When We Are Part Of The Problem

That which we tolerate today we embrace tomorrow. – Various attribution

No raindrop believes it is responsible for the flood. – Various attribution

Rather than ask what is wrong with the world, ask what is right with it.  The answer you focus on determines your thoughts, words and deeds. – Harry Tucker

The #1206 “fiction” series continues ….

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It was another difficult day on the set of his most recent documentary and Zane sighed with exhaustion as he shuffled into his bedroom.  Without undressing, he fell full-length onto his bed as his mind churned over the events of today and his intentions for tomorrow.

He fell into a much-needed sleep … or thought he had when he suddenly awoke with a start as he found himself sitting in a dark room.

“Do not be afraid”, said a voice in the darkness, “you will not be harmed in any way.”

“Where am I?”, Zane asked, confused and apprehensive about what appeared to be a crazy dream erupting from his over-worked mind.

“Where you are is not important”, came the reply.  “As I indicated, you are safe.  We seek your assistance on an important matter.  Please observe the holo-image around you.”

Before Zane could ask what a holo-image was, the room was suddenly filled with the laughter of thousands of children as they played around a lone chair that sat empty.

As he wondered about the children, the voice suddenly said “You see 24,000 children before you under the age of 5 years.  Observe.”

As he watched, he saw an image of himself struggling against the grip of two large but obscured figures.  They dragged him over to the chair and bound him to it, leaving him struggling against seemingly unbreakable bonds.  The playing children were provided with water by an obscure figure who released the water with the press of a button.  As they thirstily drank it, their faces suddenly contorted and they began to fall all around him.

“What’s happening?”, demanded Zane, horrified with the images he saw as the copy of himself in the chair cursed and swore to be released in order to help the children.

“They are dying from contaminated water”, replied the voice.

“You son of a ….”, yelled Zane but he was interrupted by the voice. 

“Wait”, it intoned.

Suddenly the image around him changed and the children were alive again, happily playing all around him.  The same chair sat amongst them, empty, when he saw an image of himself saunter over and sit down, this time not being forced by the figures who had dragged him to the chair earlier.

As he watched, the scene repeated as before, with the obscure figure releasing water to the thirsty children.  As they convulsed and died again, he was horrified to see the image of himself casually looking around, occasionally interacting with his smartphone but otherwise nonplussed by what was happening around him.

“I don’t understand’, said Zane, “What in the hell is going on here?”

“Wait”, replied the voice.

The image reset again, with the children happily playing and the lone chair sitting empty amongst them.

This time, however, as the obscure figure approached the water release mechanism, Zane realized that the figure was him.  He was horrified as he saw the image of himself release the water that once again poisoned the children.

“Wait a minute”, cried Zane, “What are you doing?  Why are you doing this?”

“Did you know that 24,000 children under the age of 5 die every day from consuming contaminated water on your planet?”, asked the voice.  “Perhaps it seems less painful when you don’t have to watch them die or you can rationalize a belief that you play no role in their death.”

“But that’s not my fault”, cried Zane.  “How can you suggest that I am to blame for this?”

“How do you know that you are not to blame, either directly or indirectly?”, replied the voice.

Zane opened his mouth to speak but before he could, the images around him were replaced by others. In one scenario, he was an executive ordering the use of sweatshops in developing nations to manufacture clothing, expressing delight that he had the power to rule over those whom he felt were worth nothing compared to his success and the success of his company. 

In another, he was one of several men gang-raping a woman, watching his manhood harden because of her screams of pain and fear and the feel of her nails raking across his face and neck.  In another, he was ordering a stock market crash that would wipe out the life savings of millions of middle-class investors as he expressed his indifference over the pleas of colleagues that wiping out the average citizen was not morally or ethically acceptable.  In another, he saw himself feeling the power of revenge as the knife in his hand crunched through the ribs of his victim. 

In another, he saw himself turn his nose up at the pleas for help from the impoverished, the homeless, the refugee and the mentally ill in an expression of superiority or indifference to their needs. 

In the final image, he was entering the launch codes to enable the nuclear arsenal of the United States, feeling the call of God to destroy the Infidel who dared to get in the way of God's plans for the world.

“It appears that you do not like these images”, the voice indicated.  “Perhaps you see yourself more as this person.”

The images were suddenly replaced by happier images, where he was playing the hero rescuing someone from a burning building, donating money that eventually led to a cure for cancer and the final image where he was emerging from a meeting of the United Nations where he was announcing his plan to bring about peace for the world.

“We see that you prefer these images”, said the voice.  “That is understandable. Every raindrop believes it brings nourishment while no raindrop believes it is responsible for the flood.”

The voice paused before it continued.  “The truth is that you are all of these things, comprised of a complex mix of unlimited potential for evil and hope.”

Zane sat in stunned silence for a few moments before whispering, “My God, what is wrong with us?”

The voice replied, “A better question to ask yourself is ‘What is right with you?’ and formulate an answer to that question.  You have the ability, the talents, the strengths, the gifts and the potential to do anything you wish.  Unfortunately, the will to do what is right is oftentimes lacking.”

“You have arrived at a critical juncture in the development of your species”, continued the voice.  “You have before you the opportunity to flourish or flounder.  The choice is yours.”

“I don’t understand”, stammered Zane.  “What can I do to stop the difficulty that is going on in the world?  I am just one person.”

The room was suddenly filled with images of the potential that the Earth offered, stunning waterfalls, huge rainforests, fields of waving grain, abundant oceans and finally all the images were replaced with that of a single, newly born infant.

The voice spoke again. “You are saying that these things are not worth saving?  Be still for a moment and reflect upon these questions:

• Who am I?
• Why am I here?
• Where did I come from?
• Where am I going?

Then ask the infant before you these four questions:¹”

• What do you want me to do?
• Where do you want me to go?
• Who do you want me to see?
• What do you want me to say?

Zane paused for a moment, feeling a wave of foolishness wash over him and then he humored the voice and spoke the questions loudly to the image of the infant.

The baby suddenly stopped moving and looked intently at Zane.  Zane shivered as he felt the infant’s eyes burrow deeply into his soul.

Suddenly, a realization dawned on him and he opened his mouth to speak but before he could say anything, he was interrupted by the voice.

“Do not speak”, said the voice, “What matters now is that you understand.  What matters more is that you do something with this understanding before your time on Earth has ended.  Your end may be much closer than you realize as you approach the point of no return.  In the meantime, you will be connected with many like minds in the coming months.  Recognize them and honor the connection. Farewell for now, Zane.”

Zane awoke with a start, his body covered with a cold sweat.  Looking around apprehensively in his bedroom, he realized that his nose was bleeding, he had an amazing headache and …. there was something he needed to do.

He groped for his cell phone in the dark to make a call.

To be continued.

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© 2014 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

¹The Four Questions and Other Stuff

The four questions are from the great book The Roadmap Home: Your GPS to Inner Peace by Leonard Szymczak and were used with permission of the author.

Zane is an actual documentary producer with incredible gifts, talents and strengths although I changed his name in this post.  He knows who he is.

And yes, 24,000 children under the age of 5 die from contaminated water on this planet every day but out of sight is out of mind.

Author Note: The following paragraph was originally used but was in fact the standby paragraph to much more graphic paragraphs (the ones now used).  People who matter to me felt that the shock value was important for the message and so the originally planned graphic paragraphs which did not appear in the original release of this blog are the ones that now stand.

Zane opened his mouth to speak but before he could, the images around him were replaced by others.  In one scenario, he was an executive ordering the use of sweatshops in developing nations to manufacture clothing, in another he was raping a woman, in another he was ordering a stock market crash that would wipe out the life savings of millions of middle-class investors, in yet another he was killing someone on the street and in the final image, he was entering the launch codes to enable the nuclear arsenal of the United States.

Series Origin:

This series, a departure from my usual musings,  is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

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Technology and a Changing Global Context

A presentation by Van Wishard, reprinted in its original form, unedited and in its entirety, with permission of the author.

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Van Wishard
Westminster at Lake Ridge
October 22, 2012

We’re going to consider some interesting subjects this morning -- technology and a changing global context -- and some of you might like to consider this material further. If so, just be in touch with Heather Reich or myself, and we’ll see that you get a copy.

What does a changing global context mean, and by context I mean the mental framework within which we perceive life.

Most of us have some intuitive sense that the world is, and has been, passing through extraordinary times. We can’t quite define it, but we see it in the world news and in our daily lives. It’s men walking on the moon; it’s one person reaching millions of people via the Internet; it’s China, comprising every fifth person in the world, becoming a global power. We continue on with our daily routine; but we have an unarticulated sense that somehow the entire context in which we have lived our lives is changing.

Different people have tried to describe this changing context in different ways. The renowned anthropologist, Philip Tobias, says, “I regard the computer as the most significant leap since humans acquired the capacity for spoken language some two million years ago.”

I want to try to bring Tobias’s cosmic statement down to present-day reality.

In the 1980s, I had a luncheon with Alvin Toffler, author of the best-selling book, Future Shock – and he was one of the fathers of the “futurist” movement. I asked him what was to be the result of everyone having access to all scientific, religious and philosophical beliefs via the Internet. His instant reply was, “It’s the end of truth.”

I thought about that statement for years afterwards. Toffler wasn’t saying that truth wouldn’t exist; only that everyone would have his or her own interpretation of truth. Thus it would be more difficult for a society to abide by any underlying set of convictions. You can see that this is what has happened over the past decades. The more information technology we have developed, the more difficult it has become to cohere around any consensus on political or social issues.

That reality underlies much of the political and existential confusion we see in the Middle East today. From 4000 BCE to the recent removal of General Mubarak, Egypt was ruled by an authoritarian ruler. In the Middle East as a whole, the history of governance has been either by foreign powers, dictatorship, or sectarian or tribal leaders. Over the past decade, the Internet, Facebook and Twitter have fractured the authority of these groups, and opened different concepts of governance. The youth particularly became entranced by the glitter of Western democracy, and sixty percent of the Arab world is under the age of twenty-five. 

Now keep in mind that it took over five hundred years for the Western mind psychologically to mature from the Magna Carta in 1215, to the Rights of Man in 1789. Western democracy is not just a political system; it is a political expression of a certain psychological and historical evolution.

The Middle East has not had similar historical circumstances or the context in which to make a comparable journey. In my view, this is part of the deeper reason for the chaos we see unfolding across the entire Middle East. And thus George Friedman, founder of the strategic analysis company STRATFOR, writes: “The NATO approach to Libya assumed that the removal of a tyrant would somehow inevitably lead to a liberal democracy.” Indeed, this view has been the assumption of the West about Middle East in general, at least going back to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Egypt has taken the first steps forward, but even if these steps are consolidated, there are more steps to go. In much of the Middle East there has not yet been the rise of effective democracies with their own security agencies governed by the rule of law.

I would offer five more trends, which help illustrate the changing global context. Then we’ll focus on a specific technological development and the questions it raises.

First trend, for the first time in history, the Caucasian race is no longer reproducing itself. No European country is reproducing its population; nor are Caucasians in North America reproducing themselves. The implications of this are so far-reaching that it’s difficult even to speculate what they might be.

Second, future ages may view man’s seeing the Earth from the Moon as the defining event of all subsequent history. Joseph Campbell, the renowned historian of myth and psychology, clearly considered it the most significant psychological event of the past several thousand years. Seeing Earth from the Moon vastly accelerated the collapse of all the boundaries that provide identity for nation, race, religion and class. Thus every nation, indeed, every person to some degree or other, faces a crisis of identity.

Third, the ability to create change, as well as the attitude that change is desirable, is now a global possession. Throughout history, in all civilizations, continuity rather than abrupt change has been the normal state of affairs. No society on the planet knows how to live with constant, radical change. Thus, for the first time in history, every nation is, concurrently with all other nations, in a state of profound upheaval as we try to adjust to an ever-accelerating pace of change.

Fourth, for the first time in history, what constitutes a family is being redefined. This has acute psychological implications for government, education, social cohesion, and what we broadly term “civil society.”

Fifth, our whole symbolic language has been devalued. For example, the word “heaven” used to carry a sacred meaning. It was the dwelling place of the gods, a place people hoped to go when they died, our link with eternity. Now, we speak simply of “space,” an endless void. Similarly, we used to speak of “Mother Earth,” which gives the Earth a creative, nurturing implication. Now, we speak only of “matter,” an abstract, lifeless substance. In this way, our symbolic language has been diminished. The function of symbolic language is to infuse into our conscious life some of the transcendent meaning that emanates from the unconscious realm, thus giving our daily lives a deeper vitality. That connection has been weakened, so there’s far less transcendent energy brought into our conscious life.

So this is part of the larger context within which all other discussions about life—Syria and the Middle East, the upcoming election, our relationship with China, and all else takes place.

And now we are at the beginning of another technological development potentially far more consequential than the Internet. Ray Kurzweil is a computer scientist who has received thirteen honorary doctorate degrees, and has been received by the White House for his work in helping the blind and the deaf through the use of computers.

I came across Kurzweil’s work in the ‘80s and have more or less followed him ever since. He has written several books, one entitled The Singularity, in which he describes the time ahead when, he argues, computers will merge with human brains and create a superior form of life. “We’re now very dependent on our computers,” he says. “We no longer have our hand on the switch, so to speak, because our civilization is so dependent on the machines, and bit by bit the machines are getting more and more intelligent…At some point, there’s going to be a merger.”

Kurzweil asserts that due to what’s called “Moore’s Law,” which says that with every passing two years, the miniaturization of computer chips roughly doubles their speed and cuts their cost by half, that by 2030, computers will be powerful enough to run programs reproducing the 10,000 trillion electrical signals that flash every second among the twenty-two billion neurons in the human skull. They will also have the memory to store the 10 trillion recollections that a typical brain houses. By about 2045, Kurzweil believes computers will be able to accommodate all the minds in the world, effectively merging carbon- and silicon-based intelligence into a single global consciousness.

Kurzweil was a lone voice when he started. Gradually, he built up a following in the scientific community. Now he’s head of a PhD. haven called Singularity University in Silicon Valley. DARPA, the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, has begun employing some of his work in their forward planning. DARPA’s “Brain Interface Project” is now looking at the possibility of molecular-scale computers, built from enzymes and DNA molecules rather than silicon, which could be implanted into soldiers’ heads. DARPA hopes that more advanced models will give soldiers some of the advantages of machines by speeding up their synaptic links, adding memory, and even providing wireless Internet access. In similar vein, DARPA’s “Silent Talk Project” is working on implants that will decode preverbal electrical signals within the brain and send them over the Internet so troops can communicate without radios or e-mail. One National Science Foundation report suggests that such “network-enabled telepathy” will become a reality in the 2020s.

So on and on it goes, potentially leading to a change in what it means to be a human being.

But dissenting voices exist. Dr. Susan Greenfield, one of Europe’s foremost psychiatrists, warned that “ignoring the way digital experience rewires the brain—literally ‘blowing the mind’—may one day be akin to doubting global warning.”

Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and whom the Economist magazine describes as the “Edison of the Internet”, says of Kurzweil’s experiments, “I think it no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states.” Joy suggested that the only solution is “to limit development of certain technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge.”

The Economist magazine asks the critical question: “Is the speed of technology development exceeding humanity’s moral and mental capacities to control it?”  

And finally, Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine and author of several books on technology and its future. Writes Kelly: “In the great vacuum of meaning, in the silence of unspoken values, in the vacancy of something large to stand for, something bigger than oneself, technology—for better or worse—will make our decisions for us.” This, from one of the leading spokesmen of America’s technologists

Well, with DARPA involved, we’re past the point of any concerns being taken seriously at this point, no matter how valid they may be. To be sure, there some are tremendous benefits to Kurzweil’s inventions.

But Kurzweil also believes what he’s doing is the next step in evolution, and will lead to a global consciousness and, ultimately, immortality.  At this point, I’m reminded of what the physicist Freeman Dyson, who worked on the atomic bomb, suggested.  In talking about the development of nuclear weapons, Dyson wrote, “To perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky…it is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power…this is what you might call the technical arrogance that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds.”

So motives can be mixed in the research and development of some aspects of contemporary technology. Some of it may be altruistic; some may stem from intellectual arrogance; and some from an existential vacuum.

Thus far, we’re on a beneficial course. Using the same brain/enzyme combination as I described earlier, DARPA has developed an artificial arm that can be used simply by thinking about it. Such artificial arms or legs will be of inestimable value to veterans who have lost limbs as a consequence of their service to the country. 

But when Kurzweil talks of evolution, a global consciousness and immortality, I believe he fails to take into account the deepest reaches of the human psyche.  That level is the shared unconscious level of the soul. This is a collective sub-strata even deeper than our personal unconscious mind. This mutual unconsciousness is shared by the whole human family. It is from this deeper level our religions, myths, legends, intuitions and premonitions emanate. They all express the same basic psychological truth, but in different cultural images deriving from different historical circumstances.

The hard evidence of the existence of this sub-strata is that anthropologists tell us that hundreds of thousands of years ago, when there were only a few million people on earth—across the world, a world minus any communication between peoples—religions, similar myths, legends, customs, rites of passage, modes of greeting, death rites, and standards of social intercourse, indeed, an elemental form of consciousness itself, began to emerge. This was not a case of these disperse people hearing of these developments from other parts of the world and then copying them; it was, over centuries, the simultaneous emergence of the development of a higher level of consciousness in the sub-strata of the collective human psyche.

While Kurzweil’s experiments appear to work at one level of the mind, they likely will fail at this deeper level. We clearly need a global consciousness, but I suggest it must evolve naturally just as consciousness has evolved naturally throughout history. Our link with the Eternal dimension of existence is not subject to human manipulation. That link, as the Catholic Church said in 1215, is “ineffable and unknowable.” It is this deepest level of the collective psyche Kurzweil appears not to take into account.  Keep in mind that while Kurzweil is a brilliant scientist, he is not a psychologist. He has not yet studied the mind at its deepest level – the level of the soul. 

Nevertheless, given what Ray Kurzweil has already contributed, he will surely take his place in the halls of great discovery.

Science and technology have got to go forward in the spirit of what Albert Einstein told the students in a talk at Cal Tech: “Concern for man himself and his fate must form the chief interest of all technical endeavors.”

I close with the words of C.G Jung, the psychiatrist who understood the 20th century at a deeper level than any person I’ve come across. Wrote Jung in The Atlantic Monthly in 1957, “We must now climb to a higher moral level; to a higher plane of consciousness in order to be equal to the superhuman powers science and technology have placed in our hands. In reality, nothing else matters at this point.”

I believe Jung’s warning is the foremost challenge for civilized life in the 21st century. It is only then we shall take the tradition of our historic culture to new heights, and create a new civilization with all the technological wonders that can enhance human life.

I realize what I’ve been discussing is dense material, but I believe it to be fundamental to being aware of the most basic factor at work in the rapidly changing global context in which we live.

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© 2012 – Van Wishard – All Rights Reserved

Reproduced with permission of the author.

VP Debate - No Wonder Children Are Confused

Watching the VP Debate last night confirmed for me why many people think that young people are confused or without direction as they grow older.

If they have any sense of confusion at all, it’s because WE are confusing them.

Throughout the debate, VP Biden was seen as smirking or laughing at Rep. Ryan’s comments and many times interrupted Rep. Ryan, burning up Rep. Ryan’s time or talking over him.

After the debate, Democrat-leaning analysts praised this tactic, saying that his “strong pugnacious style” and his constant interrupting were just the strategy that the Democrats needed.  Apparently this was “Joe being Joe”.

Many Democrat supports lapped it up.  Unfortunately, they only agree with such tactics when it suits their need.  If someone treats them this way in return, such behavior would be considered tactless and disgraceful. 

I thought that holding the title of Vice President of the United States implied that some rules of decorum go with the title.

I guess I was wrong.

So the message to our young people is this:

When someone else is talking about VERY serious matters (or anything at all for that matter), the best way to deal with it is with arrogance, disrespect and dismissal.

Wait … don’t we tell them to treat others with respect, to listen to the opinions of others and to voice any dissension respectfully?

Yes we do.

However, our young people model what we do, not what we say.

Think of some other ways we send mixed messages to our young people.

Message:  Don’t push and shove getting on the school bus otherwise someone may get hurt.

Translation: Ever try getting on the train at Penn Station in NYC during rush hour while being too thin-skinned to assert your place in line?  The phrase “being thrown under the train” comes to mind.

Message: Don’t play on the street when you are younger because a car might hit and kill you.

Translation (20 years later): I don’t know why my child never took risks when he/she got older.  It’s like he/she was afraid to for fear of experiencing some great catastrophe.

Message: Don’t talk to strangers. They are all candy-wielding kidnappers and/or pedophiles.

Translation (20 years later): I don’t know why my child seems unable to build relationships or to trust anyone, especially when it comes to strangers.

Message: Be what you want to be when you grow up (although I will offer you no concrete tools or processes to figure out how to do that since I never figured out how to accomplish it myself).

Translation (20 years later): My child never seemed to find himself/herself with their career/Life and I’m not sure why.

Message: Bullying is wrong.  Let’s pass all kinds of laws showing people how we are united against bullying.

Translation: Ever watch these same lawmakers in a sitting of Congress or Parliament and the level of intimidation and bullying that takes place during “civilized debate”?  Sometimes this happens while young people are sitting in the gallery watching.

While Democrat supporters are praising VP Biden’s disrespectful, flippant tone, I think it sends the wrong message to our young people, especially when discussing important subjects such as the nation’s financial concerns, unemployment statistics, poverty worries and national security and especially when the Democrats keep saying they welcome a bilateral solution.

What we say is important.

What we do is even more important. especially in the eyes of a young person modeling our behavior.

Who we are, what we do and how we do it becomes the template by which the young people of today will run the world of tomorrow.

I’m not certain if that’s something to look forward to or be afraid of.

I guess it depends on the message we send today, doesn’t it?

What message are you sending?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum: An observation from a friend and offered as advice to anyone who resorts to taunting or intimidation when engaged in a debate:

When a wise man has a controversy with a foolish man, the foolish man either rages or laughs, and there is no rest.- Proverbs 29:9 NASB

Whether we are the wise man or the foolish one is often easily perceived by others.

We need to make sure our actions are in alignment with the persona we wish to project so that we have some means of directing how we are perceived.

Addendum 2:

Washington Post reporter Dan Zak tweeted the following message during the debate.

Describing a VP candidate as a pervert is an example of where respect-less dialog is taking our society.

I wish some of these people could be as respectful to others as the respect they demand from others.

When Yelling “Fire!” Is Of Little Value

I’m having a moment this morning where I feeling like yelling “Fire!”.

As I review my briefings for the past week and for the upcoming weeks for my Wall St., government and military clients and contacts, I don’t like where the data points are trending.

I layer on ongoing scandals in institutions like the Roman Catholic Church and other organized churches, the massive failure of the Rio+20 Summit, the disguised intentions of many in the “green” space, the inadequacies in the UN as demonstrated by the Syrian disaster and how solvable problems such as world hunger and disease continue to run rampant and I think that if Jesus / the Buddha / the aliens / “whoever you are waiting for” are going to arrive, now is a good time.

I’m ordinarily an optimist who encourages others to see the glass as half full but today as I reflect on the data points that are trending in the wrong direction, I must admit that pretending all is well in the world is not helping solve our most pressing problems.  Promoting successes while ignoring failures or pretending they are not there is also not working very well.

Don’t get me wrong.  There is MUCH beauty and potential in the world and we must champion and promote such things.

However, the number of things that need to be fixed is growing rapidly and with ever-increasing significance and impact.  We need to grasp this and do something about them while they are within our ability to do so.

The people in power who make decisions on our behalf every day know this but don’t know how to share it for fear of creating a panic that will grip the world and make things worse.

“Fire!”

Trying to educate people whose brains are already being painfully squeezed is like yelling “Fire!” in a burning theater.

In such a situation, the weak-minded will instantly have a mental meltdown or a heart attack and add to the problem.

The uber optimists will get angry with the alarm and will say that pointing out the existence of a fire is too pessimistic and should be ignored.

The people without a plan will trample each other to death while randomly or aggressively searching for an exit. 

The people who think they know it all will be indignant that a good movie is being interrupted and will immediately discredit the person yelling “fire!”.

The people who see opportunity to benefit from the disaster will sell useless products or ideas that won’t prevent the deaths of anyone in the theater but the theater-goers will feel better about their situation until the end comes.

Some people in the theater will decide that now is the right time to insist that the REAL issue at hand is the need for cheaper or more comfortable seats or that they should be able to demand that the seats be in their favorite color.

The politicians in the theater will insist as smoke fills the room that not only is there no fire but if people stick it out for the second movie of a double feature, there will be free popcorn for everyone. 

Meanwhile they go borrow some popcorn from the theater down the street, ask everyone in the burning theater to give back their popcorn so that it can be returned to them as free popcorn later or have their military beat up the people in the next theater and steal their popcorn. 

Between the two movies, they will deliver the message that if there was a real fire (which they assure everyone does not exist), it is the fault of someone else.

The media covering the event will over-analyze it, comparing it to past fires while offering nothing of value for preventing future events of a similar nature.  They will also reiterate the need to feel afraid for no reason in particular while not offering ideas to protect one’s self or enhance theater safety moving forward.

So yelling “Fire!” serves no function.

However, as I finish reading my briefs for the week, I am moving quietly but steadily towards the exit.

I am still very optimistic about our future.

But being an optimist often means we have to be realistic about what is happening around us and to take appropriate action in order to bring our optimism and the realism of our situation into alignment so that we can manifest our unlimited positive potential.

As for the people left behind in the “burning theater”, many times we have to acknowledge that we can’t save everybody.

If we get caught up attempting to save those who can’t or won’t be saved, we all go down together.

Such an approach is not being pessimistic or evil.

It’s being an optimistic realist (or a realistic optimist).

We need more of this outlook to create the world that we are capable of creating, saving that which is worth saving and that which contributes to a better, stronger world.

The Universe is not an optimistic system.  It is a realistic one with a mix of good and bad - beautiful things and ugly things.

Sometimes evil wins over good despite our best hopes, intentions and efforts.  After all, evil and good are often just perspectives, something many of us don’t like to admit.

With that in mind, those who live in the Universe need to make sure that their optimism is tempered with appropriate levels of realism if they are to live as productive a Life as possible.

And so while we should enjoy the beauty of Life, we must know how to react appropriately when someone yells “Fire!”, or better yet, take proactive action by seeing the potential for fire before the cry for help goes out.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS There is a great TED talk presented by Tali Sharot about the danger of unrealistic optimism, found here.