Close your eyes and think back to a time when a traveler had to resort to reading a map. Trying to decipher the roads and byways that one needed, to separate them from the confusing lines of other roadways -remember that? Remember the tense arguments which erupted as blame was shifted between driver and navigator, or the whining of the children as they never received a proper answer to "are we there yet". How many trees were cut down to replace maps crumpled up and discarded in fits of pique and inadequacy.
For those who were members of automobile associations there would be maps drawn for personal use specific to that particular trip, with added side trips and sights to visit. Those directions were guarded well, and someone was assigned to know its location at any given moment. Woe upon the unlucky traveler caught in a traffic jam, construction, any block of smooth travel, for these trip maps did not provide for onsite implementation of route changes. Ahh, the adventure of travel and the imploding inhabitants of the car, all providing many fun memories of family trips - many years later.
Then things began to change. GPS, global positioning system, was released to the civilian world because it was so helpful in finding out exactly where you were, especially in relation to where you began and where you wished to be at end of travel. Plug in your specifics and off you went. There were some glitches as incorrect information sometimes complicated matters, but the devices and mapping information improved. Next up - Waze. Even better. Travel improved with ease of getting there from here - just as travel became more complicated due to defects in the coding of human beings. Evidently it is much harder to program humans properly than it is to program inanimate mapping devices, even with, or despite, those ladies living within.
Today humanity is either misprogrammed, or unprogrammed or reprogrammed with nefarious motives behind that new programming. Mankind has lost its way. We have forgotten civility, forgotten the necessary sharing of this world. We have forgotten all or almost all that is positive and turned only to the negative - the evil, the hateful, the hurtful. Why? What have we gained from this? Actually, we have lost much, rather than gained.
All the talking heads of our times cannot seem to find their way clear to the proper destination and the instructions to get us there. Instead, we all have turned to talking heads of split tongues and biases so steep that it is amazing that they can retain a standing position. The amount of on purpose mis and disinformation has actually crippled the world. People do not know what to believe anymore so they believe only in what they gin up in the strange odd and infinitely harmful mixtures that arise. These evil mixtures and the awful odors emanating from them are more fitting for the caldron of Macbeth's witches than for humanity. For sure, the GPS and the Waze of humanity are broken.
Impossible demands are being made of nations and people, enabling, even promoting hostile and violent behavior to become the norm rather than the outlier. People revel in the now approved crazed protesting distorting everyday life around the world. Schools have become targets. Entertainment venues have become battlefields. Universities have thrown off any and all loyalties to universal understanding and growth and instead encouraged a growth of hatreds and biases all expressed in words meant to hurt, to wound and even to kill. People once allies are now declared enemies seeking stronger separations rather than stronger ties.
This toxic virus has seeped and oozed into and through every opening it could find or create. It has become so intertwined in the fabric of humankind today that even the act of unraveling the tentacles of this virus from the infected fabric is more likely to cause more fracture and tearing than anything else. All the vicious nasty tropes of humanity have been revised, reinvigorated, given new life to that which should have been buried deep, deep long, long ago.
Where does humanity go from here is the question to which I am not sure there is any answer, or at least any positive one with any real possibility of coming to fruition. From unfair edges given to some in competitions, to placing your thumbs on the weighing of qualifications of human beings, to the teaching of inimical theories and beliefs to moldable children and to desperate adults caught up in a confusing world- humanity has not only lost its paper maps but it has also corrupted the devices meant to replace those paper maps and ensure our proper paths. Now they read TILT!
Some people continue to hope to maintain a sense of optimism for they believe there is an infinite capacity within humans to double back to erase, to rewrite and to reformulate all that has gone wrong and create right from wrong. I do not believe that for it is quite difficult to unsay words and deeds once the harm is done.
A total and complete reshuffling of humanity, almost in the terms of some science fantasy movies, perhaps is the only way to reformat for good. However, since that is not a real possibility, can we then institute an environment where we can all work on reformatting and reshuffling some of our seemingly most basic tenets of life, most obviously gone wrong somewhere along the way.
Would that it were possible to draw a line under everything right now and start anew. However there's so much of the ugly old remaining front and center that I don't know how we could accomplish that. Any road, any path, we try to find to fix ourselves, to remap our routes, will fail unless we can find a large enough number of those wishing or willing to take on the almost Sisyphean task, perhaps to be the targets of venom spewed at them. Can we find anyone who has the requisite intelligence, humanity and courage to begin this humongous undertaking?
In yesterday's New York Times David Brooks wrote a long opinion piece regarding the Gazan war and how to 'fix' what has gone wrong in the waging of that war. Goaded by an invasion of beasts who ran wild in homicidal intent within 30 communities in Israel, who killed over 1200 people, who kidnapped close to 300 others including children, the elderly, the ill, women, men, innocents, Israel had no choice but to strike back and rescue its kidnapped citizens and all others caught up in that razor sharp net of hate and murder.
Asking the question if there were any other way to conduct this war so as to lessen the civilian toll, the end conclusion after an entire page of writing and seeking answers was there is no other way, only the way in which Israel is fighting that war. The civilian casualties fall onto the shoulders of Hamas who use the few innocents they can find as human shields, for they are cowards and let others bleed for them. It is concluded in this essay that Israel has gone far, far, far above and beyond all other nations' efforts in any war to limit the damage to civilians, even to telegraphing their plans so that the civilians can move out of that area. Must have broken the hearts of the NYT editors as this essay was actually positive in attitude towards Israel. Anathema to the Times!
However, the nations of the world delight in a new era of permissive antisemitism, of a toxic JewHatred whose end goal is the elimination first of all Israeli Jews and all who support them within the borders of Israel and then tackle the even more tempting desirable task of ridding the world of Jews for all time. Been there, done that, and we will not go there again. Jews have been through numerous times in repetitions of history. As Spielberg put it, “the echoes of history are unmistakable in our current climate”.
This we will not allow. We have fought before, and we will fight again. We will use pen and sword, every tool that we can find and that we can create. Perhaps, one day we can have that One Day of which Matisyahu sings. One day all the lions and all the lambs will defy history and gambol through the meadows together. In the meanwhile, we all need to do better, not so much for ourselves but for our kids, for all the little ones to follow, for any kind of a possible livable future for all- of any belief- ethnicity- skin color- place of origin- or any dividing factor that evil minds devise.
It actually is not so difficult to be a good person, and, in fact, there is that beautiful addition of good feelings about oneself that come along with those efforts to be good, to do good, to create good. On the other hand, it takes more thought, more perversion, to be a bad person and to encourage evil. It carries with it a horrible sense of self and an aura and surrounding of despair and dislike of oneself and all others, so why give in to that. Bottom line: if we can't work together and get along, not necessarily love each other but tolerate each other, then all the maps in the world, human or mechanical, will not save us from falling off the edge of this world.
==================================== Yitzy, I am hoping that the world above is a better place. Hopefully it is a place of honesty and truth with full recognition of all that we have done wrong and an understanding of where we went right. Perhaps if we actually do recycle souls these will be reeducated ones out to live in a good world and to do all they can to further that cause.
Sweet boy, you can teach them all.
I love you always, for always and forever, for always and forever.
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