For the Children

FOR THE CHILDREN

As I listen to reports from Sudan, as I watch reports from the wars in Gaza and Ukraine and Democratic Republic of the Congo, I wonder how the opposing peoples’ goals so violently diverge.

If you look to opposing sides in any conflict, business - tribal - sectarian - religious - international or military, and ask what they ultimately want, down at the personal level of daily real life, might we find anything in common?

Would everyone want security for their children?  Would everyone want enough nutritious food?  Would everyone want health?  Would everyone want peace and security?

If you had these discussions even with fundamentalists who believe the only way to achieve their ends is through war and violence (apparently their God being too enfeebled to construct their pending Kingdom or Paradise without our help) would even those fundamentalists not still hope for the same ultimate objectives for their children?

Do our differences come down only to the means by which to attain the same unknowingly shared goal?

What if we focused on that goal, on the longed-for goal, on our dreams and aspirations, on our highest hopes, might we not find some ground for agreement?

If we first established that, if we first established the realization among warring parties that they ultimately all seek the same basic outcome and differ only in the path to reach it, might such revelation not dramatically improve the odds of discerning some uncontested, mutually shared objective?

Perhaps parties who enter the negotiations with the belief that their optimal outcome can be attained only upon the extermination of their enemies might recognize their enemies are not so different after all.  If two parties were forced to acknowledge that they share the same wants, needs, and desires, if they were forced to look into the eyes of each other’s children, might that at least in some incremental way temper the stridency and ameliorate some of the hatred?

When we enter discussions on the basis that “they” want to destroy us, of course we feel we must first destroy them.  But what if destroying us is not their objective?  What if they simply want to raise their children in safety and security and in the culture, society, traditions,  and  religion of their mothers and fathers? 

If in negotiations we could strive not to win, not to conquer, not to inflict our beliefs – religion - economic system - political system - ruling monarchy - and ancient prophecies on those others, but instead enter negotiations with the avowed goal of securing safety and security and health for our children - and their children - might we surprisingly find ourselves on the same side?

If we knew our children could grow up with the religion and beliefs and culture and dress and mores and leaders of our choosing, would we really feel so compelled to attack the other side’s children?

Of course, the fundamentalists and psychopaths and the greedy will always choose war and killing for the sake of war and killing.  We can only pray there are not enough fundamentalists and psychopaths and greed driven executives to provide the critical mass necessary to sustain war.

It is fear, fear for our children, it is injustice, injustice for our children, that stoke our condoning of and participation in the wars.  Hence the fundamentalists and psychopaths and greed riddled executives always have to portray the “others” as threatening.  Then, in the face of perceived threat, we rise to the occasion to defend our children.

Truth be known, the north/south Koreans have little interest in destroying the other.  They just don’t want to be destroyed themselves.  Most Sunni and Shia could care less about differences in opinion about inherited power more than a millennia ago.  They just don’t want to have their children’s school blown up.  Even Israelis (excluding the most rabid Zionists) might give up the quest for genocidal Zionist expansion between the Nile and Euphrates if they knew their children could grow and thrive with Jewish identity in safety and security.

I speak of people, not leaders, for the power of leadership attracts those individuals most afflicted by neuroses, psychoses, and all too often, outright madness, and the power drives mad those not already mad. 

Imagine negotiations held by juries, people drafted from the general populace, people drafted with one requirement, that they be parents of young children, children they bring to the negotiations.  Imagine negotiations held with one formal agenda item: both sides begin with statements of what they seek at the most personal level, while excluding mention of political system, economic system, religious system, or boundaries on a map.

Imagine one more thing.  The negotiations are held without the usual embarrassing childish silliness of arguing about table shape and who sits where, but one critical item of décor is uncompromisingly dictated.  The walls and the table of the conference room will be adorned with pictures of children.

 Copyright 2025 Don Ray.  Please share.

Digitally Fractured Beliefs

 

DIGITALLY FRACTURED BELIEFS

Only belief unites people, for going to war or for civic projects.  It is only belief, ungrounded - arbitrary - unsubstantiated shared belief.

Belief, and only belief, gets an army to march, the members to pledge, a populace to serve. 

Belief driven societies underlie all of human history. 

Shattering of shared belief underlies today’s fractured political landscape. 

In hindsight the unravelling of nations and civilization by the internet was quite predictable because the internet and fractured media facilitated the shattering of shared belief.

The collapse of a unified belief system, neighbors holding different beliefs, family members holding conflicting faiths, this is exponentially amplified by today’s diverse digital media environment.

I no longer need to behave like you.  Unseen influencers in Moscow or Austin can shape my behavior, and your behavior.  Even your family need not worship as you do.  A media multitude will tell them they need not worship at all.

The great clashes of civilizations are simply clashes of beliefs, beliefs that conveniently justified the raping and pillaging that reside in our dark souls.  The belief could be in a king or prophet or political system, as long as it was a shared belief.  .  

For millennia, family and society defined our beliefs.  Now we can believe whatever we want, with affirmation from people all over the world.  It is a heady feeling, a disorienting feeling, inducing a spiritual vertigo.  It is liberating, one would think.  Yet instead, it is more fearful than liberating, because we are exposed to so many people, people near and far, who do not share our beliefs and even threaten our beliefs.

This is new for humanity.  Our beliefs are ultimately our identity.  Contradictory beliefs in such close proximity are a threat to the core essence of our being.  

Historically humanity accommodates a sudden exposure to conflicting beliefs by invoking violence, cataclysm, and terror on the infidels, heathens, and gentiles.  But this time the differing beliefs are not across a border, not conveniently wearing a uniform, not even demonstrating the courtesy of self-identifying with a different skin color or facial structure.  

This is existential conflict of beliefs, beliefs identified only by channels watched and newsfeeds subscribed.  

Differing beliefs can coexist if there is some shared overarching belief subsuming the divergent beliefs, or if the differing belief is entertained by such a small cross section of population as to not pose a threat.  On Sunday mornings it was OK to drive past those other churches that were not really that different from ours.  It was OK to tolerate some minority opinions and ethnic groups when all were under an umbrella of shared patriotism and faith in a political system.  But remove the umbrella of overarching belief, partition a subcontinent or dissolve an authoritarian Balkan country, and the next lower level of beliefs  come to the fore, beliefs now in conflict.  The people that have always been in that other house of worship now seem threatening.  

In the United States and western Europe, the overarching blanket of beliefs is being stripped away, not by imposition of new borders or eradication of central governments, but by profitable exploitation of fears and ignorance.  Nothing has changed, but you and I now believe completely contradictory claims.

Shatter beliefs and shatter a nation, fragment beliefs and destroy a civilization.

When my neighbor shares almost none of my beliefs, it takes little provocation,  a provocation based on fervently held belief, for my neighbor to become a threat.

That is the world (dis)order of the internet, repeating the lessons of history but now worldwide, a history driven in its triumphs and tragedies by beliefs, beliefs now dispersed and mixed and scattered and stirred, terrifying diversity right next door,  even in our own living room, history waiting, waiting, to see if humanity will find any belief in common, anything overarching, some belief to share and unite, before the digital media incited conflicting beliefs turn our own neighborhood into the 1861 U.S., 1919 Russia, 1935 China, 1947 India, 1965 Indonesia, 1992 Balkans, 2024 Ukraine, 2025 Palestine…….

Copyright 2025 Don Ray.  Please share.

Beware Beliefs

 

BEWARE BELIEFS

 

Beware your beliefs, 

beware your bonds, 

lest they turn without warning,

into bullets and bombs.

Copyright 2025 Don Ray.  Please share.

Inevitable War?

INEVITABLE WAR? 

Is it inevitable, the wars?  Is it built into God's unholy system? 

In our holiest expression of universal Purpose, we connect with - bond with - unite with other human souls, connection facilitated by shared experience – beliefs - identity.  We are naturally and rightly drawn to support these family members – teammates - comrades.  Then, in the process of that mutual support, we inflict atrocities on those in that other competing family – sect - or army.  

Is it inevitable?  Can we not be loyal to our nation without being party to destruction of the other nation?  Can we love and support and be loyal to the warrior while not supporting and condoning the war?  

Individually, in some situations, we can abjure war while embracing the warrior.  But surely many cases demand supporting the active combat or else watching the loved comrade or family member fall victim.  

in spite of entropy and resource shortages, God's Creation does not dictate inevitable wars.  Wars arise from freely chosen evil in the hearts of malevolent and politically popular leaders.  These leaders are in turn enthusiastically empowered by the willful evil in our hearts, we the humanity that eagerly follow.  The ensuing conflagration then sweeps up individuals, participation motivated by loyalty to family, tribe, and comrades,...... inevitable participation in the not inevitable wars.

Artificial Intelligence and Real Stupidity

 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND REAL STUPIDITY

Look into the hearts of humanity and tremble. 

Look into your own heart and flee.

It is all the same, this history, a panoply of  beliefs pitting one against another,

beliefs wielded like a sword,

the caustic leaders certainly not subscribing to such silly beliefs,

but adept at wielding them.

Beliefs,

unite the mob behind a belief,

stoke the madness,

lay claim to the power.

So it has been, and remains.

Evolution lurched to a halt upon the appearance of the human being, evolution rolling up against the rock of self-awareness that henceforth refused to entertain any change to what clearly is its own perfection.

But it is a momentary halt, a transitory barrier, the very storms unleashed by the selfish predilections of this overly self-aware species summoning its own demise.

A last great spasm of religious fervor, mixed with the toxic effluent of nationalism, is beginning its malevolent march across the planet, fueled by the usual cynical panoply of miscreants and sociopaths.  

Wealth and power will drive the leaders,

feeding the mobs’ fear and blind hatred.

Carefully cultivated ignorance and insecurity will drive the mobs.

Artificial intelligence will be no match for real stupidity.

Distributed networks will wither when fiber optics succumb to pitch-fork and torch.

Look into the hearts of humanity,

while still conveniently able to observe through your glowing screens,

before the banging on your door demands you join or die.

  Copyright 2025 Don Ray

 

Necessary Excess

 Copyright 2025 Don Ray

Please share.

NECESSARY EXCESS

 Such a stunning juxtaposition.

Morning, watching William Shatner (actor who played Captain Kirk in the 1960’s TV series Star Trek) actually fly into space on the second crewed Blue Origins flight.  

Later that morning: watching an Al Jazeera documentary about flying seventy-year-old Douglas Commercial 3’s (DC-3’s) in Columbia.

Shatner and the other three passengers, two of whom paid millions of dollars, had to do nothing on the completely automated thrill-ride flight.

Captain Raul, the pilot in Columbia, probably in his fifties, has to weigh the cargo so the cargo merchants don’t overload his plane.  He handles all the flight scheduling, recorded on large sheets of paper.  He checks the fuel for water.  

Blue Origins is a toy of the rich.  The Columbian pilot does not get paid unless he’s flying, motivating him to fly in dangerous conditions.

Blue Origins’ rocket is state of the art.  The DC-3 is fueled by carrying buckets of gasoline up ladders and pouring it into the tanks.  The pilot determines how much to put in each tank, striving for the minimum weight that will allow maximum cargo.

Crews race to the Blue Origins capsule after landing.  The DC-3 captain flies over the Amazon jungle, with no hope of rescue in the event of a forced landing.

These dichotomies occurred simultaneously.  It is quite possible the DC-3 pilot was flying at the same time Shatner was flying.  

The pioneering flight pilots and engineers of the 1930’s, when flying was for the elite and rich, created a technology that still brings fuel and food to isolated villages in Columbia these decades later.  

Will any similar dichotomy be occurring seventy years from now with space-flight? …..or will a rebuilding humanity look back on space-flights of the rich and famous as a last egregious display of hedonistic excess?

Copyright 2025 Don Ray

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The Unwelcome New

 The Unwelcome New

Raging wind.  Power out.  Phone out.  A sneak preview of our future.

Chaos and turbulence rage.

It is glorious.

All communication is cut off.

It is glorious.

One by one Christmas decorations blow away.

It is sad.

(Bodhi kitty enters, unsettled.)

Disconnected and alone, the mind indulges in the rare opportunity, absorbing the chaos and storm.  

(Too noisy for the Bodes who flinches at a bang and retreats from the last violent burst.)

The would-be tyrants will take advantage of the growing chaos.  God will take advantage of the growing chaos.

Social DNA and spiritual genomics will battle for survival to determine what crawls out of the wreckage to become the newly triumphant politico-economic system.  In the meantime, warlords and gunslingers will reign supreme, occasionally donning the accouterments of tetrarch or judge to gain a facade of respectability.  

This prediction is no vision or prophecy, it is common sense, and a clear-eyed reading of human history.  

We will craft new procedures for selecting our priests and chieftains by whatever titles, who in reality will select themselves as they always have.  

For now the winds rage and cracks appear, the despots-to-be scurry about to advantageously position themselves for the deconstructions.  Outcomes remain hidden by the unyielding wall of time.  Tyrants and Divinity move their chess pieces on the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of society's board. 

"There will be change" declares the storm as winds of chaos strain the moorings of civilization's delicate web.  

There will be change, as there has always been change, the feared and unwelcome "new" triumphing, rising from our wreckage, rising from seeds scattered and moistened by the storm, seeds already produced, waiting, waiting, seeds cast aside in the combat of our world, seeds needing only fresh soil, exposed soil, the overlying structures stripped away that earth may breathe again.  

Manipulation

 Manipulation 

In recent decades as society has careened through ever faster and more radical changes, people have fled toward fundamentalism, demanding that there be one thing in their lives that does not change because they won't allow it to change, the one thing in their lives in their absolute control to prevent from changing, i.e. their beliefs.  Combine that with the introduction of powerful entertainment technology into church services.  Combine those with, ironically, a severing of bonds with and trust of traditional centralized church authority.  Combine that with a thermonuclear explosion of media technology best suited to manipulating malleable, unaware minds.  Put all those factors in an economic and political system structured so as to the greatest degree possible empower psychological-marketing as the primary influencer of belief and action.  Season this wicked cauldron with innate human nature of greed and lust for power.

Of course fundamentalist mega-churches sprung up like poisonous mushrooms, all  bright and enticing!  Of course a Rupert Murdoch would seize the opportunity for profit in peddling fear, hatred, and inevitable violence.  Of course a Trump would arise out of the fetid moral wastelands of the obscenely rich.  

Too rapid change and progress do not open doors to enlightenment and renaissance.  They drive frightened minds back to the familiar comforts of witch-doctors and evangelists.  It is instead the traumatic collapse of convenient faith, the sacking of temples and the spread of plagues, that finally reveal the impotence of those wearing the robes and the hollowness of the idols.  Then the scales are removed from the eyes of a few, then a few precious scattered seeds can sprout, and renaissance and enlightenment and revival can momentarily again flourish.

Conveniently Rational Munitions

Conveniently Rational Munitions

Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.

The world, unremittingly harsh.

The world, unchangeable.

The world, this world, an expression of the human spirit.

The human spirit, formed in response to the harshness of this world.

The endless cycle, harshness begetting cruelty, 

survival demanding indifference.

Excuses abound for our sins.

Reasons aplenty explain our self-absorption.

The endless cycle,

a parent and necessity and social norms driving our individual role

in the great churning engine, 

the malevolent engine,

the malignant engine

of personal and societal

cause and effect

excusing, always excusing, our actions and inactions.

We, the individual molecules 

in the fuel driving the engine,

our profit and pleasure,

our security and safety,

the molecular characteristics

sustaining the ignition of the fuel

to drive the next cycle 

of fear turned to violence,

pain turned to vengeance.

All natural,

all predictable,

all so conveniently rational,

the mines and munitions,

the purchases and profligacy.

Yet against all reason and rationality,

the engine is throttled,

the cycle restrained.

A response tempered,

a temper held,

a hold become embrace…

Something unbefitting the ethos of profit and patriotism,

something resisting the irresistible compulsion of mob and marketers,

a spark of compassion,

a flicker of forgiveness…...

The engine runs as it always has,

but not without limit,

not uncontrollably.

A cheek turned,

a debt forgotten,

a small meal shared…..

and the great churning engine is revealed to produce 

more than its fetid exhaust of wars and vendettas and consumption.

The cycle produces something that escapes the cycle,

something enduring after the machine of this world has passed,

something of Beauty,

something of Light,

something of the Love that set the machine in motion.

Copyright 202 Don Ray.  feel free to print and share.