In the world of medicine there is something known as The Placebo Effect, essentially the mind is convinced that the pill or shot you just had will take away your pain. There is no active medicine that actually does so, as they are generally sugar pills, but your mind believes it to be true and acts accordingly, calming you and reducing your pain. On the face of it all this sounds like voodoo medicine but it has been proven that the mind can and will convince itself it is no longer in pain because it believes that the little pill is actually a very real pain killer. The effect won't cure you of cancer or reduce your cholesterol but it might take the edge off of that round of chemo. The brain, simply amazing.
While we are just scratching the surface of its capabilities, the mind has already shown itself to be a powerful and amazing thing. An infinite capacity for greatness in many forms, one would need only to open their eyes to the wonders that have sprung forth from that grey matter between our ears. Art in a myriad of genres and scientific and technological discoveries that have sent men to the moon and injected tiny nano robots into our blood stream, truly a wonder to behold.
And no less deserving of our appreciation is the heart. Not our beating muscle deep in our chests but our humanity and compassion. The look of love as a mother holds her child to the love on full display between soul mates, this to me is the mortar for what our minds can construct. The yin and yang of our lives, the heart and mind.
Yet, despite all that we are often crippled with a world seemingly bent on destroying itself. Wars rage out of control confirming two facts only: 1) War is profitable and 2) The human body is no match for hot metal. The art of division based on just about anything seems to have grown more bold lately, as if they are emboldened by the actors around us that figure they can say and do as they please. The environment, depending on who you listen to, is on the verge of collapse with scant chance of redemption or already past the point of no return. We have garbage islands floating around the ocean, rising sea levels and "weather events" that inflict ever greater damage. Shit, there was video released a few weeks ago of a Budweiser can sitting at the bottom of the ocean in the deepest trench on earth. Can't even go in style, we are drinking Bud as the planet gets sick...ick!
But hark, what is that noise over yonder? Hope is gesticulating wildly in the corner. Look here, look here she pleads! What if we try this? Or maybe try that? Maybe if we do this we can stem that red tide? Our grey matter got us into this mess so one would hope our grey matter can help to get us out. Maybe we can take a lesson from the past and simply decide that this is the way we want to go? A path towards the light, towards love, towards one another. Maybe, almost certainly, the mind could use a helping hand from the heart. I believe that the heart is all too often forgotten in this equation. Oh that crazy heart! The struggle is real and the struggle is eternal but really, in the end, we have to get them, the brain and the heart, working together for the betterment of not only ourselves but for us all.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the silencing of a progressive liberal lion in the making. RFK cut down in the prime of his life while looking to be subject to others. Warts and all, his dream was the one that was meant for all of us. He chose to walk on in life searching for the positive and working for a better tomorrow. What if he had lived? What if Martin Luther King had lived? Where would we be?
Today was also the anniversary of D-Day. The beginning of the end for the Nazi's and the last time that a war of such magnitude was fought for "the right reason" if there ever was one. As a world we stood up to a genocidal bully and much was lost in the battle for freedom from tyranny. Abraham Lincoln had said, in the Gettysburg Address, that we owed a debt of honour to those that had given their last full measure of devotion and I can think of no better way to honour all those that had given theirs in WW2 to truly find a way to build a better world for all. Let slip ancient divisions and ideological entrenchments, throw off the yoke of ism's and let peace find a way.
It seems almost too easy to shut the door on the outside world and all of its ills, but that is when we need to get up off the mat and try even harder. We are our best hope for the future, no magic pill to do the work, nothing more than our hearts and minds coming together with others and doing what needs to be done. For a better tomorrow we just have to decide to do it, individually and together. No more and no less.
Ciao
D
While we are just scratching the surface of its capabilities, the mind has already shown itself to be a powerful and amazing thing. An infinite capacity for greatness in many forms, one would need only to open their eyes to the wonders that have sprung forth from that grey matter between our ears. Art in a myriad of genres and scientific and technological discoveries that have sent men to the moon and injected tiny nano robots into our blood stream, truly a wonder to behold.
And no less deserving of our appreciation is the heart. Not our beating muscle deep in our chests but our humanity and compassion. The look of love as a mother holds her child to the love on full display between soul mates, this to me is the mortar for what our minds can construct. The yin and yang of our lives, the heart and mind.
Yet, despite all that we are often crippled with a world seemingly bent on destroying itself. Wars rage out of control confirming two facts only: 1) War is profitable and 2) The human body is no match for hot metal. The art of division based on just about anything seems to have grown more bold lately, as if they are emboldened by the actors around us that figure they can say and do as they please. The environment, depending on who you listen to, is on the verge of collapse with scant chance of redemption or already past the point of no return. We have garbage islands floating around the ocean, rising sea levels and "weather events" that inflict ever greater damage. Shit, there was video released a few weeks ago of a Budweiser can sitting at the bottom of the ocean in the deepest trench on earth. Can't even go in style, we are drinking Bud as the planet gets sick...ick!
But hark, what is that noise over yonder? Hope is gesticulating wildly in the corner. Look here, look here she pleads! What if we try this? Or maybe try that? Maybe if we do this we can stem that red tide? Our grey matter got us into this mess so one would hope our grey matter can help to get us out. Maybe we can take a lesson from the past and simply decide that this is the way we want to go? A path towards the light, towards love, towards one another. Maybe, almost certainly, the mind could use a helping hand from the heart. I believe that the heart is all too often forgotten in this equation. Oh that crazy heart! The struggle is real and the struggle is eternal but really, in the end, we have to get them, the brain and the heart, working together for the betterment of not only ourselves but for us all.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the silencing of a progressive liberal lion in the making. RFK cut down in the prime of his life while looking to be subject to others. Warts and all, his dream was the one that was meant for all of us. He chose to walk on in life searching for the positive and working for a better tomorrow. What if he had lived? What if Martin Luther King had lived? Where would we be?
"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
Robert Kennedy
Today was also the anniversary of D-Day. The beginning of the end for the Nazi's and the last time that a war of such magnitude was fought for "the right reason" if there ever was one. As a world we stood up to a genocidal bully and much was lost in the battle for freedom from tyranny. Abraham Lincoln had said, in the Gettysburg Address, that we owed a debt of honour to those that had given their last full measure of devotion and I can think of no better way to honour all those that had given theirs in WW2 to truly find a way to build a better world for all. Let slip ancient divisions and ideological entrenchments, throw off the yoke of ism's and let peace find a way.
It seems almost too easy to shut the door on the outside world and all of its ills, but that is when we need to get up off the mat and try even harder. We are our best hope for the future, no magic pill to do the work, nothing more than our hearts and minds coming together with others and doing what needs to be done. For a better tomorrow we just have to decide to do it, individually and together. No more and no less.
Ciao
D
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