Understanding ourselves to understand the world

99% of our experience of the world is based on how we relate with the world, I'm convinced at this point in my life. It's Heisenberg's principle with Martin Luther King's message.

The world is as we make it. And we too often make it lousy because we relate with it poorly.

The bottom line for humanity is that we fight too much. And we are far more convinced that we know what we're doing than we ever deserve.

Aggression is our natural reaction to fear. It is a reaction that too often betrays us. Thought and free will and compassion and the least possible necessary aggression in life are what offer us our best chance to end the self-fulfilling prophecy of a world made too violent, too combative, too hateful, and far too tragic and absurd by our propensity to turn to fear, aggression, power, and control to relate to our problems and to one another around them rather than through more throughtfulness, compassion, and respect for free will.

The world is not any particular way except for the way that we make it. And even in the most dangerous and violent affairs that humanity faces, thoughtfulness and understanding are more important than force, which is used most wisely when it is used with greater understanding of all people, especially of the people to whom it is directed.

Understanding people, especially ourselves, as King and Ghandi and Tutu and others have taught, is the single most important thing that humanity can do to improve its lot.

If we want to know how the world is, how it has been, and how it can be, the most important thing we can do is to understand ourselves, in a context of good faith, forgiveness, a serious sense of humor, and a respect for our own free will, good and bad.

As we better relate to ourselves, we better relate to the world around us. And that is where the world changes most intimately and profoundly for the better.

And if you don't buy all that, check out Natalie Portman lampooning the violent alternatives. And check out Dick In a Box when you get a chance.

Love,
Ben