Posted on by Fred

On The Other Hand…

There is an innumerable quantity of reasons to be upset about the world.  Freedom is under attack.  Democracy nearly ended a year and a half ago.  Rents are spiraling out of control.  The world is perilously close to nuclear war.  If you’re upset, I promise I understand. 

Each of us has our own set of problems about which to be upset.  I walk the diabetes tightrope every single day.  My depression is a threat to my very existence.  I will never be loved romantically again.  My dog still tries to eat my furniture.  You surely have your own, some of which are probably worse than mine. 

I won’t pretend there are no reasons to be sad. 

On the other hand…

“It’s very important to remember that there are good people in the world who are doing good, in lots of ways.  Goodness exists, even when it can’t be seen.  So do beauty, and love, and the light of faraway stars.  The good will show itself in time.”

— Nanea Hoffman

Somewhere on this little planet in one of the billions, or perhaps, trillions of galaxies that make up our universe, at this very moment… right… now… a baby is being born.  It’s taking its first breath.  All of the world, in all of its beauty and wonder, is beginning in front of this new life. 

A few minutes ago, a child heard Mozart for the very first time, and she experienced a joy that will make her into an Artist.  She’s learning about the miracles human beings can create simply with our minds and our hands.  Some time in the not-too-distant future she will create something of lasting beauty that will change someone else’s life. 

“No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.” 

            — George Chakiris

An hour ago, a boy just got his first real kiss, and he’s reeling in ecstasy, wondering if his lips will always feel so oddly chapped as they do right now, and whether she will text him today.  He’s excited to be alive. 

Yesterday, an old man like me just got a dog that will love him unconditionally for the rest of his life.  He’s cuddling with him right now.  The dog feels a contentment it never experienced before.  It’s warm, safe, dry, and loved. 

“I still believe

In the Goodness

Even when it’s hard to find”

— Sara Niemietz and WG Snuffy Walden

Last week a painter sold her first canvas, and she feels like a real Artist for the first time in her life.  Her dreams seem real, and the flame of her creativity has been ignited.  In less than a year, she’ll be having her first show at The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.  A hundred years from now people will continue to gaze in awe at her painting. 

In August, a new teacher will step in front of his class for the first time.  His career will span more than 25 years, and children still unborn will remember him for the rest of their lives.  One of his students will grow up and make a difference in ways the teacher never imagined, and it will be because of what the child learned in his class. 

“I see your head
Is hanging low low low
Doing all you can
To keep the spark inside your soul
Wish you could see
You like I do
You’re original
You’re powerful
You’re something new
Can’t wait to see
Just where you go
I do believe
You’re gonna let them know”

–Niemietz – Taylor

A couple of weeks ago, humanity gazed deeper into the universe than we ever have before.  We’re learning more about the beginnings of life as we know it than we ever could have known before.  We’re gaining a deeper understanding of our origins.  By gazing into the past, we are creating a better future.  Thirty years ago Voyager 1 showed us our place in the universe from 4 billion miles away.  Carl Sagan helped us to understand.

Look again at that dot.  That’s here.  That’s home.  That’s us.  On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.  The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.  Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.  Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.  Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.  In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life.  There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes.  Settle, not yet.  Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.  There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.  To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Sometimes, for the preservation of our own mental health, we need to think about the possibilities that life still holds.  Love still exists, even when it’s hard to find.

I believe in The Power of Love.  Love is the only reason I’m still alive.

It is the love of people who know me that has saved my life from the best efforts of my diabetes to kill me on nearly two dozen occasions.

It is Speedy Shine’s love that gives me that gives me the strength to fight the depression that threatens my existence more often than I like to admit.

It is the love of my best friend and her ex-boyfriend that allow me to have a home.  I would survive as a homeless person for less than 48 hours.

It is the love of a friend from so many years ago that allows me to eat well enough to survive.

It is the love of The People on The Porch that gives my life purpose so I can feel that I can make a difference even while I’m not capable of doing anything to earn a living.  Their financial assistance keeps me from complete poverty, and their attention to my work makes me feel that I’m living instead of merely surviving.

It is the love of my Facebook friends that keeps me from feeling entirely alone, even while I do all I can to avoid leaving the house.  They allow me to feel some connection to the rest of the world.  They help me to control my fear of other people.

I believe it is love that will finally save us from losing our freedom.  I believe love is stronger than hate.  I could be wrong.  I remind myself of that several times a day.  But I will hold on to my belief in the power of love until the stars grow cold.

Love is my religion.

My true religion, my simple faith is in love and compassion.  There is no need for complicated philosophy, doctrine, or dogma.  Our own heart, our own mind, is the temple.  The doctrine is compassion.  Love for others and respect for their rights and dignity, no matter who or what they are – these are ultimately all we need.

—  The Dalai Lama

Of course, I’m an atheist, so how can I have a religion?

 A great Rabbi was once asked, “Why did God create atheists?”

The Rabbi said, “Atheists are the most important example for all who believe in God.  When an atheist is moral, and good, and kind, and compassionate, it’s not because he believes God commanded him to be so, nor because he fears any kind of punishment for being bad.  An atheist performs acts of righteousness because he knows it is right to do.  And where is God in this?  If He is in the atheist’s heart, or guiding him, it doesn’t matter.  The atheist helps regardless.  He helps because he believes there is nobody else, no power that can or will act without his own deeds.  So when someone is in need, in our times of crisis, you shouldn’t say, ‘I’ll pray for you, ‘ or, ‘May God help you.’ Rather, in this moment, you should be as an atheist.  Believe there is no God who can help, and say, ‘I will help you.’ In this way the atheist is closest to God, and so must we be as well.”

Captain Kirk taught me, in April 1967, when I was not yet five years old, that the three most important words are not, “I love you.”  The three most important words are, “Let me help.”

Where is the love in your life?  I promise there is some, even if you can’t find it at the moment.  I know mine isn’t what you probably want, but you have it anyway, even though we’ve probably never met and almost certainly never will.  If you’re a human being, I want you to find happiness, meaning, and love in your life.  I want you to have enough to eat, a warm bed in which to sleep, and somewhere to handle your bodily functions in a sanitary way. 

I’m willing to bet you feel the same way about nearly everyone.  On the other hand, I just turned a straight, and the player to my left rivered a full house, so I should probably not be gambling so much right now.  Perhaps you are battling the Hatred that is poisoning your soul, and if that’s the case, I hope you win the fight.  It’s not helping you to feel any better, I promise you.  It’s hurting you.  It’s hurting the object of your Hatred.  No matter how well deserved that hatred is, take a break from it for just a little while.  It will still be there when you’re ready to come back. 

Sometimes we need to lose things in order to learn not only their value, but also their weight.  Loss is a brilliant teacher that way; it can show us what’s important simply by creating space where it once was.”

— Mark Groves

It was 111 degrees here today.  My best friend loaned me the courage to leave the house, and she took me out to lunch.  I put my dog, Speedy Shine in the backyard with two trays full of ice cubes, and lots of water, and I filled all his toys with that cheese spread you get from PetSmart.  I told him I loved him, and I would be back soon.  I was gone for just over two hours, and when I returned, he jumped on me for nearly 5 uninterrupted minutes.  It was as though I had been gone for a year.  And there was an extra jolt of love from both of us.

And even in the middle of the summer, I couldn’t help but remember this Christmas story from what is, in my view, the greatest series ever to appear on television.

“Every year, when I was little, Daddy told me a story about The Great War.  How on Christmas Eve an English soldier started singing “Silent Night,” and from the other side of the trenches, the German soldiers joined in, and then they crossed the enemy lines and vowed not to fight each other the next day.  But the sun rose, and their commanders told them to charge, and they did.  I don’t know why that story makes me feel hopeful.  Maybe it’s that Good Will exists.  Even if it’s small and weak, there’s a chance it may grow up one day.”

— Barbara Hall in “I’ll Fly Away” Season 2, Episode 11, “Comfort and Joy.” 12/11/1992

That’s been with me for just shy of 30 years.  It will be with me until I am no more.  And now it is with you. 

Search for the Goodness.  Seek the Kindness.  I promise you, no matter how dark the skies, there are little lights of love still to be found.

I love you.

Posted on by Fred

“One Planet, One People… Please?”

Nearly 40 years ago, when I was an adolescent running around in as much of a hormone haze as I now am surrounded by the Fog of Idealism, I was as madly in love as a boy could be with a girl whose intellect and compassion I admired nearly as much as her physical form. When you’re 16, it’s difficult to see much beyond appearance. Or, at least it was for me. Perhaps today’s adolescents are more enlightened than I was.

Among the reasons I fell in love with her was her Idealism was seductively attractive to me. She was a member of a religion of which I had never heard, called Baha’i. I had, even then, no supernatural beliefs, but I loved the idea of unity that was at the core of her religious beliefs. She had on her car a bumper sticker that has the unique status of actually affecting me. It said, “One Planet, One People… Please?” I have never forgotten the words. Now, I believe, she’s off living with her husband on a farm somewhere, and we say hello to each other occasionally on Facebook, but we don’t really have a serious friendship anymore. Her influence over my thinking, however, has only grown in the intervening decades.

She was the water and sunlight that made the seed planted a decade earlier grow and flourish. What planted the seed? It was Star Trek, of course.

I’ve been a lifelong Star Trek fan, and I often think of how The United Federation of Planets evaluates a new civilization. They consider not only its technological situation, but how that civilization treats its people. And, because they’re looking at alien planets, the societies they encounter can have any number of traditions, values, and ideas. They try to be respectful of all of them.

This is the Preamble to their Constitution:

We, the intelligent lifeforms of the United Federation of Planets, determined

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of intergalactic war which has brought untold horror and suffering to our planetary social systems, and

to reaffirm faith in the fundamental intelligent lifeform rights, in the dignity and worth of the intelligent lifeform person, to the equal rights of male and female and of planetary social systems large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and mutual respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of interplanetary law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

And to these ends

to practice benevolent tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and

to unite our strength to maintain intergalactic peace and security, and

to ensure by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods that armed force shall not be used except in the common defense, and

to employ intergalactic machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all intelligent lifeforms,

Have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims.

Written by Franz Joseph (Published in the Star Fleet Technical Manual)

I believe the general ideas expressed above are a good starting place for our world. They are asking for us to respect fundamental human rights (although, since they’re dealing with many other sentient species, they refer to them as lifeform rights), to make social progress, and to keep peaceful and friendly relations among the different species.

In order to be admitted to the Federation a planet must have a one-world government. And this idea frightens the hell out of people today. I don’t understand why this should be the case.

One need not forfeit individuality to recognize one’s membership in the human race. Yes, different cultures have different values and traditions. They have different religions. They have different economic structures. Their skin colors and languages are different. Some have different ideas about sex. But, they all have blood, hearts, lungs, and all the other organs all human beings share. We all need to eat, to have a place to sleep, to have medical care, and to be able to spend our minutes in the ways that we choose without harming others.

We have decided, by some sort of universal consent, that time and money are traded one for the other. We have further decided that if one cannot or does not trade time for money, or find other ways of collecting enough of it, a person has little value. Your human value is determined by your market value. And that is simply wrong.

First, let’s recognize the we are at the summit of humanity.

200,000 years ago survival was our only concern. It was all the earliest humans could do to avoid being eaten, or to find a way to eat, themselves. Shelter was whatever they could find, and medical care was, for any serious purposes, non existent. But we did survive, and we did it because we worked together. No single human could have flourished then, and it’s doubtful one could now. If one of us is doing well it’s because of the contributions made by others for the last 200 millennia.

We have always made life better by working together, but we began to segregate ourselves into different tribes of one form or another. They can be based on specialization, on shared beliefs, on gender, race, or ideology, or national origin or citizenship in a particular country. But the tribes are there. The separation is there.

I submit the separation is counter to continuing to improve our world. Instead of trying to defeat each other, we need to try to cooperate with each other to find the solutions to our shared problems, and to find ways of making life more pleasant for all of us.

Another element common to all of us is that we have limited time on Earth. We can discuss afterlife at a different time, but our time here is extraordinarily brief. Few of us will be here for an entire century. None of us will be here for two. And, to our knowledge, that’s all the time we get. Ever. Once a minute is spent, it can never be recovered.

You and I will each get, perhaps, 50 million minutes. Why should we need, in the 21st Century, to trade so many of them for dollars? Most of us won’t even get a dollar per minute. If you earn $52,000,000 in your lifetime, you’re among the very few. This world works very well for the few. It works very poorly for the many. “The needs of the many,” as Spock would remind us, “outweigh the needs of the few.”

This doesn’t mean the few should be forced to give their dollars to the many. I’m not advocating that. Instead, I would like to see the dollars of the many used to benefit the many instead of the few. We have enough to ensure that all of us have the basics of survival. We can eliminate the need for slave wages by ensuring no one ever needs to take a job that pays less than a person’s minutes are worth just so one can keep living for a few more minutes. Instead of being about survival, money becomes about flourishing financially.

What would this world look like?

Everyone has enough money for food, rent, utilities, and clothing appropriate to the environment in which they live. Any decent civilization would provide that to all of its citizens. Those that don’t are never viewed well by the Federation.

Everyone has medical care sufficient to keep one not just alive, but healthy. Dr. McCoy never asked anyone for an insurance card. Had the Captain asked him to, he probably would have said, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a bureaucrat!”

Everyone spends their minutes in ways that are meaningful to them, and that contribute in unique ways to making the society a better and stronger one.

Everyone is appreciated as the individuals they are. No one is expected to conform to the expectations of others, so long as they aren’t hurting anyone else. Each of us chooses our own path through life.

Isn’t this world impossible?

No. It’s not. Flying was once “impossible.” Going to the moon was even more “impossible.” Communicating in the way you and I are this very moment was also once “impossible.” Things are impossible only when we decide they are impossible, or they are expressly forbidden by the laws of physics.

What do we need to do to bring about such a world?

First, we have to agree that we want to. Then, we need to try.

What are the logistics?

I don’t have a clue. I’m not an economist. I’m not a politician. I’m a drop of water in the Colorado River. There are experts in such areas. I suggest they work out the details, they do the research, they gather the data, and they work it out. And, to no one’s surprise, people have been doing this for quite some time. Buckminster Fuller spent most of his 87 years (not even the full 50,000,000 minutes we hope to receive ourselves) trying to figure out how to implement plans that would benefit 100% of humanity. The ideas are there.

What are some of the ideas?

Today, we are beginning the discussions about changing our economy in a way that benefits more people. Universal Basic Income is now a fairly well known term. It wasn’t unheard of previously, but no one really had any interest in it after it failed during the Nixon administration. Today, the idea gets airtime, although not much. Is UBI enough? No, of course, it’s not, but it’s a step in the right direction. Medicare for All isn’t enough, either, but we’re moving closer to the public health care we really ought to have.

frededer.home.blog/2019/10/01/which-are-the-people-who-should-die-for-a-lack-of-little-green-pieces-of-paper/

Living wages aren’t the whole answer, either, but they are at least one more piece of the puzzle.

frededer.home.blog/2019/06/11/hard-work/

What Should We Do, Then?

The most important thing to do is to agree on our shared vision. If you see some reason to oppose the Idealistic vision I’ve discussed, I hope you’ll communicate to us what the basis or your opposition is. Why, in essence, should humans suffer unnecessarily?

Having done that, perhaps we can get a few more people to share it, and, in this way, we can begin, as little drops of water, to carve out the Grand Canyon. We can talk about the best ways of improving humanity, and we can share diverse opinions. We can find common ground, and we can move forward to become a world worthy of membership in The United Federation of Planets. I want very much to be qualified to join the Federation. Don’t you?

Wouldn’t it be lovely if Vulcan ships had been monitoring our progress for the last century, and they saw that we have moved toward slowing the spread of racism, at least insofar as we have made it socially unacceptable, illegal in hiring, and making it possible for someone who was not white to become President of the United States? They would see that we have begun to accept that people can have sexualities that differ from the norm, and those differences are no one’s business but their own. We have even accepted their right to marry just as it is given to everyone else. The Vulcans could observe that women have won the right to vote, to be in power, and to live their own lives independent of men. They would see we have begun.

Yes, we have light years to go, but we have begun the journey toward not only the stars, but to the deeper unexplored realms of what humanity can actually accomplish. Let’s keep moving down that road, together.

Posted on by Fred

American Concentration Camps

U.S. Border Patrol agents conduct intake of illegal border crossers at the Central Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, Sunday, June 17, 2018.

“The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border and that is exactly what they are – they are concentration camps – and if that doesn’t bother you…”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Right off the top, people are disagreeing. Concentration camps are where the Jews were held by the Nazis during World War II. What we’re doing at the Southern Border doesn’t involve gas chambers pretending to be showers. We’re not murdering six million people. The language is inflammatory. It’s divisive. It’s offensive to Jewish people the world over.

Right… why, exactly, is that?

Frankly, I don’t care if you want to call them Concentration Camps, Detention Centers, Holding Facilities, or Holiday Fucking Inns. The fact is that they exist in The United States. Today. Right now. These aren’t the Japanese Internment Facilities of the past, before most of us were alive. These exist in America today. They are morally wrong.

“Well, you liberals want to blame Trump for everything. These were started under Obama, and where was your outrage then? You’re just a Trump Hater.”

Okay. Fair enough. We won’t blame President Trump. You may blame President Obama if you would like. You may blame Hillary Clinton. You may blame Nancy Pelosi. You may blame AOC, Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, or me personally. Whose fault it is doesn’t matter in the least. What matters is that it’s happening.

Let’s look at some facts. The following is from the Inspector General’s Report on one of the better facilities located in Newark, New Jersey. These are their recommendations from February, 2019.

Recommendation: We recommend ICE conduct an immediate, full review of the Essex County Correctional Facility and the Essex County Department of Corrections’ management of the facility to ensure compliance with ICE’s 2011 Performance-Based National Detention Standards. As part of this assessment, ICE must review and ensure compliance with those standards addressing: 1. Unreported security incidents; 2. Food safety; and 3. Facility conditions that include ceiling leaks, unsanitary shower stalls, bedding, and outdoor recreation areas.

Those are the conclusions of the Department of Homeland Security, not the conclusions of liberals, democrats, or socialists.

Facilities in Texas are worse. “Many of them are sleeping on concrete floors, including infants, toddlers, preschoolers. They are being given nothing but instant meals, Kool-Aid and cookies — many of them are sick. We are hearing that many of them are not sleeping. Almost all of them are incredibly sad and being traumatized. Many of them have not been given a shower for weeks. Many of them are not being allowed to brush their teeth except for maybe once every 10 days. They have no access to soap. It’s incredibly unsanitary conditions, and we’re very worried about the children’s health.” –

A law professor who recently visited the facility, Warren Binford of Willamette University

These are children. They are no different from your son or daughter, or your niece or nephew, or you and your siblings. They cannot possibly be guilty of any crime.

If their parents didn’t want them in this situation, they should have stayed in their own countries. It’s the parents’ fault, not ours!

Again, I couldn’t care less about whose fault it is. It does nothing to excuse the atrocities of the way we are treating human beings. We’re kidnapping children from their parents’ arms. They can’t be traced later, so reunification is exceptionally difficult. The children are housed in areas intended for adults, and the overcrowding is such that children are sleeping on top of one another on cold cement floors.

“Gialluca and a slew of other lawyers have been meeting with children and young mothers at facilities across the state this month as pro bono attorneys. At the McAllen center, Gialluca said, everyone she spoke with said they sought out Border Patrol agents after crossing the Rio Grande so they could request asylum.
Gialluca said the migrants, all from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, told her they aren’t receiving proper medical care and children don’t have enough clean clothes. Unable to clean themselves, young mothers reported wiping their children’s runny noses or vomit with their own clothing, Gialluca said. There aren’t sufficient cups or baby bottles, so many are reused or shared.”


https://www.texastribune.org/2019/06/23/immigrant-detention-center-mcalllen-overcrowded-filthy-conditions/

These are not conditions under which any human being ought to be living. We are experiencing this crisis in this country at this moment. It needs to end. It needs to end now.

Okay, Mr. Bleeding Heart Liberal, how would YOU end it? We have borders for a reason, or do you think we should throw open the door and let everyone in? Is that what you do at your house, or do you lock the door every night?

First, in my Ideal World, we would be done with Us and Them. We would recognize that every single one of us is a human being. We would recognize that all human beings should be allowed to live some form of decent life, and that one’s country of origin does nothing to tell me if one is a good person or a bad person. Neither does one’s race, gender, religion, appearance, economic security, or political ideas. To determine if one is a good person, I need to observe that person’s behavior.

Well, their behavior was to break the laws of the United States. That makes them criminals, and they deserve NOTHING from us!

I’m afraid adherence to laws does nothing to tell me about a person’s value. Harriet Tubman, for more than a decade, was breaking the law by guiding people along the Underground Railroad. She was breaking the law. She was also doing the right thing.

If an immigrant does something to hurt someone – if an immigrant assaults someone, kills or rapes someone, or steals from someone – that’s a reason to remove him or her. But stepping across a line does nothing to hurt me. It does nothing to hurt you, either.

The arguments against immigrants are generally an effort to dehumanize them. How could you do this to a child? Well… if they’re not really children… if they’re not my children… then it’s okay to treat them badly because they, you know, deserve it somehow.

But I think, deep down, we all know that’s not true. We have to find a way to make this normal so we don’t have to feel appalled. And when this becomes normal, Death Camps aren’t far behind. And, it won’t be just immigrants. They’re first, but others will join them in coming days.

We’ve been doing this for centuries. We did it with black people. They were obviously different. Their skin was a darker color. They were Them. Good people, white people, were Us. We have to subjugate those who are not Us.

We did it with women. We did it with those whose sexual orientations were different from the majority. We did it with those whose religious beliefs were different from the majority.

Why?

Who is better off for deciding that one group of people needs to be treated better or worse based on their membership in that group?

I’m a straight, white male. That makes me better than absolutely no one. Your membership in whatever groups have been assigned to you makes you no better than anyone else, either.

You’re better or worse than other people based upon your behaviors.

The behaviors of these immigrant children don’t earn them the hell we are giving them.

I’m not a politician. There are many very good reasons for that. I don’t have solutions to America’s problems. But I can certainly recognize a problem when it’s staring me in the face. We are moving down a road we should all be able to recognize by now. Let’s stop where we are and turn around and go back.

Can we afford to give these people the help they need? I submit, if we want to call ourselves human, we can’t afford not to.

In my Ideal World, there are no borders. No, we don’t let strangers in our houses, but my house is not the same as my country. My home contains my private property, and a stranger inside it may represent a danger to me.

The country, however, is made up of nothing but strangers and immigrants. I’m perfectly content for them to find the best life they can here. In my world, everyone has shelter, food, medicine, and sanitary conditions in which to live. We all have a fair chance to make our lives better. We’re all willing to give each other a helping hand. We all get a good education, and we find joy in our lives.

Why is that world impossible? Because you’ve been taught it is.

Let’s learn something new. Let’s learn Love for All Humans. Let’s learn what a friend taught me when I was 16 years old: “One planet, one people… please?”

Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

The Value of a Person

The Value of a Person

My value is not defined by how much money I can earn. Neither, for me at least, is yours. Such a definition is not only narrow, in that it focuses on only one small part of the thousands of elements of my existence, it is also among the least interesting. Can I make you laugh? Can I cause you to smile? Can I make you think? Can I entertain you? Am I someone to whom you might reasonably turn for love and kindness? Do I know as much about Star Trek as you do? Did “Go Set A Watchman” ruin “To Kill a Mockingbird” for me? Do I believe that’s even a relevant question? Would a comma straighten out your sentence for you? I’m the Guy to Ask. All of those are more interesting definitions of your friend. They’re also all among the indicators of Your Value to Me.

Many of the people on my Friends List are women upon whom, when I was in The Hormone Haze that is the existence of a 15 year old boy, I had a terrible crush. Was that because they were physically attractive? Undoubtedly. So should I make all of my judgments about women based upon their attractiveness? And, if I did, wouldn’t you loathe me for such an unimportant and single minded appraisal of my friends? And if anyone made their sole method of judging me my physical attractiveness, I would have few friends, indeed. It’s simply one of the thousand elements of them in which I once had an interest.

Their real value to me, now that I’m no longer a boy, lies in their ideas. It has to do with how they see the world. It’s what I learn from seeing glimpses into their worlds. They’re like Elizabeth Bennet for me. I never lived in 18th Century England. But I’ve seen it from her eyes, and it enriches my understanding of, and to, my own world. And, if you don’t love Elizabeth Bennet, I beseech you, now that you’re an adult, to read “Pride and Prejudice.” If you still don’t love Lizzy, I need to understand you better.

Just as wrong as I would be to make my judgment of a person based on their physical attributes, I would be equally offended if I were to be judged solely on the amount of money I can earn. This would be equally true if I were physically attractive or I could earn large sums of money. Why, then, are we willing to make such narrow judgments about strangers? I refuse to believe the only value of someone else is how much money they can earn, or how physically attractive that person may be.

And I believe all people, simply because they have been born, deserve the basics of living. I know many people who publish memes of blank pieces of paper that are the list of all the things the world owes you. I can’t agree with that.

Neither you nor I nor any of them ever asked to be born. We simply were. We were the fastest sperm, but we didn’t even ask to be that. And we survive on this planet only because others, at some point, took care of us. In fact, we all rely on each other, in greater or lesser ways, to survive even now. Someone has to grow our food. Someone has to pick it, or slaughter it. Someone has to package it. Someone has to ship it. Someone has to stock it on the shelf. Someone has to sell it to you. And that was just lunch. We depend on each other. Is that Socialism? I don’t know. We can debate economic theories another time. I’m simply pointing out that, as John Donne told us, “No man is an island entire of itself.”

Yes, we all live in our own worlds. Our experiences are ours alone, unique to each of us. But we also all live in the same world. We share it. There is no other to which we can go. This planet is all there is for any of us.

Let’s make it as nice for everyone as we can. Let’s not decide that some of us are better than others for reasons that have nothing to do with who we are. If you’re a serial killer, I’m probably a better person than you are. If you’re reading this, you’re probably a better person than I am; otherwise I wouldn’t want you on my Friends List. I improve myself by being around those better than I am, in the same way you’ll become a better musician by playing with Miles Davis than you will by playing with me. Some people are better than others, yes. But let’s make those judgments about them for meaningful reasons. And let’s end those judgments at the point of deciding whether we want to be their friends, instead of deciding that, because we don’t like someone very well, they don’t deserve the basics of life. Yes, they do. So do I. So do you.