Those of you who share my age bracket will remember that line, popular during the time of iconic alien invasion movies, serious and comic. Evidently, it was important to the aliens -(the first wave of alien, alien immigrants? Who'd a thunk!!) to meet with our leaders of the time. At least there were some leaders of some renown capable of carrying that title and responsibility. Now what kind of mess would we be in assuming some random alien landed in DC now, asking to see our leaders. Even assuming we could agree as to exactly who deserved that title, would they actually be the leaders we need?
Once we were all Americans, pulling together, putting aside differences in times of crisis. Countless epic movies have been made accordingly, but today? Nope, today we would have rival segments of our political world fighting each other rather than working together to do what is necessary. Woe to a nation which has allowed, enabled, possibly urged, itself the growth, or rather the devolvement into such a state - leaderless, besieged within and without, bereft of trust for each other, perhaps at or in a state of decay and decline such as has hit nations throughout history.
Today I look around and wonder how we have reached such a point, a low point, particularly when we are facing questions of import never having to been reckoned with before. Actually, the fertile minds of writers, producers, artists, created such worlds, but of course, they were fictional, science fantasy. Right? Wrong? Or both. I can recall discussions in the classroom where it was pointed out that what was once science fantasy became science fiction, then fiction and then science fact.
We are living in strange and troubled times, our foundations trembling, cracking, and at times I wonder if the ghosts of the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Pompeii, are watching from wherever, taking bets. Thinking how once they, too, ran around in confusion, trying to survive the unsurvivable, they compare notes and opinions and date of such a final devolvement. Just think how strange a world we have engendered.
"I'll be back." said Arnold, the Terminator. We learned all about worlds where humans fought aliens, fought robots, were on the losing side of the war for dominance and survival. We loved the movies but scoffed at such a reality ever existing. Uh, now correct me if I am wrong. Articles have come out now aplenty, by respected philosophers, scientists, techies re a black box warning: beware what we wish for, because have we gotten that in exponential form. One who has always feared such an event, robots endowed with humanistic capabilities of thought, of inference and prediction, with no emotions, I have long been told I was over the top, worrying about a non-possibility, never happen. Uh huh. Look around and wonder what we have done. Scary!!
Look up a piece of information and there will suddenly appear a box wherein something is being typed. When questioned, "We are writing an answer for you." is the answer we are told. Uh, who asked them? Yet there they are.
I get a corner notice on the screen when the computer is opened, asking if I want to open a conversation with ChatBox. Why the hell would I want to talk with a thing, a nonentity, a scary replica of a human? (I have difficulty enough getting Alexa or Siri to play my music!) Yet we do so quite often. Simply go on any site, ask a question of a store or producer or vendor and the first response will be "Nancy" or "Bob" or whatever is the name of the day. A robotic ghost typist, with preprogrammed responses which guide one to .....?
Perhaps we are all becoming robots in our own ways. We respond almost as if programmed for those responses. We are programmed to accept what was once unacceptable, even unthinkable. Minimalization of horrors, their awfulness coopted - and battered - by egregiously wrong use. We allow censorship of souls, of thoughts, and now need to have laws enacted as in Illinois which bans funding to organizations which allow the banning of books.
What rolls through my mind is the image of mobs, of students! roaring through the streets of German cities, ripping books off shelves in homes, libraries, schools, and building huge bonfires. A bonfire challenging, almost winning as the echoes of the bloodcurdling shouts, the reek of blood, of smoke, the inevitable bonfire approach being applied to humans, the threats reverberate into the future and certainly percolate with growing ugliness in the present.
How do we ensure victory for humanity, if it is even possible any longer. How do we withstand those who do not follow threads and thoughts to their consequences and endings, to their effects on us and our survival as sentient, caring, advanced human beings? How? Way above my pay grade, and certainly not within my remaining limited time on this plane of existence. Perhaps at that time we will all reach a comprehension of the truth and meaning of it all, but till that happens, we had better do something here to at least attain and keep a modicum of decency and a possibility of good with us, viable and alive.
The only way I know to at least get a start on that long and difficult road is to work together, to combat those working together, toil together, in dark caves, in darkened minds with missing, or fractured hearts and souls. Make no errors here - evil exists. People in sufficient numbers have an evil synergy. We have seen it in the past and are seeing it again, rearing its ugly head right now. People often do have nefarious, harmful plans for the rest of us who live in the same world as they do.
We need to combat that harmful unity with a better togetherness. Prove that good can overcome evil. We can if, only if, we have that beneficial togetherness.
I have seen the positive states induced by the power of unity. It has given my Yitzy encouragement, strength to fight the cancer. To read his portion of the Torah in a bar mitzvah rite of passage. He has continued his bird watching and explorations of nature nearby his residence where he is undergoing chemo and proton therapy.
Good togetherness does work. It has power. We need to keep that unity, that positiveness, that goodness, going, on and in a never-ending cycle. As we do good for others, we too will reap the benefits of it. I know it. I feel it. Despite all the bad, the evil, that has gone on, that continues to run rampant through humanity, I believe we can overcome. I still clap for Tinkerbell.
So thank you, from all of us. To all of you. Please continue, for it does help. In so many ways.
Together. Together. Together.
Only together.
Together.
Together - Together we can achieve it all.
Together we can
HEAL THE WORLD.
HEAL YITZY!
Yitzchak Elimelech ben Chana Sarah
May he be granted refuah shelaymah bimheyrah beyameinu.
May he be granted a timely and complete healing.
May Hashem hear all our voices raised in prayer.
Amen. Amen.
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