You Can Do Anything

The immaturity of the human family, to which I am a contributor in good standing, is profound, a fact so easily observed in virtually every form of how we treat ourselves and one another.  

Recent massive bloodshed in Israel and Palestine being an emphatic example of the belief that it is honorable to operate under the banner of “If you do X, we’re going to beat the living shit out of you man woman and child—for the rest of fucking eternity if necessary.”  This, of course, is merely an intensely dramatic manifestation of the ignorance that inspires in my imagination the image of a Cave Man riding in a limo.

That most kids will graduate from high school with virtually no capacity to manage fear (much less live their entire life without this capacity); or have virtually no understanding of the implications of everything they put in their mouth; or virtually no foundation for identifying and addressing those questions they need reasonable answers to in order to have the life they want—stems from a collective consciousness that enjoys no inspiring definition of health.  “Collective” being the operative word, since there are certainly individuals and small segments or gatherings of community that aspire to nurture in themselves and others lives that are fearless, independent-minded and peace-loving.

That that aspiration, while perhaps more present today than it was a thousand years ago or so, is in the very early stages of human evolution results in a world that confuses rapidly expanding intellectual capacity (I almost wrote “sophistication,” but that might suggest wisdom) with self-realization. 

And yet, and this is the glorious part, we’re on our way.  Just like me, who, only in this very moment, remembers that today marks the 52nd anniversary of my dad’s death.  The man who told me, “You can do anything.”