Surrounded by Suffering

Today, I spend a large amount of time reflecting on the pain that we have all become so numb too in the world. I imagine that we are numb because we see it every day almost every where we look.

Try this, walk down the street and look at people. I know, I block those moving things with legs out too, but they are people with hopes, dreams, and feelings. Look closely and see if they are truly happy. I am guessing that wherever you live it is hard to find too many people skipping down the street. I see people preoccupied with that they need to do. People who look like they wish they were other places. People who look visibly angry. Why? What is preventing them from living in a constant state of bliss?

I will going to go out on a limb and say that if you are not doing something that you really want to do, you are in some state of pain. Don’t worry, many of the people walking down the street are in the same boat. You don’t even notice the pain in their eyes.

Here is a crazy question. Did you notice any of the people on the street having a gun pointed at their head? Why then were they doing what they were doing when it seems to cause so much pain?

If walking down the street was not enough, take a look at movies, sitcoms, or the news. They are all filled with caricatures of suffering.

I was surprised by how insensitive I was, how callus and uncaring it would seem that I was. Everyday we are bombarded by so much suffering we have all been desensitized to it.

What is our response? What should we do?

The Beginning

Hi, my name is Ron. For several years I have been wondering the wilderness of ideas. Gnawing on the big questions and reflecting on my own life. I have not answered the big questions but have realized that these questions are universal. We all deal with a version of them from time to time. So, are the big questions big because they have no answer, are they big because everyone has to create their own answer, or are they big because we can’t decide on the correct answer?

I would propose that the big questions are not destinations, but rather processes. Something we all have to be work out on a daily basis. I started wondering what would happen if people could get together and look at the problems from several directions at once. Would it be possible for an atheist and a devout follower of a religion to find some common ground and benefit from the discourse? Could industrial polluters and the environmental movement understand each other and work for a solution? It is possible, or has the politics of division been so ingrained that it would be impossible?

I have noticed that when people are trying to gain power through the support of people, (the democratic process) they often use divisive issues to polarize the population. To win the political game, a person attempts divided a group into 2 unequal pieces the one with the larger part wins. The unfortunate reality is that while the person may win, it is every member of the divided group that looses. They loose the companionship of those in the other group, they loose their connection with humanity as a whole. A member of the opposite group is not longer a fellow human and possible friend, but rather an enemy some one to be mistrusted, scorned and sometimes even shot.

Sometimes, I feel duped when someone plays the game and I fall for it. It is so easy to become emotional and frankly self righteous. ‘We are right and they are wrong’, we all shout. We point out their shortcomings and try to diminish them as humans using all kinds of clever tricks. When it is over, if we are in the bigger half, we may think we have won, but in the long run we have lost.

So, what to do about the perceived injustice in the world? What about homelessness, world hunger, the destruction of the environment, genocide? What should our response be?

I hope to open a dialog about these issues. I have some ideas, but I have not found the answers. As we discuss these issues, I am sure we will be right sometimes and wrong sometimes, but I am also sure of is that if we leave our judgments behind and try to understand the problems from all sides we will be able to find a viewpoint that promotes peace in ourselves, and in our world. Will you join the discussion? Will you go out on a limb and risk being wrong to participate in a process that could change the world?

So, where to start? What to talk about? The floor is open. Will you join in?