Quote of the day -- on sharing I and II

“For pleasure has no relish unless we share it.” 

― Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader

“Consume less; share better.” 

― Hervé Kempf

Here's Christianity for you

Not Capitalism, no, absolutely not, but what Christianity--or modern life--should be:

A way to live

I hope this is true. I found it on a friend's page on Facebook: "Today, I read a story about an anthropologist who proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: 'UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?'" UBUNTU in the Xhosa culture (where this woman's husband is from:) means: "I am because we are."

Quote of the day

"My self-appointed aim is to make the most of what I can personally be and take as many along that path as I can without significantly diverting my trajectory in life. To survive and excel." --Thomas Kanady

A "Twilight Zone" someone should make

A "Twilight Zone" episode I'd like to see because it would be fun and provocative and, hopefully, educational for all of us is one where the director/producer assume, to begin, that the universe is huge (as it is, of course) and that there is life out there.

In fact, there's life on multiple planets. Different life forms on each.

And guess what?

They're all advanced.

And they all know each other.

And they communicate with each other and have incredible transportation between one another's planets that we can only dream of.

And they have all their energy and production and pollution (there isn't any) and all other "problems" worked out and all of them live in what we'd consider to be Nirvana ("heaven" for the Americans out there reading this).

They all live in these perfect worlds. They're perfect unto themselves and each one works completely.

And the reason is because on each planet and in the rest of the universe, so the movie goes, they've all learned to cooperate with one another.

Everyone on every living system is educated (as educated as they need and/or want to be) and healthy (they have universal health care in all situations because they accept it should be a right instead of a privilege) and they share all land and resources--everything.

And the thing is, they've been aware of our little green planet earth for millenia.

And guess what?

To all of them--all the "perfect worlds" and perfect being out there--we are the "white trash" of the universe.

Think about it.

We view each other with only suspicion--individually and collectively.

All we do is fight each other. Heck, there are whole races that have spent hundreds and thousands of years just fighting and killing each other (e.g., Jews/Gentiles/Islamists, Catholics/Protestants, Catholics and everyone else, Muslims and virtually everyone else, etc., etc.).

We don't share anything. We pollute everything. We don't work together on enough things AT ALL.

Heck, all the "big religions" have fought and died and killed each other for thousands of years over what they all perceive to be the "holy ground".

We let people create artificial entities (read: corporations) just so those same entities can exploit people--both their own workers and their "clients" or customers. We let those same corporations kill other people so they can get natural resources like oil or whatever (e.g., Nigeria right now, etc.).

We let certain people and groups become obscenely wealthy (in terms of money and goods) (e.g., the Cote du Zur in Southern France and too many other wealthy enclaves around the world), but we let many more millions starve or die from disease or just be killed for one insane reason or another, rather than help them.

And we're okay with this system.

So in the movie, we see all these planets and beings and civilizations and societies getting along and existing and having a beautiful, big old time--but they merely observe and avoid us, here on planet Earth, until such time as we realize we're all in this together and that we could feed, clothe, house and nurse each other if we would but choose to cooperate, share and help one another.

Instead we exploit the planet and each other, as much and frequently as possible.

And we think we're civilized and intelligent.