You Don't Know Anyone But Yourself Well

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.
- Harper Lee, writer (1926- )

And that is nearly impossible.

Take the example of the recently departed Saddam Hussein. At one time he was a saviour to his people. Several times during his reign and before that when he was Vice President of Iraq and the man who made the tough decisions for the president, he prevented the country from falling into sectarian violence and civil (actually religious) war.

To the day he died he was worshipped by Sunni Muslims who believed that he kept his country on track, preventing it from being overtaken by Shiites from his own country and Iran. And he prevented a revolution among the Kurds, which would have split the country.

The fact that he built 100 palaces and many monuments to his honour, and killed perhaps hundreds of thousands of his people in the course of preventing revolution or civil war were simply necessary acts to show the power that he held over people, according to supporters.

Saddam died believing that he was a martyr who would be welcomed into heaven by God (and provided with the requisite 72 virgins shortly thereafter, no doubt).

The most powerful nation in the world, militarily, plus several of its allies, have been unable to stop the rising tide of killing (about 62 per day, average) in Iraq. Nothing works, but Saddam managed to prevent it himself.

We in western countries easily think of Saddam as a vicious tyrant who murdered multitudes of his people. Yet many world leaders fear that the Middle East may now become a fire pit of sectarian war. The world's greatest nations cannot do together what Saddam managed himself.

The fact is that we don't know what would have been necessary to prevent war in Iraq. Saddam did. We don't know what went on in his head. But we didn't like it, whatever it was. Now he is dead and war in Iraq may be inevitable. The death toll, if it happens, could be millions and could involve several other countries. As Israel (a country with nuclear weapons) is a common enemy, that war could turn nuclear.

I doubt that it is possible to fully put ourselves into the point of view of another person. Do you really know what your spouse, your daughter, your mother or your best friend thinks about many different subjects? Since you don't have the background, belief set and experiences of any of these people, you really can't know them as well as you would like to think you can.

In conclusion, this line of thinking leads us to the belief that we can never fully understand any other person than ourselves.

What can we do with a conclusion like that?

Allow everyone some slack. Be tolerant. Be compassionate. There are always circumstances we know nothing about in every life other than our own. Maybe even the bad guys are on the right track and we don't know it.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to clear away the clouds of uncertainty.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

When A Secret Is A Crime

"Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret."
- Marlene Dietrich, actor

There is no such thing as a secret. By the time one person knows something, one person too many already knows.

Ms. Dietrich made this statement meaning that you shouldn't tell even a friend something that no one else should know except you because others will eventually find out anyway. In other words, she says that even a friend should not be trusted with confidential information.

That raises two points. The first is that it would be safer for us to not indulge in activities that require strict confidentiality because someone will likely find out anyway.

The second is that in our age of information overload, it's almost impossible to do something that is not recorded somewhere. Nothing is scret any more.

The average person living or working in a city passes through dozens of video cameras cameras daily (sometimes hundreds), usually without knowing it. It's almost impossible to have something on a home computer that can be kept strictly secret if that computer is connected to the internet--even governments and large banks have their files stolen or read, so the chances of an individual having unbreachable security is near zero.

Police can catch criminals easier than ever before, using sophisticated electronic techniques and technology. The problem is not catching offenders, but the fact that there are more of them than ever before.

Secrets are risky.

There are little secrets we may want to keep from people, such as how bad they look in a certain outfit or pair of shoes. However, the problem is less that making this information known is wrong or harmful, more that most of us are not emotionally prepared to accept opinions about ourselves that are not complimentary, especially if we have just made a large investment in an article of clothing that looks terrible on us.

The reality we must face is that if we participate in activities that must be kept secret, we must also be prepared to accept the consequences of that secret being revealed. Eventually most secrets come out.

As the slogan went in the old Barretta television series, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." Whether a secret involves a crime or not, it usually comes out.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make it all clear.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Why Religion And Science Should Not Conflict

People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
- Dave Barry, author and columnist (1947- )

As I see it, there are only two reasons why people want to share their religious views with others. One is because they are uncertain that their views are valid, but feel more confident if they are among others who believe the same (thus they want to convince others to join them).

The other reason is that they want to have some power over the others. It may not seem likely that convincing someone to share the same views as you would be a way of feeling power over them, but having the ability to persuade others to change their basic beliefs is indeed a sign of power. That is, if you can persuade one person to change their basic beliefs, you have the power to persuade others. This may be a matter of perception, if not of reality.

In neither case do the people who want to share their religious beliefs with others have any reason to want others to share theirs. In the case of those who are uncertain of the validity of their own beliefs, listening to those of others may well confuse them further. In the second case, listening to the religious views of others would be perceived as a sacrifice of power.

Religion itself is a way of explaining that which is inherently unexplainable. That is not just the nature of religion, but its definition and reason for existence.

Religion and science do not conflict, except where religion attempts to explain "how" rather than sticking to its main purpose, which is "why." Science is better positioned to explain how, even though it is often mistaken in its interpretation of facts. For example, the six-day-creation story approximately 4000 years ago, as proposed in the bible of the abrahamic religions, is easily shown to be false by provable evidence uncovered by science.

However, science has no way to explain the whys of natural mysteries because it has no purpose along those lines. When science attempts to explain the mysteries of "why" things happened, it fails because it does not have the tools to do so.

To put it simply, when science claims to show how something happens or happened in the past, religion may simply say that it is or was the way God wanted it to be.

Does that sound like an easy way out of the debate of science versus religion? It's not really. Science has no way to comprehend or to even make sense in a general way of the immense complexity of the world and the universe around us.

"Evolution" and "natural selection" are terms that some scientists and science-lovers use to explain how everything happened. But they don't. Religion can simply say that "evolution" and "natural selection" are God's way of improving on what he made. Both evolution and natural selection have major flaws which their supporters fail to address.

Science uses natural "laws" to explain much of what it does. It has never and can never explain the reasons why such laws do or should exist. Science can say that these laws provide natural order, but they cannot say why "order" should be a law or why the "natural order" that exists should be the way it is rather than using some other form or set of rules.

Those who believe in a Godless or scientific explanation of what exists ignore much in order to preserve their limited set of beliefs. Those who believe that religion can explain everything adhere to a similarly restrictive set of beliefs. Both depend heavily on ignorance and exclusion of vast amounts of information to hold their positions.

The world has enough conflict among religions without having intellectual fighting between two sets of beliefs that have no practical overlap and should have little to do with one another.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Is "Merry Christmas!" Politically Incorrect?

Is "Merry Christmas!" Politically Incorrect?

After several years of cowering in fear of the wrath of loudmouths of the politically correct movement, by using "Happy Holidays!" or "Season’s Greetings!", several large businesses have emerged from the darkness with the message "Merry Christmas!" this year.

Were they wrong? Are they leading the "fight back" by Christians against so many minorities that would accuse them of prejudice?

First of all, if someone wished you a "good day" but it was evening, would you be insulted, accusing them of trying to turning nighttime into daytime as if the two were not obviously distinct? More likely you would say "Thanks" or just ignore a remark thinking the person may be time-challenged.

The politically correct movement was ostensibly an uprising of sensible and sensitive people against those who would offend minorities. On the surface, this sounds acceptable. However, we have laws that make real prejudice and racism indictable offences.

Political correctness was itself a form of prejudice used by supremely self-righteous people, supposedly against those who acted prejudicially. In other words, political correctness was a political weapon.

In politics of the sordid kind today, a commonly used tactic is to accuse your opponent of committing the same kind of offence as you commit yourself. This tactic is often used before the opponent can accuse you of the same offence. The thinking is that the first party that reaches the public with an accusation must be innocent, thus the other must obviously be guilty, even if there is no evidence in play.

Christians (especially) who did not want to be accused of prejudice against those of other religions (who wanted to hide it from public scrutiny), attacked those who were not "like them" or "with them" for acts of prejudice for which the supposedly offended person or party had never taken offence.

In a court, a prosecutor must prove a case against a defendant on a charge of uttering prejudicial statements or racism. However, in the "court of public opinion," someone who accuses another of political incorrectness is not required to prove anything, even to give evidence that a supposedly aggrieved party would ever have taken offence.

Those who use political correctness as a weapon against others are themselves prejudiced. It’s one way to put down "others" (those who are not "like us") without breaking the law.

If someone wished you "Eid mubarak!" how would you react? Would you claim that person was prejudicial against you because you are not Muslim? Not likely. Wishing someone who is not a Christian "Merry Christmas!" has the same effect.

The wish "Merry Christmas!" is a wish for good tidings for the season. Technically, Jews and Muslims should not take offence at the greeting anyway because both of their religions recognize Jesus of Nazareth as a very important prophet.

Not only are Jesus and Mary mentioned positively in the Quran, but nothing in Islam’s holy book denies the status of Jesus as the Son of God. Islam states only that behaviour dictated by God through the last prophet should be followed ahead of the words of Jesus, as Mohammed brought the word of God more recently than Jesus. It’s simply a matter of timing.

Just because someone doesn’t celebrate the birth of one man or god-man on December 25 doesn’t mean that the person would or should be offended by being wished good tidings for the season.

Good wishes should be accepted for what they are, good wishes. They should not be twisted into something perverse that Jesus would never have wanted anyone to feel, think or say.

If Jesus means more to me and less to you, or the other way around, then so be it. My good wishes are still valid. My effort to wish someone well should not be denigrated by those who secretly have prejudice in their hearts.

And so, whether or not you celebrate the birth of Jesus, and no matter what Jesus means to me, I wish you Merry Christmas! May you feel the joy that is intended by that great wish.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems, a book about real and inexpensive solutions to community problems most people think are inevitable evils of modern society. They aren't. We just have to look in the right place.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Contact author Bill Allin at turningitaround@sympatico.ca

Laughing at someone else's mistake is unwise

"Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else's can shorten it."
- Cullen Hightower

This sounds more like a joke than advice. But it's true.

Laughing at our own mistakes means that we have not internalized them, making them burdens we carry around with us. That would eventually impact our immune system, which would surely affect the quality of life, if not its length.

Laughing at them means that we have dismissed them as having a permanent impact on us.

Laughing at someone else's mistakes seems like a risky behaviour. First of all is that it's clearly rude and unnecessary. Vaudeville and comics made it seem funny to laugh at the fat lady who slipped on a banana peel and fell onto her back.

Not only would such a fall likely result in tissue damage and possible bone breakage, but in the brief moment of falling the muscles would contract so violently (through a shot of epinephrine) to protect the body from severe damage that severe pain would be another consequence of the fall. An overwieght person who fall hard on their back could easily need to be hospitalized and may even die from cracking their head or snapping their backbone as their shoulders then their head struck the hard surface below.

Nothing to laugh at. But if a person were to laugh at a person taking such a tumble, believing it to be a pratfall only to learn later that it caused a severe injury or death, that person could well carry the guilt with them for years. That guilt also could impact the immune system negatively, resulting in a compromised ability to recover from attacks of bacterial or viral disease.

Laughing at the misfortune of someone else is called by the German term schadenfreude. This behaviour is considered to be socially unacceptable, meaning that doing so could bring about social repercussions, such as being ostracised by one's peers.

As Hightower said, the healthier choice is to laugh at our own mistakes. Then we can help others who have made mistakes so that they don't suffer the misfortune that we avoided.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

For those in the trenches of life

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat"
- Theodore Roosevelt

That quote is almost like watching a Rocky movie. It's a full-life plot.

The old saying is that no one ever built a statue to a critic. Critics don't build anything themselves. Their purpose is to stir up interest in a topic, a project, a candidate or something that will make someone a lot of money.

Critics always evaluate only those things which were created by those who were "in the trenches." They never get their hands dirty themselves.

A worthy critic would provide constructive criticism of what he critiques. How to make something better, more meaningful, more magnificent or more significent next time would be worth the investment of time to create and to read. Yet critics mostly act like the citizens of Rome at the gladiator circus: thumbs up or thumbs down.

Most of us labour for most of our lives in the trenches of life. Critics don't take notice of us, except in annoying ways such as a neighbour who doesn't like what we have done with the tree or garden in our yard.

However, getting attention from critics is a sign of becoming better known. Few except bigots are prepared to criticize those who have nothing or who have done nothing. Critics will only give attention to those they know have been noticed by many people. They bask in the reflected light from extraordinary trench-workers. In fact, they illuminate the ones who need and deserve attention most.

It would do us well to accept that if someone criticises us, we have been noticed. Praise is short-lived and often shallow. But add a critic into the mix where someone is being praised and the subject takes on star qualities, especially in terms of attention.

Criticism is not necessarily a bad thing. If the praisers largely outnumber the critics, those who are criticised are definitely doing something right.

And being noticied for it.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to stir the pot until the critics come to the surface.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Disney says a kick in the teeth might do you good

"You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you."
- Walt Disney

Walt Disney, like many successful entrepreneurs, had his share of failures before he became a hit in the animation business that was new in his time.

One thing all successful entrepreneurs say freely is that you don't get to the top by just building on your successes. You get there by building on your failures. You learn little from success, lots from failure.

Yet we teach our children, by example and sometimes intentionally, that failure is shameful. Consequently, children will often lie about breaking something or doing something they have been forbidden to do. Being caught is, after all, the ultimate failure according to the ethics of business. And they will hide bad test results or report cards to avoid having to face their parents.

Let's put this into perspective. Banks are more likely to lend startup money to someone who has had two business failures than to someone who has never been in business for themselves, providing that both have good business plans. They know that people learn from failures.

Business or personal failures, we learn from them. There's an old saying that tragedies that don't kill me will make me stronger. On subsequent tries at something we know what fails by what we did before.

This doesn't always work. Divorced people too often marry the same kind of person who made their lives miserable the previous time. Sometimes it takes more than one failure for some people to catch on to what they have done the wrong way.

There are other benefits to failure and tragedy. They expand our range of emotions so that we can enjoy happiness stronger than we could previously. And they give us coping skills that should have been taught to us as children or adolescents.

Coping skills help us to get through life. Trying again gives us a reason to live.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show that failure is not as disasterous as it is made out to be. Or it doesn't have to be that bad.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Choose your own destiny or leave it to someone else

We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and bones.
- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Many people will despise such thinking. They prefer to believe that their present circumstances are a direct result of factors over which they had little or no control.

Or they are the way they are because that's how their parents taught them. Or how they became because of how their parents didn't teach them enough or properly.

Anything to avoid taking responsibility for their own lives. How many members of broken marriages do you know where one mate takes full responsibility for the tragedy that their lives became? The odd one in country music recordings maybe.

Are we all that bad? Do we all blame others for everything? Do none of us take responsibility for building our own lives to where we are today?

Don't answer those questions above. They are just to make you think.

The problem is that we don't teach children, adolescents and young adults what they need to do to build healthy lives themselves. Some parents do, but look around you to see the number of adults you know who blame others for the way their lives are today.

Apparently we don't even know what a healthy life is. There are certainly lots of parents who teach their kids that they should enter a profession or occupation where they will make lots of money. Yet I can't think of even one rich person with whom I would want to change position.

What do we teach our children when we buy prepared foods to eat on the run, instead of gathering together as a family for at least a few full meals each week? We teach kids that preparing your own meals is a lowly way to spend your time. Yet a much smaller percentage of children in families where one or more people prepare the full meal (from scratch) and everyone eats together are obese than in the average family.

We less conspicuously teach children that having power over others is good. Being the boss is better than being a follower. Sadly, we don't teach children how to choose which leaders to follow, so they often choose bad leaders to follow. And we don't teach good habits of responsible leaders for those who will hold power later.

We teach those who become leaders how to gain power, but not how to take responsibility for that power to benefit the followers (and voters) they represent. A selfish leader uses his power to better his own circumstances, while a good leader uses his to better the lives of those he represents.

Look at the leaders we idolize, the ones we use as role models. For many, they choose movie stars with thoroughly dysfunctional and (often secretly) unhappy lives. Or business leaders. Do we really want more of our children to become like Donald Trump?

We can't expect teachers to take responsibility for molding the lives of their young charges if we as parents teach them differently, whether by intention or not. Teachers don't have the responsibility or the authority to teach such matters anyway.

We as adult representatives of our respective communities need to make it clear to those we know who we should be using as role models for teaching our children.

Do we want to be wealthy enough to buy all the neat stuff we see on television? Or do we want to lead satisfying and fruitful lives? We need to choose because the two don't dwell within the same body.

Think about who you most respect. Then tell someone else.

Teach children how to craft their own destiny following the example of the person you most respect.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

You don't have to knock someone's brains out

"Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago."
- Horace Mann, American educator (1796–1859)

Poor Horace! He was such a simple dude. Teachers spoke so properly in those days.

Wanting to "knock someone's brains out" is our way of showing ourselves that we have not submitted totally to the power of others. We still have that desire to fight back, to survive despite the impediments that the stupidos who disagree with us tosses our way. It shows that we still have two feet to stand on.

Many disagreements result from differences of opinion because two people reached differing conclusions based on different information. We may assume that everyone has access to the same input of information, but that is seldom the case. Thus their conclusions will often be different.

Let's say that all possible information on which a person could base an opinion consisted of five facts. If one person knows three and another the other two, with no overlap, the possibility of the two agreeing on a conclusion is slim.

If one of those people knows three facts and the other knows two (one of which overlaps with one the first person knows), the odds of agreement over a conclusion improve, but are still low.

If each of the two people knows the same three facts, the likelihood of their agreeing on a conclusion or course of action is much greater. However, one of the missing pieces of information might be the clincher that makes the agreed conclusion wrong. Political parties often use this form of persuasion to gain supporters--omit what doesn't support your party's platform.

When there are five facts about a situation and two people both know all five, the likelihood of their agreeing on a course of action is huge. Unless there is an ethical problem involved, which happens seldom in general disagreements.

Most of the time that two people disagree it's because they have different information on which they based their conclusions. In the cases of politics or religion, a seldom revealed factor could be the brainwashing or severe propagandizing of one or both of the parties.

In my personal life, I have discussed several religions in depth with respective followers of those religions. The conclusion I have reached is that all religions aim for the same goals and objectives, they just take different routes to get there.

The same has applied with discussions about politics, though how a person votes who votes according to party lines often is the same as their parents and grandparents voted before them. Families tend to follow voting patterns where they all have similar input of information from the same source.

Where the real problem arises with difference of opinion is where one person won't discuss the reasons why they believe what they do. The explanation there is that they don't feel confident enough about their reasons to be able to defend what they believe. But they believe it anyway and don't want to have input from anyone else for the purpose of changing their minds.

In such cases, only severe reprogramming will release the minds of those people from their beliefs. That is very expensive and seldom worth the investment unless the victim with a twisted mind is a child who has been propagandized by a religious cult.

A person who refuses to discuss the facts or evidence of a belief is someone whose mind is closed, someone with whom you will never get close. The person's insecurity will not allow them to relax enough to get close to anyone.

It's a slow process to gradually change that person's mind about a particular belief. Evidence that the person had not considered must be presented over a long period of time and must come out slowly as part of other discussions. It could take years.

People can change, even ones with extreme opinions. It takes time and devotion by someone who cares. Or often just time alone will do it as the person learns more facts from his or her own experiences. But a long time.

Knocking out another person's brains seldom has a poisitive effect. And it's messy.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show paths through difficult situations.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Words can deceive us when used by people we want to trust

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas, and not for things themselves.
- John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)

I struggled with this quotation to craft my commentary in such a way that it would make sense. Words, after all, are one way by which we judge people.

We judge people by their grammar, their syntax (whether what they say makes sense), the level of usability of the words (whether all the words can be understood by the listener), whether sentences stay on topic, whether the progression of sentences shows a progression of thought (rather than just a jumble of random ideas), whether the sentences reach a valid conclusion, and so on. Each of these is used as a criterion as to whether the speaker or writer should be respected for his content, for his education, for what he intends for his audience.

When we read or hear the words of someone and evaluate the words in these ways, we come to believe that we know that person.

Yet we don't necessarily know the person at all. On the internet, especially, people take on personas that do not necessarily resemble who they are. People role play at work, depending on who is listening. Some lie blantantly to their spouses, family and friends.

Then there are those who should be believed, but are not. Saddam really didn't have any weapons of mass destruction (even residue would have shown up on scanners after the Iraq invasion). Palestinian mothers have the same love and aspirations for their children as mothers do anywhere, while western media would lead us to conclude that they spawn little demons. Women in several places in the world are blamed for being temptresses when they are raped, as if they deserved what they got by the way they spoke.

The words that people use should not be criteria for judging them any more than we should use their manner of dress, their religion, their political persuasion, their height or their hair colour, provided that they have not broken any laws. Words can deceive. They can trick us.

Words do not tell us who people are. They tell us how people feel at a particular moment. Few have the skills to analyze words to determine the kind of person who is behind them. For example, should a person be understood to believe everything they say in the heat of an argument or of passion?

Few have the skills to use words to change people's lives. Propagandists, advertising agency writers, political icons, religious leaders and the leaders of militant cults have such skills. The rest of us seldom even have the tools at our disposal to recognize how our minds are being twisted by these people to believe something we would and should otherwise avoid.

Words are not worthy ways to choose our friends, our political leaders, our religion or those we trust.

We should be taught ways to figure out who we can trust. As it is today, words too often persuade us to believe in things that are completely wrong, unhealthy, unwise or risky.

We need to be taught those tools early in our lives, before we become jaded by being betrayed by many people.

We need to know that collections of words such as "I love you," "I wouldn't lie to you" or "weapons of mass destruction" are not necessarily signals that the speaker should be believed.

When everyone is taught how to recognize trustworthy and sincere people from others, the untrustworthy and insincere ones will be more obvious to us. There will be less deceit because people will know that others can recognize deceit with tools they have all been taught.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to help you tell the difference.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

If your mind goes blank, turn off the sound

"If your mind goes blank, don't forget to turn off the sound."
- Red Green (aka Canadian comic Steve Smith)

Never has a comedy show had so much wisdom and philosophical truth as Red Green. He "retired" after 16 years to involve himself in other projects. Given the size of his devoted audience, Red could have gone on forever had he wanted to.

Red Green was Everyman. He made lots of mistakes, tried to avoid admitting to them, but suffered for them every time. He was a stumbler, a bumbler, a dufus who just liked to have a bit of fun every day. Never at anyone's expense but his own.

He knew that many people don't think much beyond the cares of their day. So he dug deeper, as comedians do, exposed our idiosyncracies and laughed with us at them. But he always left a suggestion at the end of each skit about how he (and we) could have done things better. He was a reformer, but one who looked up at the grass roots above him.

Imagine, if you will, what your average day would be like if everyone you met who had nothing significant to say, nothing you really wanted to hear, said nothing. In all likelihood, you would accomplish much more than you usually do because you wouldn't be disturbed by people who have their brains turned off, but not the sound with it.

There is nothing wrong with small talk. It helps us to meet strangers we may want to make friends with or who might become work associates. It's a good transition vehicle for brief encounters in elevators, at the water cooler and while you are waiting for the technology to process your credit card payment at the cash register.

Some people believe they have developed small talk to an art form. They are so good at it they use it all the time. It becomes so much a part of who they are that they use small talk as their primary form of communication. They no longer know how to talk about anything of significance.

They have lots of friends, very few close ones. Because to have a close friend you have to care more about your friend than about yourself sometimes and small talkers rarely do. They are talkers, not listeners. If you listen, they like you. If you want to talk, you are competition, so they avoid you. Sometimes real friends need to be listened to.

So, Red, O master of duct tape, enjoy your retirement to other projects. May you be as influential with them as you were in your red and green suspenders and plaid flannel shirt.

We still have many lessons to learn. We need teachers like you.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to help you to tell the difference.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Avoid habitual ruts or become living history

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."
- Oscar Wilde, Irish-born English writer (1854–1900)

Oscar Wilde is not someone whose life most of us would want to emulate. Among other interesting characteristics, he was considered a rebel because he disliked habits that were unsupportable logically, laws that were prejudicial and anything that smacked of sameness.

Why was he such a rebellious personality? Didn't that make him anti-social?

Wilde's rebelliousness should have been applauded, rather than condemned as it was. He advocated exactly the kind of thinking which made humans so successful at being able to adapt to any environmental conditions in any climate on earth.He was an evolutionary superstar.

Darwin said not that the fittest would survive (which has been misattributed to him), but that those that are most adaptable to changing conditions will survive and thrive. Humans, along with the other social species on earth, have been among the most adaptable, thus the ones that may be seen all over the planet.

Consistency, as Wilde saw it, is not just an unwelcome characteristic, it's harmful in terms of our ability to survive as a species. Remaining the same means that when changes occur around us, we will not be prepared, thus will not likely survive. The best example of an inability to adapt would be the dinosaurs that died out when they could not adapt to new food sources when their traditional ones disappeared after the great cataclysm 65 million years ago.

In order to be ready to face life on terms that would be advantageous to us, we need to be prepared for life to change around us when we awake each day, then to adapt to the new conditions. If little changed overnight, then that gives us more time to prepare ourselves for the next changes.

We can't stop change. We can't make conditions revert to what they once were. Some politicians and religious leaders would like to make us believe that we could if we tried hard enough, but there is no evidence that it has ever happened in history or that it is even possible. Change is the law of nature.

We need to be ready. People die unexpectedly. Jobs can disappear quickly. Investments that looked secure yesterday could be junk later today. Our home could become contaminated by attack from an unexpected source. Our home could burn down. Our air could become poisonous due to a chemical leak. An earthquake could destroy our community. We or one of our loved ones could be struck with a disability or a crippling disease.

This doesn't mean that we should not take our lives seriously. It does mean we need to be able to "move on."

We can look back with fondness at the good things and good times we had. But we need to have the ability to make new ones, no matter what variables are thrown our way.

Consistency means being able to make the best use to the present. We also need to be able to change when the present becomes the past. If we do not change with the times and conditions, we become part of history. That's what history is.

There are some things we can change about the future. We need to know what they are and to work toward changing them to improve our own future.

Or we will become dinosaurs.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to teach how the future can be clearer and better if we stop muddying the present.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Has science really answered all the big questions?

The most important discoveries will provide answers to questions that we do not yet know how to ask and will concern objects we have not yet imagined.
- John N. Bahcall, astrophysicist (1935-2005)

The end of physics, of medical research, indeed of science itself has been predicted on several occasions. "The big questions have been asked and answered," goes the mantra of these people of limited vision.

In physics, for example, a proof for the big Bang is supposedly close, the working mechanism of black holes is understood and the "theory of everything" (that which would combine Einstein's relativity with quantum field theory into one all-encompassing theory) is close.

In medicine, after half a century of deadend research, cancer is now understood, genetic research now involves detail-arranging within the larger known pictures and the methods by which disease organisms spread is known (though vectors are not necessarily known for each disease).

In biology, chemistry, geology and the other hard sciences the general setup of stuff and of natural laws is understood, if not actually proven yet.

However, as Bahcall said, maybe there is so much more that science cannot pursue because it doesn't even know what questions to ask. Look at how rapidly the Industrial Revolution spread after the invention of the steam engine, how every continent became covered with railway tracks after the locomotive was created, how many people have "wheels" since the invention of the horseless carriage and how much of the universe has been studied since humans first ventured into space.

Neurobiology and the operation of the brain are the least understood of the sciences. But researchers believe they know how these work, they just need to connect the dots. In fact, they know very little about the brain because the brain is so complex and humans are relatively stupid when it comes to understanding the most important and critical organ of our bodies.

Those who say that science has almost concluded the asking and answering of the big questions don't understand that we don't even know what other big questions are at this time.

The so-called soft sciences, such as psychology and sociology, can hardly claim mastery of the concepts by which the human brain operates and influences what we call the mind. Even that sentence may be confusing because most people equate the brain and the mind. The mind, even to scientists, is so mysterious that we don't know what questions to ask about it. We poke and prod to see what reacts in the brain, but how it works is a mystery.

At this point, scientists are afraid to make it easy for people to link the human mind and what religions call the soul because science, by definition, must deal with the concrete. Scientists tend to avoid those concepts which cannot be proven or at least understood in manageable human terms.

Fear not! All of the big questions have not been answered because we don't even know what they are.

If you can imagine a big unanswered question, you may be the first to ask it. You will be rejected and reviled in your lifetime, but some day you may be praised as a great thinker who asked what others were afraid to imagine.

As is the case with artists, the value of science thinkers as heroes and visionaries rises greatly after they are dead.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to prompt you to ask the big (but scary) questions.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

How to build a more intelligent human

Life cannot be classified in terms of a simple neurological ladder, with human beings at the top; it is more accurate to talk of different forms of intelligence, each with its strengths and weaknesses. This point was well demonstrated in the minutes before last December's (2004) tsunami, when tourists grabbed their digital cameras and ran after the ebbing surf, and all the 'dumb' animals made for the hills.
- B.R. Myers, author (1963- )

Intelligence is traditionally measured to favour the designer of the test and those like him. The test traditionally evaluates the kinds of skills at which the designer is good. Those who do not fall into that select group are "less intelligent,"by definition.

No one knows quite what intelligence is. We can't define it well for ourselves, so it's no accident that we have trouble defining intelligence as it applies to animals and even plants. In fact, we don't usually give any thought to plants having intelligence.

Every animal is as intelligent as it needs to be to survive. Natural selection says that the fittest will escape predators and natural tragedies and will adapt to changing environment and food supplies.

If an ant had the same kind of intelligence as a human, what good would it do? The poor ant would die from rejection, from attack by a predator, from starvation, from just about any cause that humans give little attention to.

If a human had the intelligence of an ant...well, no, that's not a good example because some of us do.

Albert Einstein believed that almost every child has, at birth, equal intelligence. It's only after that where environmental factors affect intelligence to the point it is in adulthood. Not long after his death, scientists determined that only about fifteen percent of Einstein's brain had been used for thinking or other activities. (His brain is stored at Harvard as it has been almost continually since his death in 1954.) That left a great deal of possibility.

What makes one person a great physicist and another a great musician or doctor, while most of us remain relatively unknown in the middle of the pack? Einstein believed that most of us are programmed in school to be followers, not leaders and not innovators. Not different.

In order to be like so many others of our kind, we must voluntarily submit our ability to think independently to leaders who guide us where they want us to go. That is a sacrifice of intelligence.

How much we sacrifice of our intelligence determines how much we retain, thus how much we have left to develop ourselves as we learn more with age.

Science fiction writers used to speculate about what future humans would be like if they were genetically modified to be smarter than the rest of us. There is no need to speculate. All we need to do is to teach new parents how to stimulate the intelligence of their young children and teach school systems how to stimulate the minds of their young charges rather than dumbing them down to medoiocity.

Education makes the difference for children up to the age of eleven. After that all education is essentially self-education. To make smarter people, we need to begin with newborns and guide their intellectual development while supporting their social and emotional development.

Some people don't believe that is possible. Now you know why.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light in the dark corners of our minds.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Do you know the meaning of life?

"Only the gentle are ever really strong."
- James Dean

Good guys finish first. If you don't know that then you don't know where the finish line is.
- Garry Shandling

Two quotes today because they fit so well together and both are very inspiring.

Do you find it hard to believe the James Dean quote? He didn't mean strong as in powerful. He meant strong as in having strength of character and of spirit.

Gentle people must endure a great deal. They must endure both the overwhelming presence of those with power and those who are bullies, plus the apathy and carelessness of those in the middle of the range. It takes a huge amount of strength to remain gentle when faced with the onslaught of others who more than anything else are afraid that if they don't act aggressively they will be run over by those who do.

And Garry Shandling's quote. Think about it. Where is the finish line?

If you believe that there is nothing more to our existence than what we experience each day on earth, then the finish line is the end of each day. Not the top of the financial heap or the best job in the company. The end of each day. What you accomplish during each day will determine how you feel about yourself by the time you lay your head on the pillow.

If you believe that this life is one part of an eternal existence, what position will you be in at the end of this life (this finish line) when what you do beyond this life is under consideration?

What if the majority of people have it all wrong, that the finish line is not how wealthy or powerful you are but how much respect you have for yourself and how much respect and love others have for you because of how you have helped them?

How shallow it is to believe that success in life is determined by how much wealth you have accumulated and how many people you can order around. Those who believe that have good reason to think that way also believe that there is nothing more to life than what we have here today. They want you and I to believe that too. They want our company because they want us as followers.

Your value as a person is not in how much money you can command, but in how much respect and love you can earn from others. That has no monetary value.

That's life. Not just your life as a worker/consumer. When you distill it all down, that's what life is about. Are you improving the value of the human species?

We are the only life form on the planet with the ability to do that. That makes us special. If you understand this lesson, that makes you extra special.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light on the path.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Do we know how to live forever?

"But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
- Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy (1789)

Death is certain because it is one of the controlling factors that defines life. Taxes are the means by which collectives of people pay others to do what they cannot do or don't want to do themselves.

As unlikely as it may seem that death may be prevented, work goes on in science laboratories for the purpose of determining what causes life to end, with a view to seeing if it's possible to prevent that from happening.

Natural death seems to occur as a result of two primary factors. First, as DNA is reproduced over and over as our cells divide, the strings of genes (chromosomes) become shorter as not all gene sequences are reproduced near the end of the chain. Eventually, genes are incapable of performing some of the functions for which they were designed and cell failure occurs. Second, as we age fewer new cells are produced than old cells that die off naturally. In time, some organs do not have enough working cells to do their jobs.

Taxes became a necessity when humans gathered into clans large enough that individuals were able to specialize into defined groups of experts, such as hunters or tool-makers. Since both hunting and tool-making are so important, that left other tasks that could not be performed by those left at home. The jobs that are done now by municipal workers were the first to be designated as necessary to be done by a group of people, who then needed to be compensated for devoting their time building community buildings and defence structures, for examples.

Taxes are necessary only where a sufficient number of people for some reason do not look after some of their own needs. There are still many people in the world who do not pay taxes because they look after all of their own needs. Most of them "live off the land," are nomadic and seldom use conventional currencies. The more specialized people become in their daily tasks, the more they need others to do what they don't take time to do.

Today we may be surprised at the number of people who live to be 100 years old. In the USA, for example, nearly one million people have reached the century mark. Some biologists estimate that many people born in the latter part of the 20th century may live to be 150 years old. That's because they won't die by accident, by violence, by self destruction of their health or by neglecting their own wlefare.

Genetic manipulation may soon make it possible for people to live hundreds of years. Yet we live in an age where the threat of masssive death rates from new diseases, war, even from genocide exist in many parts of the world.

Living longer will come with a great responsibility. To qualify, we will have to ensure that no one else tries to kill us. That will mean that we will have to care about the welfare of all of humankind, not just of ourselves, our families and our neighbours.

When the world becomes one large village, we must know how to make friends on a global scale. As we know, making enemies is much easier. And much less healthy.

If we don't learn how to make friends around the world and to work together for our mutual benefit and to satisfy our mutual needs, then we will pay all of our income in taxes to defend ourselves from our enemies. For a great number of years.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the path to a longer and better life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Do we deserve this kind of government?

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause. A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.
- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

Does this explain it?

Does this explain why thousands of Muslims are prepared to sacrifice their lives in battle against overwhelming odds or to blow themselves up so that "others" will be killed as well, all for their religion?

Does this explain why the numbers of extreme right wing voters in the USA are swelling at a shocking rate, those people who are willing to bully, to deprive and to emotionally harm those they consider "weak" because it's part of the principles of their political persuasion?

Does this explain road rage, office rage and frequent losses of temper in public places (including at demonstrations), as people lose control out of frustration with others who claim they can do anything they want and justify it as a constitutional right?

The militant Muslims, American bullies and insensitive boors say no.

In response, I would ask if any of these people have anything positive to contribute to the world, as proven by repeated long term and widely recognized successes. Given enough time, they all prove they have little of value to offer.

If they are indeed in a minority, then why is the large majority of good people remaining relatively quiet, such that it seems as if the loud ones are running things? They are. And the good people are lining up behind them as if they are great leaders.

We get the kind of government we are prepared to invest our time and talents in.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show what effect minding your own business can have on a community, a country, or the world.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

When your rights are abused, you will suffer

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."
- G. K. Chesterton, British writer (1874–1936)

It seems as if this quotation were written for today. However, the truth behind its application has caused the people of many countries to engage in war, revolution or the overthrow of decent and honest political systems in favour of more sleezy and self-interested ones many times.

It's that truth behind the quote that has been used as a propaganda weapon in order to whip up the sentiments and emotions of people who were otherwise ignorant of the facts of a situation.

People who are oppressed, we believe, have a right to overthrow their oppressors and take change of their own destiny. But how far can that go?

Hitler convinced the German people that their lives were being controlled by Jews in the media, in business and in industry. So there was the Holocaust.

The people of Palestine believe they have a right to take back land that was stolen from them by the United Nations and given to the previously non-existent state of Israel. So we have suicide bombings and killings of both Palestinians and Israelis in the name of fighting for freedom and retribution.

Nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were hacked to death by machetes during a 100 day period in 1994, in Rwanda, because the Tutsi minority had dominated the majority Hutus (with the assistance of Belgium during its protectorate days) for several decades. Both sides had done their share of killing of members of the other, so radical Hutus felt justified in committing genocide in the name of freedom.

Today in the USA, citizen rights are systematically being removed using the claim of national security post 9/11. Bullying on both a local and national scale is being committed and allowed in the name of freedom of speech. Iraq was invaded in the name of national security, to protect the American people from Saddam's non-existent "weapons of mass destruction."

With rights come responsibilities. The responsibilities do not include abuse of your own people or of others. They do include the responsibility to maintain peace among your own people as well as among others who have trouble with theirs.

Responsibilities should always include respect for human dignity and safety.

A Canadian citizen of Syrian birth was handed over the US authorities a few years ago along with the false information that indicated that he was "a person of interest" and one against whom evidence existed that he was a terrorist. US authorities, unable to pry any information from him, gave him to Syrian police who tortured him and starved him in prison for a year. Satisfied that he had no information to give them about terrorist activities, they released him back to Canada.

Maher Arar had a right to have police tell the truth about him, to not devise lies about him, to not send him outside his country to a country that is known to torture prisoners when they knew he had no information to give them. Canadian and US authorities expected him to die, so they didn't have to worry about him. He didn't. He lives now to remind us.

Rights and laws do not give anyone approval to abuse others.

They also do not give citizens approval to turn their backs on corruption and abuse within their military, their government, their leaders or anyone else who purports to speak or to act on their behalf. When rights are abused, the abusers must be held to account.

That's a responsibility that citizens have that goes with their right. If they choose to not exercise that responsibility, their turn to be abused may be next. And no one will care.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

You could lose the most important thing in your life

It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things that money can't buy.
- George H. Lorimer, editor (1868-1937)

An old song says "The best things in life are free." The original song, part of the musical Good News, became popular in 1927, but was even more popular during the 1930s, the days of the Great Depression. When you have nothing, or next to it, you want to believe that the good things in life don't cost anything.

Many of us don't believe that any more. The best things in life can be bought, so some think, and they cost the most money.

Think about this. What or who would you miss most if the world as you know it ended today and you were left with no possessions, no family or friends? For most of us, we would name a person who loves us, someone whose love can't be bought with money.

What we would miss the most is what we value the most today. Whether we admit it or not. What we value highest is not usually something that can be purchased. So the best thing or things in your life likely are free.

Free of monetary cost. They usually involve a huge investment of time, of love, of caring, compassion, touching, talking, laughing, of being there when needed. The poorest people can afford these.

But rich, poor or somewhere in the middle, anyone can ignore or forget about those parts of their life that are most important to them.

The cost is always devastating.

Do what you should to show how much you care. Don't ignore or forget. Do it today and every day.

(I hope it's not your car or your Kalashnikov.)

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

How Hitler affects your life today

"The greater the man, the greater the courtesy."
- Alfred Lord Tennyson, British poet (1809–1892)

Tennyson lived in a time when men aspired to be great. History books, television programs and even internet sites that offer quotations provide abundant evidence that great men did roam the earth in those days. Some greatly influenced how the history of their people and others unfolded.

Since the end of the Second World War and the death of Adolf Hitler, one would be hard pressed to find consensus on the greatness of any man.

That's not to say that Hitler was great. He was powerful, influential, memorable, anything but great.

Did something change during the time of world prominence of Hitler and his less appreciated but equally genocidal Soviet counterpart Stalin?

Hitler used the media to twist the minds of his followers, turning them into murderers and traitors to the values of their own people. Several examples of massive genocide in the world since his time show that his was taken as an example. In some countries, such as the United States, almost all of the mass media are owned by members of one political party. They learned.

Before Hitler people had heroes. After Hitler, people turned to false heroes, movie stars, on whom to spread their attention and adulation.

As there is room for only a few movie stars at the top, lesser known actors had to do outstanding things to be noticed. Beauty was enhanced, behaviour was exaggerated to the point of being anti-social, wealth was exhibited ostentatiously as if it were everything that was important.

They were noticed. Others, seeking to supercede them, went further. Their viewers became followers and imitators. Read the front page of any daily newspaper today to see how life imitates art, the more extreme the better. Reality TV shows and star-gossip programs keep viewers up to date daily with the most extreme behaviours of the stars.

On the political scene, national leaders pride themselves on how much they can irritate the leaders or governments of other countries. In some cases, they find excuses to invade those countries on some pretext that never holds up under scrutiny. Alternatively, they exercise economic power over other countries.

In developing countries, those with little power but great aspirations find their own ways to be noticed, some even choosing suicide bombing as their way to attract at least short term attention. Others choose crime, believing that money will answer their prayers for recognition.

In how many well known people of today do you find courtesy?

Wherever you go in public today you find people who believe that courtesy is a sign of weakness, a sign they have no intention of showing to anyone.

Yet courtesy thrives in places where people are happy with their lives and where they respect the others of their community, their country and the world.

Perhaps we should stress courtesy as a value in our families and our communities, instead of power, money and pretentiousness. More people might find their way to contentment with their lives. And fewer would accommodate themselves to bitterness.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Constant excitement or fear are not natural

Fear is just excitement in need of an attitude adjustment.
- Russ Quaglia, US professor of education

Ah, yes, attitude adjustments. We all need some. Our lives would be much better if we had different attitudes toward many of the things we consider make our lives bad.

However, this quip was intended to make a point about fear. To understand fear as a mirror of excitement, we need to understand what both mean.

Fear and excitement are emotions. Not natural ones. At least they are not natural on a constant or long term basis.

Fear is an extension of the natural emotion called apprehension, which produces the fight or flight response to dangerous situations. We need apprehension (or caution, if you will) to protect ourselves from risks that we need not take or that might impose themselves on us. When a mean, barking dog threatens to attack us, apprehension advises us to make tracks away from it. When we see that the boss is in a bad mood, we find other places to be than around him if we can.

In fearful situations, our adrenal glands pump epinephrine (Adrenaline) through our bloodstream so we can act quickly. Running epinephrine through our bloodstream constantly has a similar effect to running jet fuel through our car engine constantly.

Excitement is an extension of the natural emotion of joy or happiness. We can be safely happy for days at a time. However, it's not safe to experience excitement constantly because it compromises our immune system by flushing dopamine through our brain (thus damaging our brain's ability to act in a reasonable fashion) and ultimately harming our immune system when our brain fails to tell it to react to attacks.

To experience excitement constantly would be to take an illegal drug, for example. Drug addicts want to stay high because they feel the need to experience the excitement as much as possible. Constant excitement is a choice.

No one is born with fear. We learn it. Sometimes, such as developing a fear of heights or cramped places, fear just happens to us. Other times fear is imposed on us. Someone who works 80-hour weeks in fear of losing his job, for example, is succumbing to a threatening situation imposed by someone else. The fear of an absive spouse cripples some people emotionally, even shortens the lives of some.

We have choices about what excitements we accept for ourselves. We also have choices about what situations we accept as fearful.

It would servce us well to consider carefully our association with anyone who wants us to experience constant excitement or constant fear. They will do us no good. They do not have our best interests at heart.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

The clever man tells, the wise man knows quietly

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
- Naguib Mahfouz, writer (1911- )

A clever man will always tell you answers. He will tell you things you may not even care about. His purpose is to impress. To be more accurate, his purpose is, like that of Narcissus, to see himself reflected in the reaction on your face.

It may be arrogance, hubris or insecurity that causes him to seek a reaction from you. You are the fulfillment of the need of a clever man. You are the audience that satisfies his need.

A wise man will not try to convince you of anything. A wise man is trying to build himself, not to build you. He asks questions because he wants to learn more. He needs to learn more because he is aware of how little he knows about so many things. He is aware less of what he knows than of what he does not yet know.

A wise man will not proselytize you. If you are willing and eager, he may guide you to find your own answers. He will not push you because he is on his own quest.

Then we have those who are neither clever, wanting to convey to us how much they know, nor wise. They do not ask questions. They wish to give the impression that they know as much as they need to know.

They have learned from the ethics of business that they should "never let them see you sweat." Never give the impression that you don't know. When you don't know, fake it. Pretend. Most times the others won't know that you don't know.

While that is the apparent ethic of business, it's not a real one. The person who doesn't ask questions and who doesn't know will never rise against the competition because deep down the others know the truth. The ones who know will reach where they want to go.

The ones who do not ask questions don't try to learn. They remain ignorant. Comfortably ignorant, as they persuade even themselves that they know as much as they need to know.

Yet they are always poor. Poor of spirit because they think of themselves first. Poor of intellect because they close doors of opportunity to learn. Poor of character because they deceive even themselves, thus have no hesitation about deceiving others.

A wise man will share what he knows. But you will have to ask. Otherwise he will be busy.

He has his own quest. He will assume that you have your own.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Look down on people only to help them up

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping them up.
– Rev. Jesse Jackson

Nature provided us with the built-in tools to hurt each other, to discriminate against each other, to climb over each other to reach somewhere we want to go, to ignore or even to kill those among us who are weak.

In the animal kingdom, the system in which these tools of character are used is called the pecking order. The term comes from birds where the strongest or most influential of the flock tends to get the food it wants before the others.

The tools are components of our most important instinct, survival. We humans have proven that we can survive under the harshest and most severe conditions, including the widest possible range of climates of any animal, climate changes and natural tragedy.

We survive. And the ones among us who are most likely to survive when the going is roughest are the ones who can find the best shelter, food and water.

We have also proven that we can use these tools--this instinct--to harm or destroy each other, to keep others of us in slavery, to abuse each other

Some species of animal will eat their weakest in such circumstances. Some will abandon them to be eaten by predators.

Are we that kind of species? Our degree of civilization is marked by how much or how little we fit that description that nature gave us at birth. Are we the brutes that nature designed us to be or are we able to ovrcome that character set to be better?

We either teach our children that we and they are part of a global community and that everyone in that community has a responsibility toward each other or we teach them that some people (like themselves) are better than others.

There are no other choices, no middle ground, no gray areas. Either we believe we should help each other or we believe we shouldn't. To pretend to help others by making charitable contributions for which we receive tax writeoffs is a sham way, a deception to make others believe that we care about those less fortunate. We either help others or we allow others to be hurt.

Either we are brothers and sisters, all, or we are not. Despite the biblical example of Cain killing Abel, brothers do not normally kill each other. They don't allow each other to starve, to contract and die of AIDS, to struggle through drought or earthquakes without help or to sink into depression or addiction where they would remain until they die.

Some of us do those things. Some of us believe it's right. Some of us rise to the top echelons of our spheres and destroy our enemies or defraud our shareholders.

To believe in peace means that we must believe that every other human is our brother or sister. That we are all equal and the differences between us are centred around education.

We must believe that it is our duty as citizens and as humans to help up those who have fallen or who are weak enough they cannot get up by themselves.

If you believe in this kind of peace and want your way to be the way of the majority, then you must teach your way to children. Teach all children, even those who are not your own. Many children accept important life lessons from people who are not their parents or teachers.

If you want a better world, then you must live the life that a citizen of a better world would live. To do otherwise would be hypocrisy.

As the slogan for an important anti-bullying campaign says: Be the change.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the world a more peaceful, healthier and more vibrant place.
Learn more at http://billallin.com Nature provided us with the built-in tools to hurt each other, to discriminate against each other, to climb over each other to reach somewhere we want to go, to ignore or even to kill those among us who are weak.

In the animal kingdom, the system in which these tools of character are used is called the pecking order. The term comes from birds where the strongest or most influential of the flock tends to get the food it wants before the others.

The tools are components of our most important instinct, survival. We humans have proven that we can survive under the harshest and most severe conditions, including the widest possible range of climates of any animal, climate changes and natural tragedy.

We survive. And the ones among us who are most likely to survive when the going is roughest are the ones who can find the best shelter, food and water.

Some species of animal will eat their weakest in such circumstances. Some will abandon them to be eaten by predators.

Are we that kind of species? Our degree of civilization is marked by how much or how little we fit that description that nature gave us at birth.

We either teach our children that we and they are part of a global community and that everyone in that community has a responsibility toward each other or we teach them that some people (like themselves) are better than others.

There are no other choices, no middle ground, no gray areas. Either we believe we should help each other or we believe we shouldn't. To pretend to help others by making charitable contributions for which we receive tax writeoffs is a sham way, a deception to make others believe that we care about those less fortunate.

Either we are brothers and sisters, all, or we are not. Despite the biblical example of Cain killing Abel, brothers do not normally kill each other. They don't allow each other to starve, to contract and die of AIDS, to struggle through drought or earthquakes without help or to sink into depression or addiction where they would remain until they die.

Some of us do those things. Some of us believe it's right. Some of us rise to the top echelons of our spheres and destroy our enemies or defraud our shareholders too.

To believe in peace means that we must believe that every other human is our brother or sister. That we are all equal and the differences between us are differences centred around education.

We must believe that it is our duty as citizens and as humans to help up those who have fallen or who are weak enough they cannot get up by themselves.

If you believe in this kind of peace and want your way to be the way of the majority, then you must teach your way to children. Teach all children, even those who are not your own. Many children accept important life lessons from people who are not their parents or teachers.

If you want a better world, then you must live the life that a citizen of a better world would live. To do otherwise would be hypocrisy.

As the slogan for an important anti-bullying campaign says: Be the change.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the world a more peaceful, healthier and more vibrant place.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Do we have the power?

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.
- Benjamin Disraeli

In most cases, power is what you achieve by causing others to submit to your will. That inevitably means the sacrifice of some part of a person's free will.

A person who has lost some of his free will is crippled. His soul, the part of him that is his real being (not just his body), is crippled. His weakness is emphasized by virtue of comparison to the strength of the powerful person, the person in control.

It could be said that every democracy is effectively a dictatorship. The person with the power controls the words and the votes of those elected under him. No law is passed without being approved by the most powerful person.

What we have today is not unlike what existed in the Dark Ages, only tidied up a bit, and the cultural groups are much larger. And people aren't killed for disagreeing with others. Except maybe in Russia and the Middle East. Oh, and China and the Stans. And Ukraine.

All great civilizations of the past were built on a base of military power. In the 21st century and beyond, such empires will not be possible. Some people in every part of the world are prepared to sacrifice their own lives to make sure that any country that attempts to control others by military might will be destabilized through acts of "terrorism."

Disraeli said that we can help people by revealing their strengths to themselves. That includes giving them the power to control their own lives.

Those who feel they control their own lives will want to work together with others who feel the same. This could provide a base for a great civilization based on people who work together for the mutual benefit of every one of them.

This is not socialism, but a new phase of humanity.

No one, no society, will become truly great by making some of its people small.

We need to help each other up. We need to help each other to learn our strengths.

Together we have strengths to be a great civilization. On our own, we have the strengths only to survive under the power of our leaders.

Few leaders are prepared to put the welfare of their people ahead of their own best interests. But then, we do not teach that as a goal to strive for.

We could teach that. It works.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to light the path for those who want improvement.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Einstein had it right; we didn't pay attention

The problems of today cannot be solved with the same thinking that gave us the problems in the first place.
- Albert Einstein

Yet that is precisely what we do, as countries, as communities and as individuals. Not everyone, of course, but enough that we can see a pattern.

A man or woman who has a very unhappy first marriage sets out to find a second mate, then chooses one with basically the same problems that caused them so much grief in the first marriage. Some extent their pattern to a third and fourth marriage.

People complain about the councillors that represent them in their city government. They call them spendthrifts, stupid, careless about people with certain problems in their community. Then basically the same people are elected to office next time.

The Cold War is a perfect example of two countries that got their way with many other countries within their sphere of influence by investments, political pressure or military might. It destroyed not only the old Soviet Union, but every individual state within the union because they were all nearly bankrupt.

Today the US--who clearly won the Cold War--is busy trying to influence it most intransigent opponents, by economic might and military persuasion. And it's bankrupting itself in the process.

The United Nations, an organization that encompasses almost every nation in the world, strives for world peace. But its member nations hesitate to send troops from nations that are at peace into civil war zones because they don't want any of their soldiers killed on foreign soil unless it's in the defence of their own country. Protect your own. It's always worked in the past.

People who want to be wealthy the easy way spend thousands of dollars buying lottery tickets, impovershing themselves and their families in the hope of winning a fortune they won't have the financial sense to hang onto.

Rebuilding a life, a community or a country is frightening. Frightening because people are afraid of change or because they don't have the foresight to know what they want? Or maybe they have the foresight, but not the willpower to implement changes that would bring the new situation about. Arguments can and have been mounted for each of these possibilities.

Our problems grow. We continue trying to address them in the same ways we always have.

Too many bad guys on the streets? Build more prisons, hire more police and engage more judges. But don't do what is needed to prevent people from turning to crime in the first place.

Too many people taking drugs? Stop the plants from being grown and put the sellers in prison. Don't change conditions so that the people who buy the drugs won't want to purchase them any more.

All change begins with education. That can be done in schools, where everyone gets the same message, or it can be done by the media and new laws.

How do you think our present system of depending on the media and passing new laws has done? In my country, social problems keep growing.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to put responsibility and authority into the hands of people who can make changes happen.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Would a severe tragedy destroy your life?

"The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously."
- Nicholas Butler, American educator (1862–1947)

Nothing about our lives that could change at a moment's notice should be taken too seriously.

Your job could disappear unexpectedly. Your car could be totalled in an accident or a fire could make it worthless within minutes. The life of a loved one could be snuffed out in the time it takes to receive a phone call.

The death of a loved one shouldn't be taken seriously? Or, worse, the loved one shouldn't be taken seriously? An explanation of not taking something too seriously is in order so that we can make sense of this quote.

The quote says "too seriously." That should mean "life-ending" or "life-destroying."

We have all heard of people who say that they couldn't live without their lover. Most, though it would be last on their list of possibilities, could indeed survive and make a new life. It happens to many people. Some can't cope with their loss and demonstrate this by suicide or depression that compromises their immune system to the extent that they die of some disease within months or a few years. That's too seriously.

Life, by its nature, must carry on. Survival is our most basic instinct. We, as components of the life on this planet, must be prepared to carry on and build a new life when a loved one dies.

Is that absolutely necessary? Would the world be lessened by the loss of one more life?

That's not necessarily a moral question. It could be a practical question. If you and many others were aware that someone you know wanted to commit suicide, how many people do you believe would advocate leaving that person alone to end his life? The answer would be unanimous or close to it, some intervention would be essential.

As awkward and unpleasant as it may sound, each of us would do well to think about the possibility that a sudden tragedy could alter our lives. If our life had to be changed due to one of those unpredictable events or sets of circumstances, we should at least have some idea about how we would cope with it. Coping is how we get through tragedies.

If we don't have a plan, tragedy could wreak more havoc with our life than is necessary, maybe even ending it or bringing more tragedy to our loved ones who would survive the tragedy.

They don't deserve that. You don't deserve that.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to help everyone be prepared for the eventualities of life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Failure is the norm, so learn from it

"If at first you don't succeed, you're running about average."
- M.H. Alderson

It sounds like a joke. It's not meant to be.

Overnight successes are rare. In the music business, a group that's an overnight success has usually been slaving away in the trenches, building a fan base, crafting new skills and polishing them for about a decade.

In painting, as in others of the arts, a decade of being the "starving artist" is the norm before recognition hits, if it comes at all.

No one is born being great at anything. You might wonder if savants (remember 'Rain Man'?) were born with some mysterious built-in talent since they sometimes have amazing abilities by the time they are four years old.

Prevailing thinking today says that savants are autistic, but some disagree. It's possible that a petit mal epileptic attack on a young brain could alter how it develops. Almost everyone has one or a few petit mal attacks in their lives at some points, even if they are not diagnosed as epilepsy by a physician. When the electrical impulses of epilepsy go charging through the brain in chaotic fashion they have been known to change a person's disposition, their character, their abilities, even their approach to life. It could happen at a very young age. But, at that, there is no general agreement that a brilliant savant has a developed talent that gathers a fan base. Savants, in that sense, may not be successes, just different.

Most people begin their lives being fairly average. Some develop extraordinary skills and talents, while most of us become pretty good at a few things. Most people with extraordinary talents and skills endured many failures along their path to success.

Even in business, failure is common on first attempts. The founders of Ford and Hershey's were perhaps the best known business failures who became successes in their second or third business attempts.

On one point successful people (who are recongized as such by the public) agree, they learned more from their failures than they did from their successes. They used their failures as real-life learning situations on which they built their future successes.

We can all learn from that. We can use failures and tragedies in our lives as learning situations on which we can build better futures. Just remember, a better future doesn't come quickly.

It will come with diligence, determination and staying the course.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the way through the detours of life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

What you buy could affect your future

Humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of
accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.
- Marie Curie, scientist, Nobel laureate (1867-1934)

Was the Polish-born double Nobel prize winner advocating socialism in this quotation? In a way, but no more than she could have been advocating the same thing for any form of government.

When we look at the countries of the world that are considered to be progressive today, that is in which progress is being made in various fields of study, they all provide the means by which researchers may carry out their work with some degree of financial security.

I say some degree because in many of them science researchers must vie with each other for government grants and university positions to provide the framework in which to conduct their studies. Others who cannot or will not participate in the politics of academia and R&D work under the ones who will.

A decade or two ago most of the new research papers that were published came out of the USA. More recently the percentage has dropped close to 65 percent, down from nearly 90 percent. During the same period the US economy has faltered and the value of its currency has fallen somewhat against other major currencies. Over the same period, government monies for research in science have dropped off, more noticably so during the regime of the current president.

World leaders among nations today have money to spend, to invest and to give to poorer nations. They get much of that money when they export products, technologies, information and skills to other countries who want it. These exports depend to some extent on investments by governments in research that puts the countries' export corporations ahead of the competition.

When research money comes more from corporations than from governments, development tends toward products and services that may be sold for great profit rather than those that may benefit all humankind.

Who is paying for research into the products and skills you buy? No system is without its faults and its corruption. Making the right choice could affect the future of your country.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, encouraging everyone to become educated about what is behind the stuff they buy.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Succeed, fail or what?

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
- Dan Quayle, former US Vice President

Life is not black and white, good or bad, in or out.

Vice President Quale was vilified by the media for this apparently foolish remark. But it's not foolish.

Every living person fails at some things. Everyone succeeds at some things. But with most things we do we can't be categorized as either. We're just somewhere in the middle.

So it is with countries, a fact that the US media were happy to overlook when they skewered their VP over this comment. Most countries can't be said to succeed or to be more successful than all others at anything.

The US is unquestionably the most powerful country in the world militarily. That is if numbers of weapons (including weapons of mass detruction) are taken into account. But is it the best at war?

Need it be the best at war? Many people believe it must. Many people believe that only the threat of invasion by the world's most powerful military will prevent "renegade" countries from making trouble for the US.

Many countries of the world are not strong militarily, yet their people live happy and safe lives. They live in countries that are not "successful" (superior) by most measures.

There is a middle ground, be it for countries or for individuals. Most of us live there.

Those who call the vast majority of us failures when we do not side with them because they are the most powerful are wrong.

Somebody had to say it.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to help most people feel comfortable and safe in the middle.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Is good naturally weaker than evil?

We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstractions police and threaten us.
- Robert Hayden, poet and educator (1913-1980)

As Hayden lived in the middle part of the last century and died a generation ago, he was speaking in general terms (so far as our purposes here are concerned), not of conditions we may be experiencing today.

I say that not excuse any association that a reader may make based on their personal experiences or interests, but to remind you that it's not my motive to bring any specific situation of today to attention with this quote.

The forces in the world that we generally consider to be good are large, but usually not aggressive, presumptuous or that wish to enslave or harm any life. Seldom enough are they organized into an effective force that could implement the good they wish to convey. And to receive, as they are not entirely altruistic by any means. They tend to be empowered by tragedy, especially disasters that affect others.

Forces that we generally perceive to be evil (lots of interpretation there, I understand) are more aggressive, often better organized and even manage to find financing to support their campaigns.

Good does not always win out over evil due to its massive numbers. We can see this with Nazi Germany, any of the other examples of genocide that have occurred over the past century or from most wars.

If good has such large numbers of people, why can it not get organized and quickly defeat the forces they believe are evil?

Because, by nature, good people do not want to defeat anyone by violence. They don't believe that violence is essential in most situations, though they are prepared in most cases to engage in violence when no other options are left to them.

Evil wants to organize for the purpose of having power. Good wants to live and let live, to help and to be helped, to do good as they believe it should be done.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference between good and evil.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Your brain moulds your face

The fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly.
- Charles Reznikoff, poet (1894-1976)

This can be taken literally as well as metaphorically (which we might expect from a poet).

What goes on in our minds does affect our faces. The older we get, the more likely those fingers of our thoughts will mould our face.

Let's take the examples of laugh lines and frown lines. Laugh lines tend to form more when we are awake. Those who laugh or smile little have fewer laugh lines because their facial muscles do not form themselves into configurations that would create the creases we call laugh lines very often.

The more we laugh, the more laugh creases are likely to form on our faces. Since laughing is healthy, we should interpret laugh lines as being an indicator of good health.

Frown lines tend to form for many people while they are asleep. As we have little control over what our brain dreams at night, if it chooses to express concern over problems it considers serious, we might frown. As some dreams carry on for many minutes, if these concerned dreams continue for many nights, frown creases will develop between our eyes. Other lines may form on the sides of our mouth.

The elasticity of our skin when we are younger prevents it from developing permanent creases in our youth. Exceptions might be forehead creases that we may express unconsciously for long periods of time, either when we are awake or asleep. These are called primary lines, as opposed the the small lines that may form around the eyes as we age.

As we get older, our skin loses much of its elasticity and skin has more of a tendancy to remain in a position or condition that it has been in for periods of time. Frown or look sad for long periods of time and this will shown on your face.

Your mother may have told you not to pout or frown or your face would freeze that way. It wasn't true when you were a child, but it could be true in your adulthood.

Eyes have their own ways of expressing the conditions of our lives. In childhood those expressions may be temporary. As adults, the expressions may remain permanently.

Our eyes and our faces tell how life has played us.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to help you understand how faces tell the stories of our lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com