~Chapter Ten~                                          SITTING IN A BOWL OF PASTA--- "A simple kind of mirror, to reflect upon our own, all the busy little creatures chasing out their destinies. Living in their pools, they soon forget about the sea. " --Peart (again)     The contemporary poet Robert Browning once asked, "Why stay we here on Earth, unless to grow?"  Indeed, what would be the point of living and the life experience if in the end, we remain static and unchanged?     We all want to live in a better place, and know that it will only come through a change in venue.  If pressed, nearly every person on the planet will agree there must be a better way of conducting human affairs.  What we first need to do is identify the parts of our society that are no longer working, and why.  It doesn't really matter where to begin, because all of the problems can be traced down to either  wealth, or ego.  Bear with me, I know it's not quite that simple.  Protocol be damned, it's the money. You got it, the root of all evil, or at least the road that leads us there.  It's insane that you can reduce nearly every injustice or pain down to this simplest idea, but it's essentially true.  It's pathetic, how many gifted minds, and human potential is kept from taking flight--- simply due to a lack of funds.  People who have plenty of wealth, tend to write off such a simplistic view as utter nonsense.  People without it, are in no position to prove otherwise.  There are those who say money can't buy happiness, but it can make a darn good down payment.  Either way, rich or poor, it's clear that the division between the classes grows more pronounced every day.  Some would say this is the groundwork for another revolution. The problem with revolution though, is in how it's generally based on a violent overthrow of whoever's in power at the time.  This stems invariably from a need for wealth to be distributed more evenly.  But once the oppressed seize hold of that wealth, then they too are afflicted with the same drunken power they once despised.  Soon, there's a new regime that's in need of overthrowing, and the cycle continues. These essays are an attempt to lay the foundation for another kind revolution (however loosely), but with less emphasis placed on "revolution," and more put on "evolution." We need to evolve to a position where all are treated as equals, or at the very least, are treated with due respect.  It would be nice to avoid the trappings of "Napoleon," not just the conqueror, but also, the pig.  In Orwell's political satire "Animal Farm," the porcine dictator decreed that all animals were created equal.  As he became more powerful and drunk on said power, the credo was modified to, "some are more equal than others." He implied that all have basic rights, but only some of have the superiority to attain them.        Is this not pretty much, the world we live in? Words like  "equality," along with so many others, must be reevaluated.  We need new definitions for old ideas, if we're to get beyond them.  In the natural world,  you can find true equality because there's no hidden agendas or deceit.  Everything is given equal opportunity to survive, and all face the same perils of existence.         Take this same idea and apply it to humans.  Thinking that it's individual effort that will make survival possible has a nice ring to it, but not by today's standards.  In the human equation, nothing matters but the scramble for status.  The struggle of the individual is based almost exclusively on the need to acquire wealth.  What about those of us who strive to actually make a difference in the way people live their lives? What good is equality if all the comes from achieving it, is that we only end up lapping up slop from the same trough? It's still a swine's life.  Since humans are so good at abstractions, let's consider the hammer and the nail.  Which is superior?  The hammer, with its great power to drive the nail?  Or is it the nail, with its ability to penetrate the impenetrable? Which deserves superior status? Both the hammer and the nail are completely indivisible.  One isn't superior over the other.  They are equals, which is not to say that there aren't intrinsic differences between the two.  But such differences don't make one superior over the other.  When we speak of evolution in pages to come, we must also apply it to how we think.  It's a waste of time to concern ourselves with whether or not the evolutionary process exists.  Only those with a desperate need to cling to old ideas deny the reality of evolution as it applies to the built in change of nature.  Of course, people will invariably keep clinging to whichever belief makes them feel better.  But, since we're trying to elevate ourselves above the primordial muck, there's simply no more time for fairy tales here.  We should decide which ideas we continue to let set our course, and which we should try to dispose of. We should also begin learning some ways with which to purge ourselves of, or at least soften the ideologies --- that create only division.  Starting with the divisiveness of status, maybe we can begin to discern an objective overview here.         Like everything else with which we're familiar, even our definition of what wealth is needs to be seriously reconsidered.  No doubt, we have our work cut out for us.  It's still uncertain as to whether or not it'll be worth the trouble. Somehow, I think it will be though.  So what do we do now, just sit in this big bowl and do nothing, or try and take a peek over the rim? Without seeing the bigger picture, we'd be no different than a noodle trying to figure out its own origins, while sitting in a big bowl of pasta. I sure hope it's whole grain.       The time has come for us to start using our noodles.  We need to quit playing it safe while hiding behind the respective barricades that we've thrown up like walls all around ourselves.  People look for a nicer place to rest their heads, but are unwilling to go shopping for a stronger box spring.  It's so easy to just look the other way.  For example, here I sit, hammering this stuff out.  The entire time, I'm hoping that some of this will start to congeal into what it is that we're actually trying to say.       Yet I can't help but think that if there came a knock on my door, and in came a beautiful woman, or the lottery commissioner with a check for l0 million dollars, would I still be so driven to write? Or is it possible that I'd head out the door, and never look back? Are the issues raised in these so far, prosaic writings, nothing more than the product of someone without a real life?        People say that having money changes you.  With all the rich people in the world today, why are there not more of them willing to usher in the changes that are needed for us all to prosper?  It might be true that once you've found your pot of gold, then nothing else matters anymore.  Maybe wealth is conducive to complacency. Let's try and create that overview now.  If we can raise our heads up above the rim of the bowl, we're better equipped to see where it is we're headed.  Maybe in turn, we can then decide where we'd like to go next.  First off, why this rigid attitude toward any suggestion of change? We've pretty much established that change is unavoidable.  We must learn how to embrace it, rather than to fear it.  Keeping things simple for now, as Roosevelt said, "all we have to fear is fear itself."  We need to get rid of this infantile belief that man was created in god's own image, if for no other reason than in how it leaves so many others out in the cold to fend for themselves.  People of other races are instantly reduced to subhuman, or women are reduced to temptresses or  vessels of divinity.  Rarely are they  considered divine in their own right  (unless they've been miraculously knocked up by god).  How many women popes can you count on one finger? With current thought precepts, the patriarchy reigns, and the world is turned into a white boys only club.  We must see that religion, like every other idea touched by man, was created as a means to seize and hold power.  We mustn't however, take away hope by stripping people of their beliefs.  You take away a person's beliefs, and they have nothing.  What we need to do instead, is to show how false hope has been created to keep people vulnerable and needy.  Our goal from now on should be concerned with how to keep hope alive; true hope, and not just the illusion of it.  This must be done however, by identifying first, what is truth, and what is fiction. It's fine to believe in a god, but not if it means that you're willing to just sit back and let someone else decide your fate for you.  We also need to see how most religion creates more division than it does unity.  People might wish for change, but are familiar with their sack of troubles.  They've become accustomed to it, and they feel safe.  Familiarity may make some feel safe, but for some, it breeds contempt.        Supporters of organized religion say there must be some sort of benevolent god up there.  How can an entire globe be wrong? When you stop to look at some of the ridiculous things people have believed in, then it is possible that the beliefs of an entire globe can be proven completely and irrefutably wrong. Just because the vast majority believes something is true, doesn't necessarily make it so.        It's hard to imagine this (not really), but there was a time in history where if you were to suggest to the average person that the world on which they lived was a sphere, then you'd have been severely ridiculed. For most of human history, people believed steadfastly, that the world was flat.  Most of us know better now. Imagine what looks you'd have received back then, if you were to suggest that the whole universe was growing bigger, expanding 13 trillion miles every second. For one thing, nobody even knew what a universe was. They knew only what the churches told them.  To a large extent, this is still true.  But we shouldn't be so quick to criticize old world views.  It's not entirely the fault of a society at large to believe in the ridiculous or the sublime.  In the case of a flat Earth view, the fault lied in the pre-scientific world's insistence on a static and unchanging universe.  Religious zealots had a way of making their point stick, for they often used fear and torture as the periods at the ends of their sentences.  Actually, we owe a debt of gratitude to them.  We're referring to those who reacted so violently to the heretical postulation that we were not the center of the universe.  People in positions of power dolled out terrible retribution to those who deduced that the world was a spherical.  This was an idea that threatened to crumble the foundation of society, or at least crumble those power structures who's livelihood depended on a continued ignorance. Thinkers like Ptolemy and Aristarchus had reasoned  with uncanny accuracy, that not only was the world in fact round, but had also factored its probable circumference at over 20,000 miles.  These were people who had a profound need to understand the way the world really was, and not what they were told that it was.  That's why we must thank the traditionalists, because it's their utter lack of imagination that provides the impetus for transcendence.  They create the necessary outrage needed for a healthy debate to begin.  That's what we need today.     Surely, there were plenty of people who had their own suspicions that we lived on a sphere.  With only the slightest of effort, anyone with a mind could see the mast of a ship disappearing over the horizon.  They could easily deduce with relative certainty that they hadn't just witnessed the doomed ship's crew falling off the world's edge.  This suspicion was backed further as the ship usually could be seen on its return to port a few days later.     I refuse to believe that people are as stupid as might be thought.  At least, we can always hope.  And yet, the world remained flat for thousands of years.  How could this be? Other than just being apathetic, it might have been because of the fear of persecution, should anyone be daring enough to bring it up in public.  This is the reign of terror that's so vital to those who want to impose their will over others.  Unscrupulous leaders have learned that only through fear, comes the key to domination.       A common theme throughout this book, will be the suggestion of conspiracy.  I didn't want to sound like another paranoid radical, but let's face it--- conspiracy abounds wherever there  is the potential for profiteering.  I think the flat world theory represented one of the first major conspiracies, and that it was perpetuated by the world leaders of that time.         If people who'd lobbied themselves through official sanction could convince others that the planet was flat, this would effectively curtail the human need to explore.  Not many would be sailing around half-cocked, if it meant a fatal plunge off the world's edge.  When you think about the goals of all those kings and queens, with their hunger for gold and spice and everything nice, then we have motive to deceive.  This is where patriotism comes in handy too.  If you can convince your people that you represent god or country, then there's less questions asked should something seem out of whack.  The lengths to which people in power will go to hoard resources or land is astonishing.  In a world of plenty (the old world), why not share? Especially in a world that had barely been mapped.    Put bluntly, those Kings and Queens probably wanted it all to themselves.  Since they had the capitol to finance sailors, their agendas were more easily met.  Royalty didn't need a bunch of runny nosed peasants setting sail on their own, and suddenly acquiring enough wealth and power to usurp them.      Throw a little fear into them then, and leave them huddling in the dark.  With an aching in their bones and hunger in their bellies, they'd be all the more docile, and all the more dependant on your tender mercies.  I'm certain that the world would be a lot different today if people listened less to their leaders, and more to their own souls.  Since that's not the case, it's always been about the rich getting rich, by keeping the poor, poor. In those early days, knowledge truly was power.  If that knowledge could be kept to a select few that is.  The chances are very good that the monarchies highly suspected that the world was in fact, round. Not all leaders are complete idiots. But the only way to make sure, was to first commission mariners to chart these unknown waters.  Once that was done, your explorers would bring in your riches by the shipload.  The wealth and authority gained by leaders back then, is hoarded by those same people today.  That's the power of the right of succession, at least so far as the so-called "old money" is concerned.  As the world grew smaller though, so too did the older power structures.  Today, there are many ways to wealth, and there are many ways to hoard and to conceal it.  This too must change.     If you want to talk about power, and the money that buys it, it could be said that bankers even commanded the sun in the sky to stand still. Or maybe because agriculture played such a chief role in a nation's economy, farmers chimed in on this too.  Neither felt too good about the coming of winter, because it meant that it would be getting darker as the days got shorter. Bankers would be sitting ducks to the thieves that so often depended on the protection offered by darkness.     Farmers didn't harvest grain very effectively as the days got shorter either.  Needing more sunlight, combined with the somewhat silly practice of setting clocks back an hour each year, got started by wealthy bankers who feared that the bounty they deposited each evening might be stolen. With a little endorsement from Ben Franklin, the deed was done. Tension could be eased, if they commanded that the sun set one hour later. Since the sun refused to shine for them, status or not, they just did the next best thing. And we've been ordered to oblige ever since.  Even the sun must heed the rule of the money mongers. This is in a small way, an example of how a money driven world operates.  It's terrible to think that a person's worth (and their sense of self worth) is determined by their earned income potential.  Our economic system has reduced us all to numbers, stock spreads, and statistics.  An unfair number of people are stripped of the basic needs that are essential for survival, and it's out of nothing more than lack of funds.  There are those who would say that a person's attitude is altered once having money.  As if having money become's a person's identity, or as though wealth defines a person.  There's no denying this either, because the poor are usually defined by their poverty.  In order to achieve the status necessary to prove otherwise, would also mean that you'd have to give up your life's calling, and start building your own fortune.  You'd be forced to play the game, which usually means a complete abandonment of one's true passions. It's only a precious few who've managed to fuel their passion, and make a good living in the process.   So which will win in this world, your dreams, or your need to make money? The artist starves, while the art dealer prospers.  The baker toils, while the bakery benefits.  Those who can, do, while those who can't, teach.  The list goes on and on.       I've always thought, "what's the point in having money, unless it's used to help the less fortunate?" In my delusion, I've imagined (and have seen quite vividly in recurring dreams) a way for all to prosper, and without offending the money-mongers.         At the risk of being labeled a communist or a socialist (all forms of government have their redeeming aspects, but all are well-suited to corruption), it's really a pretty simple problem to solve.  Consider first though, that over 65% of the world's wealth and resources are being monopolized by only a handful of nations.  And of those nations, most have American ties.  And most of these resources are considered disposable.  We throw most of them away.  It gets to the point where even our society's members are treated as either waste or commodities.       Since this is all so confusing, I'd like to focus on just the cash right now.  I would propose that anyone can make up to say, 10 million dollars annually.  That's more than enough in order to live well.  The next step is the tough one.  Any amount beyond that initial ten million, the smallest percentage would be deferred to this kind of giant, world piggy bank.  This bank would represent a global savings account, accessible to all who need it.  I can already see people's heads shaking.  To most people, this sounds pretty unrealistic.  But as naive as it sounds, something has to be done if we're ever to rise above the need for money.         The simple truth is, everyone has a birthright to survive.  We need to adopt a system in which this fundamental freedom would be supplied to everyone.  If this sounds painfully idealistic, I'd have to agree.  But equally preposterous I believe, is the concept of printing on a piece of paper some monetary symbol which determines the value of everything on Earth. And then to have a person's entire life based solely on the pursuit of this stuff? That's insane.  Even more absurd is the thought that the nation which generates the most money, has the most credibility as well.  It doesn't matter how much debt is acquired in the process either.  Just print up more money.       Continuing with this admittedly naive (even juvenile) idea of mine, think about this...        A person could go on making money their whole life, if that's all they ever aspire to do. Said person could earn 300 million if they wanted.  It's only money, and no one has a right to place limits on them.  Well then, some small portion of such a staggering amount would be subject to wide dispersal into the global economy.  But it would be unfair not to take into account just one of the negatives that would be naturally occurring in this system, since we could unwittingly be creating an economy that would aid in the production of slothen do nothings.       In truth, we already have this same scenario with us today.  Many argue that programs such as welfare or disability (to name only two), while offering definite benefits to those who truly need this aid, are also allowing perfectly able individuals to get free money.  Now, think of how much better the world could be, if becoming wealthy was no longer the single driving force in a person's life.      Also consider the freedom it would give to those who would otherwise be forced into a lifestyle that neglects the heart's desire.  Fact is, those that have placed value on integrity, honesty, and critical thought, are usually the ones kept out of the loop.  Honestly, such people couldn't care less about money, and so certainly choose not to partake of such meaningless pursuits to begin with.  The only road to Utopia, will therefore be a absent of material wealth for its own sake. Few would look at this plan as viable.  You could compare people's reaction to a true global economy to those who firmly believed the Earth was flat.  An idea is fleeting, but a belief is forever.  Look how long it took for a round Earth to become a widely accepted truth. There are those who have based their entire sense of self on how much money they've made.  Their wealth is what defines them.  Low self-esteem is sometimes replaced with a proven gift of generating capitol.  Maybe they're not that bright, or attractive, or maybe they have become addicted to the attention that their amassed fortune has provided them. They'd be terrified if that projected self-image were to be taken from them.  In effect, they've learned to hide from the world behind this false image.  A person who in the current paradigm, feels superior, will be just another rich person in the world we're proposing now.  In a world without poverty, everyone is richer. That's a threatening notion to those who would rather elevate themselves above others by an acquisition of wealth.  There's another problem with the concept of living in a world of equals.  It has to do with the majority of people who feel they need to have an attainable, short term goal, or that quick fix in life. It's a goal that can come quickly and unexpectedly, this ability to fall into money.  More than that, it's really not all that hard to come by in the first place.  That doesn't make sense to anyone who's always been poor, but once wealth is attained, the memory of poverty dims.  Usually, the victory is a hollow one, once the euphoria wears off.  Getting rich is more often than not, only a matter of dumb luck. Even the most mentally deficit person can always hope for that big break.  Look at all the people who are in positions of great power.  Most of them are no smarter than you or me.  Some are downright feeble minded.  So, money is seen as a way to shine more brightly.  Having money makes geniuses out of idiots. Everyone is always hoping for that lucky break.  Even though it's a false hope, in your mind, there are any number of ways in which to make your fortune.  You could win that lottery, sell items under the table, or what have you. It's this somewhat transient way of thinking that keeps money always on the table of thought.  The promise of money gives us hope, false or not.  For most of us, that's good enough.       That may well be, but there are many other problems caused by the need for money.  People without it live their life in fear and desperation.  Many crimes are committed, based on these two states of mind, fear and desperation.  To escape life's bleakness, some turn to drugs.  This makes them "comfortably numb," like the Floyd song goes.  People need drugs in order to escape, and they need someone to supply that demand.  Now, governments are growing fat on peoples weaknesses.  You can almost picture them behind closed doors, licking their lips.     The drug wars have begun, but it's a losing battle.  Everyone, even the policy makers know this. But ahhhh, the sheer profit of it all...     In a better world, all drugs should therefore be legalized, and government sanctioned.  They'd be safer, and made to pharmaceutical specifications.  But, in order to score these drugs, a person would also be required to gradually free themselves of their addictions through rehabilitation.  This too would be government sanctioned, bearing in mind that by then, the term "government" might actually be worthy of respect and admiration.        Since drugs have always been part of human subculture, then why try to fight it? The streets would be made comparatively more safe, and people's right of choice would be assured.  Just because I have lived my life drug free, doesn't mean that others should be forced to do the same.  Funny how no government has yet been willing to consider such ideas, except maybe in a few places in Europe. Superficially at least, there are some points there that are valid enough.  Some would have you believe that the most logical thing to do, is to get people to stop taking drugs.  Unfortunately, mind-altering drugs are here to stay, at least until we learn how to attain altered states of consciousness naturally.  This will happen, as our understanding of brain chemistry increases.  What addicts fail to realize, is that the brain's ability to take care of itself by administering proper balances of naturally occurring opiates like dopamine is a completely natural process.  Synthetically derived drugs are only a way to fool the brain into releasing endorphin into the bloodstream.  The same effect can be accomplished through vigorous exercise, or even bio-feedback techniques.  Shooting up or inhaling drugs is only good for the quick fix.  That's the lynch-pin in this culture.  Nobody's willing to wait for anything, or to earn it through self-discipline.  Everything has to be right now.  No wonder it's so difficult to look at life in the long term.       In a way, I guess I'm lucky.  At least as far as my having in abundance, those chemicals that others seek through artificial means.  Manic-depressive disorder is caused by the brain's thalamus in overdrive.  At least, I think it's the thalamus.  My system is jacked up on serotonin, one of those natural opiates produced as a neurotransmitter.  Like I said before, people who don't know me assume I'm getting high on something.  I'm positive that someday, everyone will be able to produce such highs themselves, simply by having more direct control over their own brains.  It'll give added meaning to the phrase, "just think positively."        Please know when I say so glibly, that we should legalize drugs, know too that I'm looking at a bigger picture when I say it.  In time, I'm confident in how this phase of our evolution will eventually lose its potency anyway.  This will be especially true in the near future, when our minds have been freed to where we'll no longer want to escape life, but will choose instead, to welcome its challenges.  I can't say right now how I know this, but I'm sure it's true.        I do know however, that the present ways of tendering our daily affairs is about to be rendered extinct. There will come a day when we'll be in favor of approaches nobody's really ever tried before. As far as future advances go, we've only begun to scratch the surface.  I haven't yet figured out exactly how to pull all this together into some form of coherancy, but I'm working on it.  Don't try this at home kids.  It's hard saving the world.  Actually, the world will be just fine.  Our place within it is another matter. One of the realities we must face first, is that there are those in power who don't want there to be change.  Change will put a lot of bad people out of business.  As long as we're talking about drugs, don't forget the thing that draws most youths to indulge in drugs in the first place --- temptation (we're told to avoid it, remember?).  Kids will want to experiment.  Whether this is due to peer pressure, lack of values, hearing people preach against drugs while using them, or as an act of defiance, it's hard to know.  The reason why kids start is inconsequential in this world of escapism.  So why try to fight it? It's a losing battle if you expect to win it with conventional wisdom.  Here's what we need to recognize... People are looking for a way to escape, but from what are they trying to flee? Put simply, they're attempting to escape from themselves.  The mirror reflects the truth, so we look outward for someone or something representing distraction, if not outright rescue. But where can we turn in a world devoid of heroes? You can underscore all of this with an even more disturbing reality.  The war that governments have declared on drugs is nothing more than a ruse, a deceptive tactic to allow them to take a moral stance while secretly making untold amounts of money under the table by preying on people's weaknesses.  I know some people find such a thought unfathomable, but isn't it at least worth considering? A little cynicism is a strength. Here's another thing about the "war on drugs," or for that matter, any other kind of war.  It's often just another way to quantify an increased spending budget every year.  The ones we assigned as our ethical guardians tap into our morality codes, or our sense of patriotism, and tell us that our taxes are being used to keep our streets safe for democracy.  In fact, governments have no intentions of stopping  the import and export of street drugs.  With all the surveillance techniques available in the world today, how could so much contraband go undetected for so long? With high resolution satellites in place, anything moving that's the size of a dime, will be detected eventually.  How can all these drugs be coming in, apparently unnoticed? They can't, unless it's intentional ignorance.  There's simply too much profit and revenue to be generated to stop the flow of drugs.  And not only from its being sold. You can add to that all of those fines and prison sentences tallied into the toll which are levied against the smalltime street users and distributors.  80% of all prison inmates have been interred through the use or distribution of illegal drugs, and most of these are in for marijuana charges.  It costs tax-payers 150,000 dollars a year to house a single prisoner, or so they tell us.  How many of us civilians have ever seen that many frozen dinners in one year? Apparently, prison food is much better than we thought.  Either that, or the money is being spent someplace else. If a government's only concern is profit, then the current penal systems make perfect sense.  Prisons aren't being built to punish, or to offer criminals the chance for restitution or rehabilitation.  They're really nothing more than a chain of Super 8 motels.  Taxpayers pick up the tab, and the over spill is paying a lot of suits to sit in their air- conditioned offices all day, doing absolutely nothing.  To put it succinctly, wherever there are problems that seem insurmountable, someone stands to profit from it.  I hope this gives us some indication of what we're up against.  It's what will be pursued further in time.  More importantly it will serve as a way to stimulate thinking of possible alternatives to the current reality.       Why do I feel like ripping my own face off right now? Trying to think of a better way is a bit like expecting the proverbial chimpanzee to write a book without having first grasped the concept of human language. If I keep plugging away, more or less at random like this, then something worthy should appear in say, 10,000 years.         As long as we seem bent on revealing our accepted reality for the sham it truly is, then so be it.  The next question, like most of the others, leaves me out of the loop.  I've not had regular employment since the fall of '97, so I've not been a tax payer for some time now. That said, why do Americans still pay taxes? Where does all that revenue really go? Not only Americans, but everyone pays some type of tax.  Why? Because a long time ago, someone told them they have to.  In America, the current tax system really got to rolling with the outbreak of WW II, when the world was forced to unite in fighting a common threat.  The threat posed by one man, Hitler was enough to bring the globe to war, but there arose an interesting side effect.  Our government needed the support of its citizens, and in the name of democracy, we were understandably willing to give until it hurt.  The taxes paid then were almost exclusively applied to the war effort.  Interstate highways were originally built to make it easier to transport huge war machines to each coast, where they would be shipped at great expense, to where they were needed overseas. Then we helped the allies (before the cold war) to defeat Hitler's insane oppression and genocidal lunacy.  Guess what happened next? Government had gotten used to all of that free flow of money, and were then determined to keep it coming in. It was known for a long time (since taxation itself is nothing new), that one sure fire way to bolster a waning economy, was to create a war.  Even  the threat of one stepped up patriotic fervor.  So after the second world war, a new threat was needed.  The new threat was designated the cold war (since there was no rocket's red glare), and it was highly suspected that our former allies in Russia were stockpiling massive numbers of nuclear warheads.  Naturally, balance had to be restored, and Americans gladly handed over the cash to feel safe from the red menace. And once this got started, it hasn't stopped since.  The world's arsenals are brimming with tactical and strategic weapons, but the escalation continues.  With the cold war officially defunct however, now other nations want in on the game.  Much to the relief of Super government, new threats have arrived in China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and the like.  The more, the merrier, so long as government has a reason to keep asking us to pay more and more for their questionable brand of security.       When is someone going to summon up enough courage to say "enough is enough?" It took thousands of years before people came to accept the world as round.  How much longer will it take before we accept that it's in danger of being flattened out again? How long before humanity learns to change? Even the greatest of thinkers, for the longest of times, preferred to think of the universe as static and unchanging. Plato called the illusion of time, "a moving image of eternity." He presumed that our perception of time was a trick played on us by nature, in which we allowed ourselves the dignity to grow old and die.  Plato I'm told, was no dummy. You can take some comfort in knowing that you can be utterly brilliant, and also be way off base.  Other thinkers of Plato's day were forced to admit, out of prudish reason, that change indeed occurs. But it happens on such a small and limited scale, as to render it trivial.  It was their supposition that time moved in cycles, a series of starts and stops, each spilling over into the other.  Celestial happenings seemed vastly significant from our limited, and all too human perspective. When viewed overall however, such events are destined to repeat themselves.  We're then trapped in an unending pattern of death and re-emergence.        This is a stretch. We've gone from talking about the injustices of our political and economic system, to a bunch of old Greek guys wondering about the nature of the stars. We began touching on some of the ways in which change might be beneficial. Now, we're suddenly pondering how time is an illusion, and how we're trapped in endless cycles of death and rebirth. I'm seriously thinking of just forgetting all this, and going back to combing my cat in my desire for spiritual awakening. What might look like diversion, is actually just another way in which we might begin to see things differently.  The need for change isn't only verified in the breakdown of society, but is based on the discord being felt now by the subconscious will.  Change doesn't threaten to end the world, but instead, promises to phase out the old to make way for the new.  If a people were to keep bashing their own heads, eventually unconsciousness would rush in to keep them from doing further harm to themselves.  If your society begins to bust at the seams, consciousness will come to the rescue.  The human species has gone through similar struggles since its history began.  During such trying times,  something has generally always come along that helped to usher change into the world.  Change has always been your salvation.  If a way of doing things begins not to work, it's time to try something different.  Everything works cyclically, with what could be called beginnings and endings.  But each time something ends, something else begins.  It hardly ever fails. People speak of time, or of the world coming to an end.  They're both right and wrong in this prediction.  First, time is but an illusion, and doesn't exist except by your own definition.  When you see it slipping away in seconds, it is coming into being from that which we call the future.  You can talk about the end of the world, but more than likely, it will only be the end of the old world, as it concedes to the new.  People fear the end, when they should delight in the beginning.  Landing back on Earth, we can see that the need for an attitude shift has come.  Your restlessness of late tells us that if you don't like things the way they are, then there are always alternative ways of doing them.  That's the way it's set up to work.  You can rub sticks together to get a spark.  Your goal is to be bathed in warmth and light.  But it's getting colder, and the sticks are becoming worn with repeated use.  Maybe it's time to pick up a lighter.  That's really all we're saying right now.        How convenient.  Every time we get into trouble with the logic of a given argument, all we have to do to regain credibility is to go running back into some more mystical mumbo-jumbo to cover up the mess.  Get people so confused, that they'll be less apt to disagree with you.  That may work for priests and politicians, but I think we should talk about subjects that people can relate to as people.  I'm not here to dazzle or to baffle people (much less, baffle myself).  How can we could go about bringing something new into our lives? Sometimes, we're too close to the subject to stay objective.  You need to get up and walk away once in a while.  What we're referring to here is, how can a new perspective be gained? The letters making up these sentences are just symbols used to pass on information from our brains to someone else's.  It's an abstraction, and it's a thing that people have become used to.  These characters that you're reading now are nothing more than a series of tiny dots.  These pixels (short for picture elements, in case you don't know) when arranged in specific order, can create any image you want them to.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, then pixels are worth billions. If you want your senses to come alive, you need to stop focusing so much on just a few dots of information.  They're just dots, arranged in no specific order.  But if you pull your face away from the page far enough, then a new perspective enters your field of view.  The power of the written word appears. You can do the same thing with the situations facing the world today.  All you have to do, is to pull back a little bit.  Now you're better suited to see that you've been wasting your time pondering these meager few dots.  From your new vantage point, you'll then be able to see that there are billions of them working together to create a bigger picture.  It's a brighter and better picture. It's the big picture.        Speaking of big, it shouldn't be too surprising that  my mind has drifted.  It was MUCH easier talking about breasts.  Is it possible that I'm no different than anyone else? That is, I think I'm just running away from things I don't understand.      Things like politics and economics make me feel like I'm getting in too deep.  Like I'm out of my league, which by the way, I am.  I believe we are in dire need of a fresh outlook, but haven't the faintest idea as to how we should approach this whole thing.  On which dots should we focus, if not the ones revealed so far? Sometimes, it's easier to simply settle back down into this big bowl of delicious pasta.  Can someone please pass the Parmesan?