, when we think a bit more deeply on this topic, we can not escape our daily battles, that occurs on the more personal level and less collective side of things.   So all I can say is: Merry Christmas, ya'll,, and just gear back a little so we can have a tru...

  So, I guess it is pretty important that we have a " sound ", ( though perhaps non-audible) concept of what is meant by social progress or advancement/  What it means is really what we think of in terms of the " future ", meaning time, sort of,  in the process of becoming the present. So it's a deep concept, and one that requires , particular concern in the times, in which we now live.  Basically, systems in general require information to flow up as well as down.  We see this of course in biological mechanisms, or the way organisms evolve as well as survive. So, briefly, IMHO, on a large scale, systems of any kind will work more effectively, which means also harmoniously, to the degree in which " kind of hardwired ", hierarchies have become " rigid ", that is unable to change.

As a virtue humility does seem to end up low on the list of virtues which people tend to value.  But why might humility be something, someone might be attracted to as a virtue? Well, for one thing it does cut down on the degree of hubris that one might engage in.  Of course, hubris in general is not considered to be that great of a vice, mostly because there is not much of a penalty for engaging with it, and secondly it can masquerade as a form of confidence or authority. And so might there be some other reason to engage with humility? Well, in my opinion, there are two substantial reasons.  One is, it improves our ability to be emphatic, which is very important for social cohesion, and a big benefit for personal relationships.  Secondly, it does improve ones ability to listen to, and consider more in depth another persons point of view, which can be extremely beneficial, especially when engaged with solving difficult or complex problems. I wish I could sum this up w...