"In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood."
- Henry David Thoreau
If someone close to you, someone you love, someone you count on for fulfillment of the daily needs and toils of your life, someone you work with, someone in your family, someone you planned to spend the rest of your life with, demonstrates an apparent lack of interest in what interests you, most people would be hurt.
Silence may not just be misunderstood, it could be a death knell for a relationship. If someone's silence is not intended to be a sign of rejection or a cause of hurt, it still may be perceived that way by others.
We are, by nature, social beings. We talk so much that we don't place much value on what we say in many cases. Even the chat of little meaning has value though in that it maintains a sense of belonging to each other in some appropriate way. When it stops, we believe that trouble is near.
The same applies among nations as among people. However, among nations silence is often perceived as a time for preparation for war, a time of secrecy when one former participant in dialogue falls silent for the purpose of preparing something unpleasant for the other.
It pays us not only to be honest with each other, but to be open as well. When we have something to hide, that is a symptom of mistrust, a rift between two parties. It's a wedge that gets driven farther and farther into a gap until the space becomes a wound and the wound becomes infected.
Silence can be hurtful, even deadly. Use it only for quiet contemplation. And when you do, make sure others who expect you to communicate with them know why you are quiet.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help us understand the silence of others as something not to be feared, if we know the reason for it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Schools are largely responsible for our messy lives
"The one real object of education is to have a man in the condition of continually asking questions."
- Bishop Mandell Creighton
In most school classrooms, one of the common activities is to have students answer questions posed by the teacher. The rationale is that directed question will allow each students to think through each question, thus working toward the ultimate goal of the lesson.
That goal is usually the accumulation of a collection of facts.
However, many children answer so many questions during their school life that they aren't inclined to pose any of their own. Parents will know how the seemingly endless flow of questions from their kids trickles to nothing once they are in school.
As adults, our most important means of learning and improving ourselves is to ask questions. As very young children, we ask many questions each day so that we can learn about our world. In school we learn to answer questions and not to ask them.
Many adults learn very little because they don't ask questions when they find they don't know enough about a particular subject they encounter.
Do the arithmetic. In its drive to shove as many facts as possible into kids, schools discourage the naturally occurring characteristic they will need as adults by having them answer endless questions instead of asking them.
Educators call this child-centred education, but it's really just the old fashioned bureaucrat centred education we have experienced for the apst 200 years. Children don't get opportunities to ask questions because they are too busy answering them.
And we wonder why there are so many dumb adults who don't want to learn anything new. Now we know. School made them that way. In general, only a tiny percentage of students who go past a college education to get a postgraduate degree ask questions as adults.
The rest plug into television that not only asks questions for them, but answers those questions--in the way they want their viewers to believe should be their way of thinking.
Then they go out and vote. At least the people who don't vote are honest about the fact they don't know enough about the issues to cast their ballot. They are prepared to take what they get.
Their countries go to war. The companies they invest in go bankrupt. They lose their jobs and don't know what to do about getting another one. Their marriages break up because they don't have a firm grasp of what marriage is and how to make it thrive. They adopt addictions as means of giving them temporary relief from the confusion in their chaotic minds.
Schools do that for us.
Want to change that? Encourage others to join our TIA group and we will get education onto the right track.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to get adults to ask the questions they need to learn new things.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Bishop Mandell Creighton
In most school classrooms, one of the common activities is to have students answer questions posed by the teacher. The rationale is that directed question will allow each students to think through each question, thus working toward the ultimate goal of the lesson.
That goal is usually the accumulation of a collection of facts.
However, many children answer so many questions during their school life that they aren't inclined to pose any of their own. Parents will know how the seemingly endless flow of questions from their kids trickles to nothing once they are in school.
As adults, our most important means of learning and improving ourselves is to ask questions. As very young children, we ask many questions each day so that we can learn about our world. In school we learn to answer questions and not to ask them.
Many adults learn very little because they don't ask questions when they find they don't know enough about a particular subject they encounter.
Do the arithmetic. In its drive to shove as many facts as possible into kids, schools discourage the naturally occurring characteristic they will need as adults by having them answer endless questions instead of asking them.
Educators call this child-centred education, but it's really just the old fashioned bureaucrat centred education we have experienced for the apst 200 years. Children don't get opportunities to ask questions because they are too busy answering them.
And we wonder why there are so many dumb adults who don't want to learn anything new. Now we know. School made them that way. In general, only a tiny percentage of students who go past a college education to get a postgraduate degree ask questions as adults.
The rest plug into television that not only asks questions for them, but answers those questions--in the way they want their viewers to believe should be their way of thinking.
Then they go out and vote. At least the people who don't vote are honest about the fact they don't know enough about the issues to cast their ballot. They are prepared to take what they get.
Their countries go to war. The companies they invest in go bankrupt. They lose their jobs and don't know what to do about getting another one. Their marriages break up because they don't have a firm grasp of what marriage is and how to make it thrive. They adopt addictions as means of giving them temporary relief from the confusion in their chaotic minds.
Schools do that for us.
Want to change that? Encourage others to join our TIA group and we will get education onto the right track.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to get adults to ask the questions they need to learn new things.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Friday, April 28, 2006
Ignorance is bliss only in your dreams
The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.
- Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
Will those leaders create fear amongst their people such that they want to make war on the "others" they perceive as their enemies?
Will they tell their people that one religion alone will embrace them, care for them, teach them beliefs that will ensure their eternal life?
Will they lure ignorant people to invest their life savings into ventures that promise huge returns but go bankrupt, while their creators retire with fortunes?
Jefferson warned his people--all people--200 years ago. Yet those people continue to wrap themselves in their own ignorance and convince themselves that their leaders know what they are doing and will work in their best interests.
Their leaders know what they are doing all right.
TIA will prevent these disgraces by preventing children from becoming ignorant adults. But it won't work alone. We need your help to tell others. Tell your friends to begin at our web site.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to teach the world that ignorance may be easy, but not in their best interests.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
Will those leaders create fear amongst their people such that they want to make war on the "others" they perceive as their enemies?
Will they tell their people that one religion alone will embrace them, care for them, teach them beliefs that will ensure their eternal life?
Will they lure ignorant people to invest their life savings into ventures that promise huge returns but go bankrupt, while their creators retire with fortunes?
Jefferson warned his people--all people--200 years ago. Yet those people continue to wrap themselves in their own ignorance and convince themselves that their leaders know what they are doing and will work in their best interests.
Their leaders know what they are doing all right.
TIA will prevent these disgraces by preventing children from becoming ignorant adults. But it won't work alone. We need your help to tell others. Tell your friends to begin at our web site.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to teach the world that ignorance may be easy, but not in their best interests.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Thursday, April 27, 2006
We may unknowingly be letting our kids harm themselves
"The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later."
- Charles Caleb Colton
This quote sounds like some sort of religious proselytizing, but it's really a very practical lesson that can be applied to everyone.
Our bodies are designed to withstand a huge amount of abuse. As young adults, we can withstand near-starvation for amazing periods of time, long periods in the sun, sleep depirvation, smoking, excesses of food or drink and much more.
Our early evolution as homo sapiens gave us that. However, we are past that stage and are now in developed societies where a majority of adults live much longer than 30 to 35 years.
Many people now live to 80 or even more than 100 years. While our bodies can stay alive that long, excesses in our youth may well play a major role in how healthy we are in our retirement years.
It's one thing to live fast, love hard and die young, as an ancient country music song said. It's quite another thing to live 100 years, the last 40 of which are in constant pain, with a severe disability or with mental impairment as results of the "good times" we had as young adults.
Like other life lessons, this one must be taught to children before they get old enough to have their "good times' excesses cause them decades of grief and pain in their senior years.
A study of former Olympic athletes at age 45 or above would produce shocking results, as a majority of them (almost all) live in pain, most of it from arthritis. Even what we call good efforts (such as exercise geared toward Olympic participation) can be an excess for which we pay a high price in health damage as we get older.
Do you want to have your children live for decades in pain or as invalids or with mental disabilities in their later years because you encouraged them or allowed them to participate in activities over which you had some influence in their youth?
Teach the children. Teach them before they need to use the lessons. When it comes to emotional or psychological lessons, there is no such things as "to young to learn." Kids learn. It's what they do best. Don't keep them ignorant about anything.
Teach right, teach good, teach peace. It's what we call the Philosophy of T3.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to teach everyone life lessons before they do things that will destroy their own.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Charles Caleb Colton
This quote sounds like some sort of religious proselytizing, but it's really a very practical lesson that can be applied to everyone.
Our bodies are designed to withstand a huge amount of abuse. As young adults, we can withstand near-starvation for amazing periods of time, long periods in the sun, sleep depirvation, smoking, excesses of food or drink and much more.
Our early evolution as homo sapiens gave us that. However, we are past that stage and are now in developed societies where a majority of adults live much longer than 30 to 35 years.
Many people now live to 80 or even more than 100 years. While our bodies can stay alive that long, excesses in our youth may well play a major role in how healthy we are in our retirement years.
It's one thing to live fast, love hard and die young, as an ancient country music song said. It's quite another thing to live 100 years, the last 40 of which are in constant pain, with a severe disability or with mental impairment as results of the "good times" we had as young adults.
Like other life lessons, this one must be taught to children before they get old enough to have their "good times' excesses cause them decades of grief and pain in their senior years.
A study of former Olympic athletes at age 45 or above would produce shocking results, as a majority of them (almost all) live in pain, most of it from arthritis. Even what we call good efforts (such as exercise geared toward Olympic participation) can be an excess for which we pay a high price in health damage as we get older.
Do you want to have your children live for decades in pain or as invalids or with mental disabilities in their later years because you encouraged them or allowed them to participate in activities over which you had some influence in their youth?
Teach the children. Teach them before they need to use the lessons. When it comes to emotional or psychological lessons, there is no such things as "to young to learn." Kids learn. It's what they do best. Don't keep them ignorant about anything.
Teach right, teach good, teach peace. It's what we call the Philosophy of T3.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to teach everyone life lessons before they do things that will destroy their own.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
The world owes you nothing; the rest of us do
A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."
- Stephen Crane, writer (1871-1900)
It's an artist's way of saying that just because you're here doesn't mean the world owes you anything.
It's important to note that this refers to adults, not to children. A parent owes each child a great deal as part of the responsibilities of parenthood. To adults, the world owes nothing.
We are each alone in the universe. We can pray to God, but God will not ease that aloneness without help from us.
In other words, what we make of our time on Earth depends entirely on what input we are prepared to make to craft a life for ourselves.
But some people have not participated in a childhood that provided them with the skills and knowledge they need to survive and thrive as adults. Many, in fact. It's to them that the rest of us owe an obligation to see that they get a fair try at life.
We can say that it's not our business, but neglecting to provide this human service causes us a huge financial cost and emotional expense as we cope with crime, abuse (road/workplace/home), addictions, breakdowns, divorce, or just plain miserable or unhappy people.
The world doesn't owe these people anything, but it's in our best interests as citizens of the world community to see that everyone gets what they need to live a reasonable life.
By helping others, we make our own lives better. They don't need our money so much as they need contact with us. They need those who have full lives to share with them of themselves.
Tough, ain't it? Take a big swallow and get on with it. Some people are leading pretty miserable lives. Some express misery we can see, others hide it within.
They all need your help and mine. We need each other.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to show how demonstrating our humanity to others is in everyone's best interests.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."
- Stephen Crane, writer (1871-1900)
It's an artist's way of saying that just because you're here doesn't mean the world owes you anything.
It's important to note that this refers to adults, not to children. A parent owes each child a great deal as part of the responsibilities of parenthood. To adults, the world owes nothing.
We are each alone in the universe. We can pray to God, but God will not ease that aloneness without help from us.
In other words, what we make of our time on Earth depends entirely on what input we are prepared to make to craft a life for ourselves.
But some people have not participated in a childhood that provided them with the skills and knowledge they need to survive and thrive as adults. Many, in fact. It's to them that the rest of us owe an obligation to see that they get a fair try at life.
We can say that it's not our business, but neglecting to provide this human service causes us a huge financial cost and emotional expense as we cope with crime, abuse (road/workplace/home), addictions, breakdowns, divorce, or just plain miserable or unhappy people.
The world doesn't owe these people anything, but it's in our best interests as citizens of the world community to see that everyone gets what they need to live a reasonable life.
By helping others, we make our own lives better. They don't need our money so much as they need contact with us. They need those who have full lives to share with them of themselves.
Tough, ain't it? Take a big swallow and get on with it. Some people are leading pretty miserable lives. Some express misery we can see, others hide it within.
They all need your help and mine. We need each other.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to show how demonstrating our humanity to others is in everyone's best interests.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Quick fixes don't fix much, but they may cause problems
"They can conquer who believe they can."
- Virgil, Roman poet; author of the epic poem 'Aeneid' (70-19 B.C.E.)
If you want to be fussy about it, it's more correct to say "If you believe you can't, you can't, and you never will." But that's a bit like facing the darkness and saying you can't see the light.
To conquer means to overcome. To many people overcoming something or meeting a major challenge that they cannot accomplish within a fairly short period of time causes them to conclude that the situation is hopeless.
It's not the situation that's hopeless, but the person who has not calculated a time line that is reasonable.
Thirty years from today, April 25, 2036 will be every bit as important to you as April 25 is this year. That means that you can glory in your accomplishments over the previous 30 years the same way as you would if you had achieved them today.
Thirty years from now, today's accomplishments won't mean much to you. You must continue to reach up, to strive, to grasp higher, to climb, to dare what you previously thought to be impossible. Otherwise, you will not just remain plain ordinary, but likely you will force your own world to become smaller as you age.
When you set a goal for your life, set it far enough in advance that you have time to change factors about your life and manipulate other factors so that you will be able to accomplish your goal.
Very little (maybe nothing) that is worthwhile happens in a hurry.
People who seek the quick fix for everything and can't find it take drugs, adopt various addictions, become miserable with neighbours and workmates, many even accept illnesses into their lives as means of compensation.
Worthwhile goals are not like chewing gum, with the thrill gone within minutes. They are more like the fragrance of an annual flower that forever holds the promise of something better in the future.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to set reasonable goals for making the world a better place to live by having each person convince one other at a time.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Virgil, Roman poet; author of the epic poem 'Aeneid' (70-19 B.C.E.)
If you want to be fussy about it, it's more correct to say "If you believe you can't, you can't, and you never will." But that's a bit like facing the darkness and saying you can't see the light.
To conquer means to overcome. To many people overcoming something or meeting a major challenge that they cannot accomplish within a fairly short period of time causes them to conclude that the situation is hopeless.
It's not the situation that's hopeless, but the person who has not calculated a time line that is reasonable.
Thirty years from today, April 25, 2036 will be every bit as important to you as April 25 is this year. That means that you can glory in your accomplishments over the previous 30 years the same way as you would if you had achieved them today.
Thirty years from now, today's accomplishments won't mean much to you. You must continue to reach up, to strive, to grasp higher, to climb, to dare what you previously thought to be impossible. Otherwise, you will not just remain plain ordinary, but likely you will force your own world to become smaller as you age.
When you set a goal for your life, set it far enough in advance that you have time to change factors about your life and manipulate other factors so that you will be able to accomplish your goal.
Very little (maybe nothing) that is worthwhile happens in a hurry.
People who seek the quick fix for everything and can't find it take drugs, adopt various addictions, become miserable with neighbours and workmates, many even accept illnesses into their lives as means of compensation.
Worthwhile goals are not like chewing gum, with the thrill gone within minutes. They are more like the fragrance of an annual flower that forever holds the promise of something better in the future.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to set reasonable goals for making the world a better place to live by having each person convince one other at a time.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Monday, April 24, 2006
You can help to make the world and your community better places
"Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow--it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it."
- Shakti Gawain, author of the New Age classic Creative Visualization
First off, let's establish whether or not evil and ignorance may be equated. I maintain that, in fact, they are one and the same thing.
Wherever you find something you would call evil, you will certainly find ignorance behind it. The ignorance may be on the part(s) of the perpetrator(s) or the victim(s).
How could this be?, you may ask.
The vast majority of people in any community are good, honest and hard working folks. Yes, sometimes they cross the line of honesty, but they are well within the general bounds of "good citizenship." That leaves a few who cause most (or all) of our social problems and many of our personal problems.
Rather than asking why these people cause their neighbours and families so many problems, we should ask why the majority do not. The answer is that the majority have learned the lessons associated with what we think of as good citizenship, or good friendship, or good neighbourship, or good relationship, but the minority have not.
Why not, for heaven's sake? The lessons needed to set these as ground rules for their lives were not firmly established within their first few years.
Who we are as adults is almost always set as if in stone by the time we reach age ten years, usually by age five. Any lesson that is not an integral part of a person's life by age ten may not ever become part of it. If we are not honest people by age ten, for example, it's unlikely we will ever be honest people.
If that is the case, then the obligation is on us to ensure that these lessons are taught to every child.
How do we do that? For Children age five on, we can have primary school teachers ensure that every child receives the same lessons.
Before age five, we must have courses in parenting offered to all new parents, preferably paid for by the government.
Why the government? These government will save huge amounts of tax money if they do not have to build more prisons, courts and hosptials and hire more police, prison guards and psychologists to deal with the broken people who "slipped through the cracks" of our present education systems.
Oops! Are our present education systems not foolproof and secure? Not by a long shot. That is what 'Turning It Around' was written to address.
The prisons of any country are filled with social misfits and mental hospitals and psychologists' offices filled with emotionally underdeveloped or maldeveloped people who could not cope with the rigors of their lives.
Yet no one bears the responsibility for the social and emotional development of children. We don't teach that to parents, so we have no cause to impose penalties on them for not teaching to the needs of their children.
We must shine the light on the needs of children and teach what they need. Our problems will not go away by leaving them in the shadows. They just get worse.
Complaining about how bad conditions are in our communities or families does no good. We need to spread the word about how our problems can be solved.
The solutions are available, full blown and cheap to implement, in Turning it Around.
Let's tell others that they can join us easily by reading the book and joining our group. There is no fee to join, no great commitment to make. We simply need lots of people to stand together and ask our governments to do what is needed to make all of our lives better.
If we do nothing, life conditions will only get worse.
Please ask your friends to join us.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turningitaround
Bill Allin
'Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to make a difference by bringing peace to each community and each life with them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Shakti Gawain, author of the New Age classic Creative Visualization
First off, let's establish whether or not evil and ignorance may be equated. I maintain that, in fact, they are one and the same thing.
Wherever you find something you would call evil, you will certainly find ignorance behind it. The ignorance may be on the part(s) of the perpetrator(s) or the victim(s).
How could this be?, you may ask.
The vast majority of people in any community are good, honest and hard working folks. Yes, sometimes they cross the line of honesty, but they are well within the general bounds of "good citizenship." That leaves a few who cause most (or all) of our social problems and many of our personal problems.
Rather than asking why these people cause their neighbours and families so many problems, we should ask why the majority do not. The answer is that the majority have learned the lessons associated with what we think of as good citizenship, or good friendship, or good neighbourship, or good relationship, but the minority have not.
Why not, for heaven's sake? The lessons needed to set these as ground rules for their lives were not firmly established within their first few years.
Who we are as adults is almost always set as if in stone by the time we reach age ten years, usually by age five. Any lesson that is not an integral part of a person's life by age ten may not ever become part of it. If we are not honest people by age ten, for example, it's unlikely we will ever be honest people.
If that is the case, then the obligation is on us to ensure that these lessons are taught to every child.
How do we do that? For Children age five on, we can have primary school teachers ensure that every child receives the same lessons.
Before age five, we must have courses in parenting offered to all new parents, preferably paid for by the government.
Why the government? These government will save huge amounts of tax money if they do not have to build more prisons, courts and hosptials and hire more police, prison guards and psychologists to deal with the broken people who "slipped through the cracks" of our present education systems.
Oops! Are our present education systems not foolproof and secure? Not by a long shot. That is what 'Turning It Around' was written to address.
The prisons of any country are filled with social misfits and mental hospitals and psychologists' offices filled with emotionally underdeveloped or maldeveloped people who could not cope with the rigors of their lives.
Yet no one bears the responsibility for the social and emotional development of children. We don't teach that to parents, so we have no cause to impose penalties on them for not teaching to the needs of their children.
We must shine the light on the needs of children and teach what they need. Our problems will not go away by leaving them in the shadows. They just get worse.
Complaining about how bad conditions are in our communities or families does no good. We need to spread the word about how our problems can be solved.
The solutions are available, full blown and cheap to implement, in Turning it Around.
Let's tell others that they can join us easily by reading the book and joining our group. There is no fee to join, no great commitment to make. We simply need lots of people to stand together and ask our governments to do what is needed to make all of our lives better.
If we do nothing, life conditions will only get worse.
Please ask your friends to join us.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turningitaround
Bill Allin
'Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to make a difference by bringing peace to each community and each life with them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
You can help to make the world and your community better places
"Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow--it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it."
- Shakti Gawain, author of the New Age classic Creative Visualization
First off, let's establish whether or not evil and ignorance may be equated. I maintain that, in fact, they are one and the same thing.
Wherever you find something you would call evil, you will certainly find ignorance behind it. The ignorance may be on the part(s) of the perpetrator(s) or the victim(s).
How could this be?, you may ask.
The vast majority of people in any community are good, honest and hard working folks. Yes, sometimes they cross the line of honesty, but they are well within the general bounds of "good citizenship." That leaves a few who cause most (or all) of our social problems and many of our personal problems.
Rather than asking why these people cause their neighbours and families so many problems, we should ask why the majority do not. The answer is that the majority have learned the lessons associated with what we think of as good citizenship, or good friendship, or good neighbourship, or good relationship, but the minority have not.
Why not, for heaven's sake? The lessons needed to set these as ground rules for their lives were not firmly established within their first few years.
Who we are as adults is almost always set as if in stone by the time we reach age ten years, usually by age five. Any lesson that is not an integral part of a person's life by age ten may not ever become part of it. If we are not honest people by age ten, for example, it's unlikely we will ever be honest people.
If that is the case, then the obligation is on us to ensure that these lessons are taught to every child.
How do we do that? For Children age five on, we can have primary school teachers ensure that every child receives the same lessons.
Before age five, we must have courses in parenting offered to all new parents, preferably paid for by the government.
Why the government? These government will save huge amounts of tax money if they do not have to build more prisons, courts and hosptials and hire more police, prison guards and psychologists to deal with the broken people who "slipped through the cracks" of our present education systems.
Oops! Are our present education systems not foolproof and secure? Not by a long shot. That is what 'Turning It Around' was written to address.
The prisons of any country are filled with social misfits and mental hospitals and psychologists' offices filled with emotionally underdeveloped or maldeveloped people who could not cope with the rigors of their lives.
Yet no one bears the responsibility for the social and emotional development of children. We don't teach that to parents, so we have no cause to impose penalties on them for not teaching to the needs of their children.
We must shine the light on the needs of children and teach what they need. Our problems will not go away by leaving them in the shadows. They just get worse.
Complaining about how bad conditions are in our communities or families does no good. We need to spread the word about how our problems can be solved.
The solutions are available, full blown and cheap to implement, in Turning it Around.
Let's tell others that they can join us easily by reading the book and joining our group. There is no fee to join, no great commitment to make. We simply need lots of people to stand together and ask our governments to do what is needed to make all of our lives better.
If we do nothing, life conditions will only get worse.
Please ask your friends to join us.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turningitaround
Bill Allin
'Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to make a difference by bringing peace to each community and each life with them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Shakti Gawain, author of the New Age classic Creative Visualization
First off, let's establish whether or not evil and ignorance may be equated. I maintain that, in fact, they are one and the same thing.
Wherever you find something you would call evil, you will certainly find ignorance behind it. The ignorance may be on the part(s) of the perpetrator(s) or the victim(s).
How could this be?, you may ask.
The vast majority of people in any community are good, honest and hard working folks. Yes, sometimes they cross the line of honesty, but they are well within the general bounds of "good citizenship." That leaves a few who cause most (or all) of our social problems and many of our personal problems.
Rather than asking why these people cause their neighbours and families so many problems, we should ask why the majority do not. The answer is that the majority have learned the lessons associated with what we think of as good citizenship, or good friendship, or good neighbourship, or good relationship, but the minority have not.
Why not, for heaven's sake? The lessons needed to set these as ground rules for their lives were not firmly established within their first few years.
Who we are as adults is almost always set as if in stone by the time we reach age ten years, usually by age five. Any lesson that is not an integral part of a person's life by age ten may not ever become part of it. If we are not honest people by age ten, for example, it's unlikely we will ever be honest people.
If that is the case, then the obligation is on us to ensure that these lessons are taught to every child.
How do we do that? For Children age five on, we can have primary school teachers ensure that every child receives the same lessons.
Before age five, we must have courses in parenting offered to all new parents, preferably paid for by the government.
Why the government? These government will save huge amounts of tax money if they do not have to build more prisons, courts and hosptials and hire more police, prison guards and psychologists to deal with the broken people who "slipped through the cracks" of our present education systems.
Oops! Are our present education systems not foolproof and secure? Not by a long shot. That is what 'Turning It Around' was written to address.
The prisons of any country are filled with social misfits and mental hospitals and psychologists' offices filled with emotionally underdeveloped or maldeveloped people who could not cope with the rigors of their lives.
Yet no one bears the responsibility for the social and emotional development of children. We don't teach that to parents, so we have no cause to impose penalties on them for not teaching to the needs of their children.
We must shine the light on the needs of children and teach what they need. Our problems will not go away by leaving them in the shadows. They just get worse.
Complaining about how bad conditions are in our communities or families does no good. We need to spread the word about how our problems can be solved.
The solutions are available, full blown and cheap to implement, in Turning it Around.
Let's tell others that they can join us easily by reading the book and joining our group. There is no fee to join, no great commitment to make. We simply need lots of people to stand together and ask our governments to do what is needed to make all of our lives better.
If we do nothing, life conditions will only get worse.
Please ask your friends to join us.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turningitaround
Bill Allin
'Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to make a difference by bringing peace to each community and each life with them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
You can help make the world and your community better places
"Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow--it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it."
- Shakti Gawain, author of the New Age classic Creative Visualization
First off, let's establish whether or not evil and ignorance may be equated. I maintain that, in fact, they are one and the same thing.
Wherever you find something you would call evil, you will certainly find ignorance behind it. The ignorance may be on the part(s) of the perpetrator(s) or the victim(s).
How could this be?, you may ask.
The vast majority of people in any community are good, honest and hard working folks. Yes, sometimes they cross the line of honesty, but they are well within the general bounds of "good citizenship." That leaves a few who cause most (or all) of our social problems and many of our personal problems.
Rather than asking why these people cause their neighbours and families so many problems, we should ask why the majority do not. The answer is that the majority have learned the lessons associated with what we think of as good citizenship, or good friendship, or good neighbourship, or good relationship, but the minority have not.
Why not, for heaven's sake? The lessons needed to set these as ground rules for their lives were not firmly established within their first few years.
Who we are as adults is almost always set as if in stone by the time we reach age ten years, usually by age five. Any lesson that is not an integral part of a person's life by age ten may not ever become part of it. If we are not honest people by age ten, for example, it's unlikely we will ever be honest people.
If that is the case, then the obligation is on us to ensure that these lessons are taught to every child.
How do we do that? For Children age five on, we can have primary school teachers ensure that every child receives the same lessons.
Before age five, we must have courses in parenting offered to all new parents, preferably paid for by the government.
Why the government? These government will save huge amounts of tax money if they do not have to build more prisons, courts and hosptials and hire more police, prison guards and psychologists to deal with the broken people who "slipped through the cracks" of our present education systems.
Oops! Are our present education systems not foolproof and secure? Not by a long shot. That is what 'Turning It Around' was written to address.
The prisons of any country are filled with social misfits and mental hospitals and psychologists' offices filled with emotionally underdeveloped or maldeveloped people who could not cope with the rigors of their lives.
Yet no one bears the responsibility for the social and emotional development of children. We don't teach that to parents, so we have no cause to impose penalties on them for not teaching to the needs of their children.
We must shine the light on the needs of children and teach what they need. Our problems will not go away by leaving them in the shadows. They just get worse.
Complaining about how bad conditions are in our communities or families does no good. We need to spread the word about how our problems can be solved.
The solutions are available, full blown and cheap to implement, in Turning it Around.
Let's tell others that they can join us easily by reading the book and joining our group. There is no fee to join, no great commitment to make. We simply need lots of people to stand together and ask our governments to do what is needed to make all of our lives better.
If we do nothing, life conditions will only get worse.
Please ask your friends to join us.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turningitaround
Bill Allin
'Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to make a difference by bringing peace to each community and each life with them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Shakti Gawain, author of the New Age classic Creative Visualization
First off, let's establish whether or not evil and ignorance may be equated. I maintain that, in fact, they are one and the same thing.
Wherever you find something you would call evil, you will certainly find ignorance behind it. The ignorance may be on the part(s) of the perpetrator(s) or the victim(s).
How could this be?, you may ask.
The vast majority of people in any community are good, honest and hard working folks. Yes, sometimes they cross the line of honesty, but they are well within the general bounds of "good citizenship." That leaves a few who cause most (or all) of our social problems and many of our personal problems.
Rather than asking why these people cause their neighbours and families so many problems, we should ask why the majority do not. The answer is that the majority have learned the lessons associated with what we think of as good citizenship, or good friendship, or good neighbourship, or good relationship, but the minority have not.
Why not, for heaven's sake? The lessons needed to set these as ground rules for their lives were not firmly established within their first few years.
Who we are as adults is almost always set as if in stone by the time we reach age ten years, usually by age five. Any lesson that is not an integral part of a person's life by age ten may not ever become part of it. If we are not honest people by age ten, for example, it's unlikely we will ever be honest people.
If that is the case, then the obligation is on us to ensure that these lessons are taught to every child.
How do we do that? For Children age five on, we can have primary school teachers ensure that every child receives the same lessons.
Before age five, we must have courses in parenting offered to all new parents, preferably paid for by the government.
Why the government? These government will save huge amounts of tax money if they do not have to build more prisons, courts and hosptials and hire more police, prison guards and psychologists to deal with the broken people who "slipped through the cracks" of our present education systems.
Oops! Are our present education systems not foolproof and secure? Not by a long shot. That is what 'Turning It Around' was written to address.
The prisons of any country are filled with social misfits and mental hospitals and psychologists' offices filled with emotionally underdeveloped or maldeveloped people who could not cope with the rigors of their lives.
Yet no one bears the responsibility for the social and emotional development of children. We don't teach that to parents, so we have no cause to impose penalties on them for not teaching to the needs of their children.
We must shine the light on the needs of children and teach what they need. Our problems will not go away by leaving them in the shadows. They just get worse.
Complaining about how bad conditions are in our communities or families does no good. We need to spread the word about how our problems can be solved.
The solutions are available, full blown and cheap to implement, in Turning it Around.
Let's tell others that they can join us easily by reading the book and joining our group. There is no fee to join, no great commitment to make. We simply need lots of people to stand together and ask our governments to do what is needed to make all of our lives better.
If we do nothing, life conditions will only get worse.
Please ask your friends to join us.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turningitaround
Bill Allin
'Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to make a difference by bringing peace to each community and each life with them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Will today's problems ever go away?
"You'll never find a better sparring partner than adversity."
- Walt Schmidt
The allusion to the sport of boxing is clear, to win you must overcome the adversities you face.
Most of us would like to have fewer problems in life. Why should we have to face so many?
Why can't people just do what they should do, what they promise to do, what we pay them to do? Why do machines have to break down so often? Why do so many situations have to become awkward?
The answer is: that's life.
Just as there would be no such thing as business if people didn't have problems they couldn't sort out themselves, we can't have a life unless we face and overcome problems. That's what life is. Without problems there would be no life.
We know we must accept that fact that change is inevitable. We also must accept the fact that problems are inevitable. Without problems, animal life on this planet would never have progressed past the bacteria stage.
Once we accept that problems and life are one and the same, our own problems of the day seem less critical.
So long as we will wake up tomorrow morning, today's problems can't be as bad as we might make them out to be.
Life will go on. Our lives will go on. Eventually, all our present problems will be nothing more than memories.
Whether we fuss needlessly over our problems or proceed to find solutions to them in an orderly fashion, they will eventually become parts of our history.
Unless, of course, we force them to remain with us. Some problems of today could have become history if we had acted differently in the past. Look at the condition of your own country, your community or your family, for example.
If hindsight can be 20/20, as the saying goes, then we can use foresight to consider possible solutions to our problems today. It's the same thing, only putting it to use sooner.
Just get on with it. Then the problems of today will be in the past. Eventually.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help you make today's problems part of your personal history.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Walt Schmidt
The allusion to the sport of boxing is clear, to win you must overcome the adversities you face.
Most of us would like to have fewer problems in life. Why should we have to face so many?
Why can't people just do what they should do, what they promise to do, what we pay them to do? Why do machines have to break down so often? Why do so many situations have to become awkward?
The answer is: that's life.
Just as there would be no such thing as business if people didn't have problems they couldn't sort out themselves, we can't have a life unless we face and overcome problems. That's what life is. Without problems there would be no life.
We know we must accept that fact that change is inevitable. We also must accept the fact that problems are inevitable. Without problems, animal life on this planet would never have progressed past the bacteria stage.
Once we accept that problems and life are one and the same, our own problems of the day seem less critical.
So long as we will wake up tomorrow morning, today's problems can't be as bad as we might make them out to be.
Life will go on. Our lives will go on. Eventually, all our present problems will be nothing more than memories.
Whether we fuss needlessly over our problems or proceed to find solutions to them in an orderly fashion, they will eventually become parts of our history.
Unless, of course, we force them to remain with us. Some problems of today could have become history if we had acted differently in the past. Look at the condition of your own country, your community or your family, for example.
If hindsight can be 20/20, as the saying goes, then we can use foresight to consider possible solutions to our problems today. It's the same thing, only putting it to use sooner.
Just get on with it. Then the problems of today will be in the past. Eventually.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help you make today's problems part of your personal history.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Changing the world is one decision away
"Children must be taught how to think, not what to think."
- Margaret Mead
This is different from the primary purpose of TIA, which is to teach the children. Social change can only, must always, come through the teaching of children. Adults are too old to change their thinking radically about matters at the community level. They can, however, if they have sufficient numbers, ask their educators to teach their children the new ways.
Margaret Mead, of whom I am one of a great many admirers, was not accurate with the wording of what became today's quote. Until now we have taught children what to *believe*, not what to think. We cannot teach *what* to think because thinking is a process, not an objective.
How, then can we teach children how to think? This is not difficult, except for the fact that their teachers have been taught to not think and also what to believe, as have the leaders of education boards and ministries that set education standards and objectives.
Can a teacher who does not have a skill herself teach children that skill?
Ironically, yes. If the teacher knows how to go about the process of teaching thinking skills to children, the children will learn even if the teacher cannot fully appreciate what they have accomplished.
In my first year of classroom teaching, I was given what was called an enrichment class, now commonly known as a gifted class. The kids were bright, social misfits in their previous classes and sometimes behaviour problems as a result.
I didn't know how to think myself. I didn't even know what to teach because I was given free reign and no curriculum. So I devised project objectives that would interest the kids, challenge their intellect and develop skills I thought that every adult should have.
It was a winner of a class, my most outstanding year as a teacher, because the kids went far beyond expectations as neither they nor I had any guideposts to tell us where they should be by the end of the school year.
The next year I crashed because I was not given that class and the ugly reality of education establishment settled on my head like a tombstone.
In my third year of teaching, I switched to science, which opened more possibilities to give kids the opportunity to learn to think.
I was a mediocre teacher, but an excellent educator. A teacher teaches specific facts and skills from a curriculum. An educator teachs children how to survive and thrive in the world of adults.
Kids want to know how to be good adults. When we don't teach them what they need and want, we end up with consequences like we have in the world today.
Change is a simple decision away. Help me gain enough support to have the powers that be make that decision. They are just looking for guidance from us.
They will switch as soon as they believe we want change. We need enough of us to know the needed changes before we can recommend them.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to build enough support to make the simple change that will make the whole world a better place to live.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Margaret Mead
This is different from the primary purpose of TIA, which is to teach the children. Social change can only, must always, come through the teaching of children. Adults are too old to change their thinking radically about matters at the community level. They can, however, if they have sufficient numbers, ask their educators to teach their children the new ways.
Margaret Mead, of whom I am one of a great many admirers, was not accurate with the wording of what became today's quote. Until now we have taught children what to *believe*, not what to think. We cannot teach *what* to think because thinking is a process, not an objective.
How, then can we teach children how to think? This is not difficult, except for the fact that their teachers have been taught to not think and also what to believe, as have the leaders of education boards and ministries that set education standards and objectives.
Can a teacher who does not have a skill herself teach children that skill?
Ironically, yes. If the teacher knows how to go about the process of teaching thinking skills to children, the children will learn even if the teacher cannot fully appreciate what they have accomplished.
In my first year of classroom teaching, I was given what was called an enrichment class, now commonly known as a gifted class. The kids were bright, social misfits in their previous classes and sometimes behaviour problems as a result.
I didn't know how to think myself. I didn't even know what to teach because I was given free reign and no curriculum. So I devised project objectives that would interest the kids, challenge their intellect and develop skills I thought that every adult should have.
It was a winner of a class, my most outstanding year as a teacher, because the kids went far beyond expectations as neither they nor I had any guideposts to tell us where they should be by the end of the school year.
The next year I crashed because I was not given that class and the ugly reality of education establishment settled on my head like a tombstone.
In my third year of teaching, I switched to science, which opened more possibilities to give kids the opportunity to learn to think.
I was a mediocre teacher, but an excellent educator. A teacher teaches specific facts and skills from a curriculum. An educator teachs children how to survive and thrive in the world of adults.
Kids want to know how to be good adults. When we don't teach them what they need and want, we end up with consequences like we have in the world today.
Change is a simple decision away. Help me gain enough support to have the powers that be make that decision. They are just looking for guidance from us.
They will switch as soon as they believe we want change. We need enough of us to know the needed changes before we can recommend them.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to build enough support to make the simple change that will make the whole world a better place to live.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Friday, April 21, 2006
Fear is a waste of life energy
The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.
- Chinese proverb
I like proverbs because they truly represent the collected wisdom of the ages.
In this case, the reference is to physical violence (as opposed to psychological abuse, which I consider also to be violence).
Violence has been built into us since before we became a distinct species called homo sapiens. It helped our ancestors to defend themselves against violent attacks by predators and enemies and to capture their own prey for food. This kind of violence is common to all living things, even plants, in one form or another.
However, humans have taken violence to a different level. Though other animals kill for power and personal gain, humans do so to excess. We seem to have no switch we can turn off when we have sufficient for our needs (plus a bit more as a contingency). Some of us constantly fight for bigger kingdoms.
This is the point where we rise above other mammals, where we become civilized, or where we consciously allow ourselves to descend to a lower level than the other animals.
In order for us to become more peaceful, more civilized, we must be our brother's keeper, we must mind more than our own business. We must think of the welfare of our communities, of our countries, of our species as a whole, maybe even above our own welfare.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, according to Vulcan philosophy (Spock's Vulcans of Star Trek fame). Sometimes the needs of our community (whatever size we may choose that to be) are more important than our personal needs.
True, some will take advantage of that, as we see in nations where leaders have turned their ignorant citizens into passive followers who accept fear as a rationale for violence against others. That simply means that we must also take care to prevent our leaders from going to excesses. That, too, is our community responsibility. We must insist on a balance.
What will we do when there seem to be no alternatives, when conflict appears inevitable?
Think again. To admit, as the proverb says, that our ideas have given out is to admit failure. Who has the right to use violence as a course of action when their reason has failed? When does failure to think of alternatives give anyone the right to kill or harm others?
Violence is an easy choice if the objective is to increase power. If the objective is to gain ground by climbing over rubble, then violence is the easiest choice.
If the objective is to build, to create something new and better, then violence is the absolute wrong way to go. Violence is destructive in every way. Nothing can be built with violence.
If we care about this, then we must spread the word to others. Keeping quiet about it and nodding our heads in agreement accomplishes nothing. When we learn, we have the obligation to teach others. If we do not teach others, then we have wasted what we have learned.
That's what TIA is about. The world will become peaceful when we all learn how to build together.
We build nothing so long as we all fear each other. Fear is a waste of life energy.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to bring peace to the world by using the human grapevine.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Chinese proverb
I like proverbs because they truly represent the collected wisdom of the ages.
In this case, the reference is to physical violence (as opposed to psychological abuse, which I consider also to be violence).
Violence has been built into us since before we became a distinct species called homo sapiens. It helped our ancestors to defend themselves against violent attacks by predators and enemies and to capture their own prey for food. This kind of violence is common to all living things, even plants, in one form or another.
However, humans have taken violence to a different level. Though other animals kill for power and personal gain, humans do so to excess. We seem to have no switch we can turn off when we have sufficient for our needs (plus a bit more as a contingency). Some of us constantly fight for bigger kingdoms.
This is the point where we rise above other mammals, where we become civilized, or where we consciously allow ourselves to descend to a lower level than the other animals.
In order for us to become more peaceful, more civilized, we must be our brother's keeper, we must mind more than our own business. We must think of the welfare of our communities, of our countries, of our species as a whole, maybe even above our own welfare.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, according to Vulcan philosophy (Spock's Vulcans of Star Trek fame). Sometimes the needs of our community (whatever size we may choose that to be) are more important than our personal needs.
True, some will take advantage of that, as we see in nations where leaders have turned their ignorant citizens into passive followers who accept fear as a rationale for violence against others. That simply means that we must also take care to prevent our leaders from going to excesses. That, too, is our community responsibility. We must insist on a balance.
What will we do when there seem to be no alternatives, when conflict appears inevitable?
Think again. To admit, as the proverb says, that our ideas have given out is to admit failure. Who has the right to use violence as a course of action when their reason has failed? When does failure to think of alternatives give anyone the right to kill or harm others?
Violence is an easy choice if the objective is to increase power. If the objective is to gain ground by climbing over rubble, then violence is the easiest choice.
If the objective is to build, to create something new and better, then violence is the absolute wrong way to go. Violence is destructive in every way. Nothing can be built with violence.
If we care about this, then we must spread the word to others. Keeping quiet about it and nodding our heads in agreement accomplishes nothing. When we learn, we have the obligation to teach others. If we do not teach others, then we have wasted what we have learned.
That's what TIA is about. The world will become peaceful when we all learn how to build together.
We build nothing so long as we all fear each other. Fear is a waste of life energy.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to bring peace to the world by using the human grapevine.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Money is God--to some people anyway
"A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart."
- Jonathan Swift, English satirist born in Ireland (1667
Money is a means of acquiring what you need in life because you cannot exchange your work for stuff all the time. In the modern world where not everyone grows, hunts or builds everything they need to survive, money is necessary.
So is a can opener, if you get your food in cans (aka "tins"). But no one worships can openers.
People, in effect, worship money because they have been taught that money is the most important thing in life. Children are taught to study hard and get good marks in school so they can get a good job as adults. And what is "a good job" to these parents? One that pays well. The parents make that clear through their actions, if not in spoken words.
If everything you obtain you must buy and when you have something to give away you don't think to offer it to a friend first, then you have been brainwashed to believe that money is a kind of god.
It ain't necessarily so.
When money is the most important thing in your life, it seems that you can't do anything without money, you can't enjoy life or be happy without money.
People for whom money is the most important thing don't know how to change. In most cases, they don't know what real friends are, so they can't do what real friends do together. Their "friends" are their workmates, their drinking buddies, fellow churchgoers or neighbours. If they move or change jobs, their friends change. If they declare bankruptcy, they become friendless.
Money is in their hearts. To such people, saying that love should be in their hearts would make them laugh. They don't have love and don't know how to get it. They are very insistent and vocal that money IS the most important thing in life and that anyone who doesn't believe it is crazy or stupid.
They, sad to say, are the crazy/stupid ones. Their lives are directed by industries who continually praise the Money God.
There are more important things in life. Try to find friends who believe this. They are real treasure in your life.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to put life in perspective.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Jonathan Swift, English satirist born in Ireland (1667
Money is a means of acquiring what you need in life because you cannot exchange your work for stuff all the time. In the modern world where not everyone grows, hunts or builds everything they need to survive, money is necessary.
So is a can opener, if you get your food in cans (aka "tins"). But no one worships can openers.
People, in effect, worship money because they have been taught that money is the most important thing in life. Children are taught to study hard and get good marks in school so they can get a good job as adults. And what is "a good job" to these parents? One that pays well. The parents make that clear through their actions, if not in spoken words.
If everything you obtain you must buy and when you have something to give away you don't think to offer it to a friend first, then you have been brainwashed to believe that money is a kind of god.
It ain't necessarily so.
When money is the most important thing in your life, it seems that you can't do anything without money, you can't enjoy life or be happy without money.
People for whom money is the most important thing don't know how to change. In most cases, they don't know what real friends are, so they can't do what real friends do together. Their "friends" are their workmates, their drinking buddies, fellow churchgoers or neighbours. If they move or change jobs, their friends change. If they declare bankruptcy, they become friendless.
Money is in their hearts. To such people, saying that love should be in their hearts would make them laugh. They don't have love and don't know how to get it. They are very insistent and vocal that money IS the most important thing in life and that anyone who doesn't believe it is crazy or stupid.
They, sad to say, are the crazy/stupid ones. Their lives are directed by industries who continually praise the Money God.
There are more important things in life. Try to find friends who believe this. They are real treasure in your life.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to put life in perspective.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
We are what we do, not what we say
Good deeds are the best prayer.
- Serbian proverb
Why would we pray with words to a God that knows everything already? The reason could only be to sort through our thoughts so that we know what we want to believe.
If we believe in an omnicient God, it would make sense that he would know not just what we want to say to him, but what we need and hope for as well.
When we pray to God, it's usually the case where we want God to do something. We don't expect God to speak back to us. We expect (or hope) that God will act as his way of responding to our requests.
Why, then, would we not act ourselves instead of speaking in words? If God speaks in deeds and we want to be like God, then it would make sense to act in the way we expect God to act. That's the Golden Rule, which has versions in many cultures and goes back at least to Confucius.
We pray by what we do, not by what we say.
We live a rich life by giving to others of ourselves, not by taking as much as we can get. Only a fool would equate money or good words with a good deed. Money or good words are cheap substitutes, at best.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to get us allo heading in the same direction.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Serbian proverb
Why would we pray with words to a God that knows everything already? The reason could only be to sort through our thoughts so that we know what we want to believe.
If we believe in an omnicient God, it would make sense that he would know not just what we want to say to him, but what we need and hope for as well.
When we pray to God, it's usually the case where we want God to do something. We don't expect God to speak back to us. We expect (or hope) that God will act as his way of responding to our requests.
Why, then, would we not act ourselves instead of speaking in words? If God speaks in deeds and we want to be like God, then it would make sense to act in the way we expect God to act. That's the Golden Rule, which has versions in many cultures and goes back at least to Confucius.
We pray by what we do, not by what we say.
We live a rich life by giving to others of ourselves, not by taking as much as we can get. Only a fool would equate money or good words with a good deed. Money or good words are cheap substitutes, at best.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to get us allo heading in the same direction.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Tomorrow may be too late--for everything!
Do it now.
Don't leave it until tomorrow, or "later."
There may be no tomorrow. You don't know for certain there will be a
tomorrow. No one does. Maybe you, maybe another close to you will not
be around tomorrow. That's how life works.
If you postpone doing something now, you may secretly be wanting
someone else to do it?
Am I wrong? Then prove it. Do it now.
If "it" is telling someone you love them and you are relating tha to
this message, then you are really off base. You should be doing that
every day.
Tell those you love that you love them and give them a hug several
times a day.
Don't have time for that?
I'll bet you will find time at their funeral.
And they will find time at yours.
Stop with the excuses to which you (and all of us) are so completely
devoted. Excuses don't get anything done. If everyone gave excuses,
nothing would happen. Life itself would have to be put on hold, which
means it would cease to exist.
Others before you did what needed to be done when it was needed.
So you should ... do it now!
Oh, by the way, I love you all. Have I told you that lately? Sorry, I
have been really busy. Very busy every day.
So, how did you like my excuse? Pretty lame, wasn't it? That's what
others think of your excuses.
So you should ... that's right ... do it now!
Bill Allin
http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Don't leave it until tomorrow, or "later."
There may be no tomorrow. You don't know for certain there will be a
tomorrow. No one does. Maybe you, maybe another close to you will not
be around tomorrow. That's how life works.
If you postpone doing something now, you may secretly be wanting
someone else to do it?
Am I wrong? Then prove it. Do it now.
If "it" is telling someone you love them and you are relating tha to
this message, then you are really off base. You should be doing that
every day.
Tell those you love that you love them and give them a hug several
times a day.
Don't have time for that?
I'll bet you will find time at their funeral.
And they will find time at yours.
Stop with the excuses to which you (and all of us) are so completely
devoted. Excuses don't get anything done. If everyone gave excuses,
nothing would happen. Life itself would have to be put on hold, which
means it would cease to exist.
Others before you did what needed to be done when it was needed.
So you should ... do it now!
Oh, by the way, I love you all. Have I told you that lately? Sorry, I
have been really busy. Very busy every day.
So, how did you like my excuse? Pretty lame, wasn't it? That's what
others think of your excuses.
So you should ... that's right ... do it now!
Bill Allin
http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Can you see the light?
"Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy."
- Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl, 1952
The book "Diary of a Young Girl" was published in 1952. It was written during the Second World War when Anne Frank and her family, being Jewish, were in hiding, hunted by the Nazis.
The words quoted were written by a girl in her early teens who was holed up in a dark attic almost all of every day, often not seeing daylight for days at a time.
It's a tribute to her insight into the meaning of life that she was able to find the good amongst so much misery and devastation.
It's also wise of us to consider her words as they apply to our own lives. We are not likely to ever experience living conditions as bad as Anne Frank and her family suffered. Yet if we do not adopt the attitude she had, we will not be able to see the beauty and feel the happiness of life that she had.
Anne Frank died shortly before the Netherlands was liberated in 1945. She never got to see the light of day the way we do every day for most of the three years in which she and her family were in hiding to avoid capture.
We would all do well to see the light each day. We can see with our eyes what Anne Frank could see with her mind.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to get us all pointed toward the light.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl, 1952
The book "Diary of a Young Girl" was published in 1952. It was written during the Second World War when Anne Frank and her family, being Jewish, were in hiding, hunted by the Nazis.
The words quoted were written by a girl in her early teens who was holed up in a dark attic almost all of every day, often not seeing daylight for days at a time.
It's a tribute to her insight into the meaning of life that she was able to find the good amongst so much misery and devastation.
It's also wise of us to consider her words as they apply to our own lives. We are not likely to ever experience living conditions as bad as Anne Frank and her family suffered. Yet if we do not adopt the attitude she had, we will not be able to see the beauty and feel the happiness of life that she had.
Anne Frank died shortly before the Netherlands was liberated in 1945. She never got to see the light of day the way we do every day for most of the three years in which she and her family were in hiding to avoid capture.
We would all do well to see the light each day. We can see with our eyes what Anne Frank could see with her mind.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to get us all pointed toward the light.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Monday, April 17, 2006
Do you want to be excellent or common?
"We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands upon himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself."
- Jose Ortega y Gasset
Who wants to be an excellent man?
There's so much more company with the common ones.
Of course, they lead pathetically mundane and directionless lives. But there's so much company!
Come to think of it, most of that company is grumpy a good deal of the time because they don't know what to do with their lives.
They don't put any demands on themselves so they don't know what to do or even what direction to go.
I think I'll sweat it out trying to be excellent.
Bill Allin
Turning It Aroun: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving for excellence and encouraging you to do so as well.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Jose Ortega y Gasset
Who wants to be an excellent man?
There's so much more company with the common ones.
Of course, they lead pathetically mundane and directionless lives. But there's so much company!
Come to think of it, most of that company is grumpy a good deal of the time because they don't know what to do with their lives.
They don't put any demands on themselves so they don't know what to do or even what direction to go.
I think I'll sweat it out trying to be excellent.
Bill Allin
Turning It Aroun: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving for excellence and encouraging you to do so as well.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Sunday, April 16, 2006
One way to have peace of mind
I always prefer to believe the best of everybody - it saves so much trouble.
- Rudyard Kipling
When we believe the best of everyone, that involves two things. First is the fact that we believe what the person says and what others say about him. This can be risky because either might be false.
Second suggests that if we believe the best of someone we will trust them. Trust has its own widely documented risks.
However, when the risks are not high or obvious, there is a peace within ourselves where we don't have to worry about others. This inner peace can mean a great deal in an otherwise hectic life.
The alternative, where we believe the worst about people or don't trust them, puts us in the position of always being wary of everyone, of not trusting anyone, of constantly feeling the need to be on our guard.
Do the arithmetic. Having peace of mind most of the time versus having peace of mind none of the time.
If we are not prepared to allow disappointments by others to shove us into despair or cause us lasting heartache, then trusting people and believing the best of them is by far the better alternative.
We can make a conscious decision to make our lives more peaceful if we set our minds to living in this fashion.
Hey! It's hard. But so are lots of other things we manage to get through.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to show you how to ease the burdens of your mind.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Rudyard Kipling
When we believe the best of everyone, that involves two things. First is the fact that we believe what the person says and what others say about him. This can be risky because either might be false.
Second suggests that if we believe the best of someone we will trust them. Trust has its own widely documented risks.
However, when the risks are not high or obvious, there is a peace within ourselves where we don't have to worry about others. This inner peace can mean a great deal in an otherwise hectic life.
The alternative, where we believe the worst about people or don't trust them, puts us in the position of always being wary of everyone, of not trusting anyone, of constantly feeling the need to be on our guard.
Do the arithmetic. Having peace of mind most of the time versus having peace of mind none of the time.
If we are not prepared to allow disappointments by others to shove us into despair or cause us lasting heartache, then trusting people and believing the best of them is by far the better alternative.
We can make a conscious decision to make our lives more peaceful if we set our minds to living in this fashion.
Hey! It's hard. But so are lots of other things we manage to get through.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to show you how to ease the burdens of your mind.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Where does your ladder of life take you?
The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.
- Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist and writer (1825-1995)
Moving on a ladder is a good analogy for life. No one (except a Peeping Tom) stands still on a ladder.
The entire purpose of a ladder is to get us to a higher level than we were before so that we can do things we have not done before. True, we may descend the ladder later, but that is only when our mission is complete.
There are those who use a ladder for a purpose that involves going down, such as the repair of a well. But, again, they resume their original place once their mission is complete, having accomplished something in the interim.
Some people use life like a ladder going down, but they never come up. Surely I don't need to cite examples as they are around us too frequently. For these people, life is self destructive. Eventually their world becomes so small that they don't want to have much to do with anything outside their own homes. For them, loneliness is the inevitable end of the road.
Others use their life ladder to climb up, and up, and up, but don't pay sufficient attention to where they are going. They assume (following the propaganda line pitched to them by industries) that anything that goes up is good.
Well, it isn't. I don't know a single executive who is truly happy. They make lots of money, but they spend it (or invest it for an unspecified future) as quickly as it comes in. For them, money has become the objective. It doesn't matter much where they must go to get it, so long as they continue to make more of it.
They don't know how to be happy, though they convince themselves that they are happy being rich. Fair enough, but they miss out on much of what life is about.
Life is not about the work you do for others. It's about the work you do for yourself that benefits others. Any work you do just for yourself makes you too selfish to enjoy it. It must help others to get the most satisfaction out of it.
If you can make the distinction, you are happy, or on the road to it.
If not, best of luck on that ladder.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help you get the top of your ladder where you want to go.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist and writer (1825-1995)
Moving on a ladder is a good analogy for life. No one (except a Peeping Tom) stands still on a ladder.
The entire purpose of a ladder is to get us to a higher level than we were before so that we can do things we have not done before. True, we may descend the ladder later, but that is only when our mission is complete.
There are those who use a ladder for a purpose that involves going down, such as the repair of a well. But, again, they resume their original place once their mission is complete, having accomplished something in the interim.
Some people use life like a ladder going down, but they never come up. Surely I don't need to cite examples as they are around us too frequently. For these people, life is self destructive. Eventually their world becomes so small that they don't want to have much to do with anything outside their own homes. For them, loneliness is the inevitable end of the road.
Others use their life ladder to climb up, and up, and up, but don't pay sufficient attention to where they are going. They assume (following the propaganda line pitched to them by industries) that anything that goes up is good.
Well, it isn't. I don't know a single executive who is truly happy. They make lots of money, but they spend it (or invest it for an unspecified future) as quickly as it comes in. For them, money has become the objective. It doesn't matter much where they must go to get it, so long as they continue to make more of it.
They don't know how to be happy, though they convince themselves that they are happy being rich. Fair enough, but they miss out on much of what life is about.
Life is not about the work you do for others. It's about the work you do for yourself that benefits others. Any work you do just for yourself makes you too selfish to enjoy it. It must help others to get the most satisfaction out of it.
If you can make the distinction, you are happy, or on the road to it.
If not, best of luck on that ladder.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help you get the top of your ladder where you want to go.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Friday, April 14, 2006
Can you possibly reach perfection?
"A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials."
- Seneca, Roman philosopher, circa 4 BC - 65 AD
The assumption Seneca makes is that each person desires to be perfect.
Is that realistic? Do you want to be perfect? Maybe not, it would be a lonely place to be.
Let's look again at what he said. "Nor a man perfected without trials." He didn't say that each of us should be perfect. He said that each of us should strive toward perfection, toward the fulfillment of the potential with which we were born and to which we are destined (if we work towards it).
No one who leads a life of crime or of what is generally considered to be sin will ever reach his full potential. Such a person may stretch a little, but they all break eventually.
The only way to strive toward perfection is to work positively on fulfilling your potential. Yes, there are restrictions, but anyone who wants to improve themselves will find a way around those detours. It may take lots of time, but what else do you have to do while you are here on Earth?
Some will stop at the detours, thinking it's over for them. Too bad.
Your life is not over until you no longer wake up in the morning. Until then, you can change your own future. And you can change the futures of others.
You just have to want to do it badly enough.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to get you started toward fulfilling your potential.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Seneca, Roman philosopher, circa 4 BC - 65 AD
The assumption Seneca makes is that each person desires to be perfect.
Is that realistic? Do you want to be perfect? Maybe not, it would be a lonely place to be.
Let's look again at what he said. "Nor a man perfected without trials." He didn't say that each of us should be perfect. He said that each of us should strive toward perfection, toward the fulfillment of the potential with which we were born and to which we are destined (if we work towards it).
No one who leads a life of crime or of what is generally considered to be sin will ever reach his full potential. Such a person may stretch a little, but they all break eventually.
The only way to strive toward perfection is to work positively on fulfilling your potential. Yes, there are restrictions, but anyone who wants to improve themselves will find a way around those detours. It may take lots of time, but what else do you have to do while you are here on Earth?
Some will stop at the detours, thinking it's over for them. Too bad.
Your life is not over until you no longer wake up in the morning. Until then, you can change your own future. And you can change the futures of others.
You just have to want to do it badly enough.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to get you started toward fulfilling your potential.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Thursday, April 13, 2006
The meaning of life
"Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions."
- Peace Pilgrim 190? - 1981
The key word in this quote is "usefulness." Each object in your life, each feeling, each emotional attachment, each relationship should be one where a benefit exists.
This doesn't mean that you should stop being a caring parent because you aren't receiving benefits from your child. Your care means that the child is benefitting, which is what the responsibility of parenting is about.
As for objects, those who hold fast to things they don't need and that add no value to their lives are possessed by something material rather than being part of something spiritual. They are separate from life, rather than being part of the whole of life.
Such people may not be able to change that about themselves. They may have had the psychology of acquisitiveness so ingrained into them that they can't shake it in favour of something more meaningful.
They learned the lessons of buying, taught by industries, well, even if they believe they learned it from their core information sources in their community or their family.
If there is a secret to life, a meaning of life that goes beyond the mundane stuff we do daily, it must be at a spiritual level. Objects are the means by which our body gets through its day. But it's not how our spirit moves along the eternal continuum.
Those who can only see what they have today, what they can hold in their hands, may be blind to what life is about. They can't see God or the spirits of others, or even their own spirit. They can't see what is "alive." They can' only see "stuff."
Don't hold that against them. That's what they learned in their lives, most of it in childhood.
That's what someone taught them, whether intentionally or by example.
They missed out on learning what life is about because they were possessed by objects that gave them a feeling of security, of personal wealth.
In the absence of what is important in life, they held fast to the trivial.
Don't look to them as role models. Despite what they may think of themselves, they are really more like life's rejects, life's failures. They believe they have it all, which is important to them. And they believe there is nothing more to life.
They could have been taught differently as children.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to put meaning to life before it's too late.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Peace Pilgrim 190? - 1981
The key word in this quote is "usefulness." Each object in your life, each feeling, each emotional attachment, each relationship should be one where a benefit exists.
This doesn't mean that you should stop being a caring parent because you aren't receiving benefits from your child. Your care means that the child is benefitting, which is what the responsibility of parenting is about.
As for objects, those who hold fast to things they don't need and that add no value to their lives are possessed by something material rather than being part of something spiritual. They are separate from life, rather than being part of the whole of life.
Such people may not be able to change that about themselves. They may have had the psychology of acquisitiveness so ingrained into them that they can't shake it in favour of something more meaningful.
They learned the lessons of buying, taught by industries, well, even if they believe they learned it from their core information sources in their community or their family.
If there is a secret to life, a meaning of life that goes beyond the mundane stuff we do daily, it must be at a spiritual level. Objects are the means by which our body gets through its day. But it's not how our spirit moves along the eternal continuum.
Those who can only see what they have today, what they can hold in their hands, may be blind to what life is about. They can't see God or the spirits of others, or even their own spirit. They can't see what is "alive." They can' only see "stuff."
Don't hold that against them. That's what they learned in their lives, most of it in childhood.
That's what someone taught them, whether intentionally or by example.
They missed out on learning what life is about because they were possessed by objects that gave them a feeling of security, of personal wealth.
In the absence of what is important in life, they held fast to the trivial.
Don't look to them as role models. Despite what they may think of themselves, they are really more like life's rejects, life's failures. They believe they have it all, which is important to them. And they believe there is nothing more to life.
They could have been taught differently as children.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to put meaning to life before it's too late.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
You know what you can't do, but what can you do?
"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."
- John Wooden
As children we are taught, effectively but not consciously, to focus more on our weaknesses, on our mistakes, on our limitations than on our strengths.
The very people who want most for us to succeed in life, to be happy, to raise a family, to get a good job we enjoy and to participate in community events that serve our neighbours as well as ourselves, spend more time reminding us of what we can't or shouldn't do than what we can and should.
No one is born doing anything well, other than to suck and to cry. Each of us has something we can do exceedingly well.
We just don't find out what that is unless we are exposed to it, are given time to warm up to it and are encouraged to pursue it if we like it. That takes effort and time.
We need constant (regular) support, especially from our parents, to learn what we do well so that we can gain some expertise in that field, hobby or sport. That support doesn't happen naturally. It must be done overtly so that children know it is taking place.
It goes without saying (yet here I am saying it) that parents should not push their kids to become experts at something just because they missed out on it themselves. That's a prescription for failure, maybe emotional disaster, maybe a family rift.
Parents must help their children understand limitations, their personal ones, legal ones, moral ones, ethical ones, social ones, physical ones and so on. They also must fulfill the other side of that obligation by helping their kids to find what they do well and what they enjoy doing.
Life is about balance. That balance is not two ways, but many different ways at once. The important thing is not to be perfect, but to give it the best try possible.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to show everyone how balance produces a fulfilling life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- John Wooden
As children we are taught, effectively but not consciously, to focus more on our weaknesses, on our mistakes, on our limitations than on our strengths.
The very people who want most for us to succeed in life, to be happy, to raise a family, to get a good job we enjoy and to participate in community events that serve our neighbours as well as ourselves, spend more time reminding us of what we can't or shouldn't do than what we can and should.
No one is born doing anything well, other than to suck and to cry. Each of us has something we can do exceedingly well.
We just don't find out what that is unless we are exposed to it, are given time to warm up to it and are encouraged to pursue it if we like it. That takes effort and time.
We need constant (regular) support, especially from our parents, to learn what we do well so that we can gain some expertise in that field, hobby or sport. That support doesn't happen naturally. It must be done overtly so that children know it is taking place.
It goes without saying (yet here I am saying it) that parents should not push their kids to become experts at something just because they missed out on it themselves. That's a prescription for failure, maybe emotional disaster, maybe a family rift.
Parents must help their children understand limitations, their personal ones, legal ones, moral ones, ethical ones, social ones, physical ones and so on. They also must fulfill the other side of that obligation by helping their kids to find what they do well and what they enjoy doing.
Life is about balance. That balance is not two ways, but many different ways at once. The important thing is not to be perfect, but to give it the best try possible.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to show everyone how balance produces a fulfilling life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
The French invented love as we know it
So, you like the idea of romance, but you don't think much of the vicious ancient Romans. Where do you think the word ROMANce came from?
Actually, it came from France. The French literally invented what we now think of as romance or romantic love.
What was it before the Franks and Gauls of Gaul (modern day France) began using the concept in what we now call Old French? Mostly just lust, possession, at best a special kind of friendship. But romantic love? No such thing.
When the Franks invaded the territory of the Gauls after the collapse of the Roman Empire, two vernaculars collided. Those who spoke a (corrupt) version of Latin (the Gauls) were said to speak in the "Roman manner."
Eventually, all written material in that form was called "romanz."
A popular narrative form for novels in those days was the kind that described the adventures of some chivalrous hero. The hero, usually a knight, was alway devoted to winning the love of a Lady. He gave his life over to this purpose (at least in the novels of the time, if not in real life).
The French loved it. In fact, so did the rest of Europe's reading population. The style became so popular that the genre was known as "romance."
From there, the people of the western world gradually developed the concept of romantic love. This is a concept that is known all over the world today, but is certainly not known by everyone, nor is it embraced by all cultures. It's barely known in countries that arrange marriages rather than have young adults choose their own mates, for example.
I must wonder if this new concept of love, precursor of the capitalist and liberal styles that are common in western countries today, was the beginning of life as those of us in western cultures know it today.
Romance puts a woman on an equal but different footing from a man.
We aren't yet all the way to equality of the sexes (or of anything else), but we're well along the path.
We also extend our concept of love beyond romance, beyond what non-western peoples think of as love. In an English dictionary, "love" traditionally takes more space than any other word.
We in the west can expect resistance to our style of romantic love and democracy from those who live in coutnries that don't practise them. It took western countries over 1000 years to get where we are today. The rest of the world is about 600 - 800 years behind us, but their direction is the same one westerners began 1200 - 1400 years ago.
When a Christian says "Love thy neighbour," and non-Christians have a problem understanding that, maybe it's because they come from countries where love, like the sun, is still struggling to come above their horizon.
To a person from a western country it is almost inconceivable that anyone would not understand our meanings of love. Yet it's true.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to teach love to the world.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Actually, it came from France. The French literally invented what we now think of as romance or romantic love.
What was it before the Franks and Gauls of Gaul (modern day France) began using the concept in what we now call Old French? Mostly just lust, possession, at best a special kind of friendship. But romantic love? No such thing.
When the Franks invaded the territory of the Gauls after the collapse of the Roman Empire, two vernaculars collided. Those who spoke a (corrupt) version of Latin (the Gauls) were said to speak in the "Roman manner."
Eventually, all written material in that form was called "romanz."
A popular narrative form for novels in those days was the kind that described the adventures of some chivalrous hero. The hero, usually a knight, was alway devoted to winning the love of a Lady. He gave his life over to this purpose (at least in the novels of the time, if not in real life).
The French loved it. In fact, so did the rest of Europe's reading population. The style became so popular that the genre was known as "romance."
From there, the people of the western world gradually developed the concept of romantic love. This is a concept that is known all over the world today, but is certainly not known by everyone, nor is it embraced by all cultures. It's barely known in countries that arrange marriages rather than have young adults choose their own mates, for example.
I must wonder if this new concept of love, precursor of the capitalist and liberal styles that are common in western countries today, was the beginning of life as those of us in western cultures know it today.
Romance puts a woman on an equal but different footing from a man.
We aren't yet all the way to equality of the sexes (or of anything else), but we're well along the path.
We also extend our concept of love beyond romance, beyond what non-western peoples think of as love. In an English dictionary, "love" traditionally takes more space than any other word.
We in the west can expect resistance to our style of romantic love and democracy from those who live in coutnries that don't practise them. It took western countries over 1000 years to get where we are today. The rest of the world is about 600 - 800 years behind us, but their direction is the same one westerners began 1200 - 1400 years ago.
When a Christian says "Love thy neighbour," and non-Christians have a problem understanding that, maybe it's because they come from countries where love, like the sun, is still struggling to come above their horizon.
To a person from a western country it is almost inconceivable that anyone would not understand our meanings of love. Yet it's true.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to teach love to the world.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
It's not that hard to make the world a better place
"Passion is in all great searches and is necessary to all creative endeavors."
- W Eugene Smith
Passion, in this case, refers to the intensity with which one pursues an objective.
Some would call it devotion or dedication. Others perseverance.
Any objective that is worth the effort to reach it will require more than passing interest, lipservice or casual paid-by-the-hour effort. That is, it will require the devotion of physical, intellectual and even emotional resources.
What on Earth could be worth all that? Whatever you want to achieve. Anything less may result in failure or getting sidetracked.
When a goal is worth pursuing, detours are inevitable, but quitting means personal failure. Quitting doesn't mean that the goal can't be reached, but that the person trying to get there lacks the fortitude to get the job done.
Regular readers will know that Turning It Around is the best way (the only viable way) to make the world a better place. I have vowed to devote my life to pursuing that goal. OK, so I wrote the book. But I can't change the world myself.
If you are prepared to stop complaining about how bad things are and do something about them, please join me.
There's a whole book to read so that you know what you are doing, why you are doing it and what benefits we can expect when we reach our goal. But it's easy to read and understand. It's in regular people language, despite its academic sounding title. One person calls it a "back porch chat" style.
And no one has to do a great deal. Mostly just tell others about Turning It Around.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to find a few good people to spread the word, so that they will find a few good people and they will find another few until everyone in the world knows.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- W Eugene Smith
Passion, in this case, refers to the intensity with which one pursues an objective.
Some would call it devotion or dedication. Others perseverance.
Any objective that is worth the effort to reach it will require more than passing interest, lipservice or casual paid-by-the-hour effort. That is, it will require the devotion of physical, intellectual and even emotional resources.
What on Earth could be worth all that? Whatever you want to achieve. Anything less may result in failure or getting sidetracked.
When a goal is worth pursuing, detours are inevitable, but quitting means personal failure. Quitting doesn't mean that the goal can't be reached, but that the person trying to get there lacks the fortitude to get the job done.
Regular readers will know that Turning It Around is the best way (the only viable way) to make the world a better place. I have vowed to devote my life to pursuing that goal. OK, so I wrote the book. But I can't change the world myself.
If you are prepared to stop complaining about how bad things are and do something about them, please join me.
There's a whole book to read so that you know what you are doing, why you are doing it and what benefits we can expect when we reach our goal. But it's easy to read and understand. It's in regular people language, despite its academic sounding title. One person calls it a "back porch chat" style.
And no one has to do a great deal. Mostly just tell others about Turning It Around.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to find a few good people to spread the word, so that they will find a few good people and they will find another few until everyone in the world knows.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Monday, April 10, 2006
Good parents can fail easily through their own ignorance
Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
"I want my kids to have it better than I did." This was a mantra for North American parents for decades after the Great Depression. It's still a mantra for immigrant parents who built new lives from nothing when they moved to western countries from poorer nations.
But what is the "it" that these parents want(ed) their kids to have? In most cases it involved possessions, stuff, things the children can use and show off to their friends.
This, the parents assumed, would make the lives of their children better than their own childhood years. In some cases, it worked. In many, the parents were disappointed at how ungrateful the kids were.
Children have many needs that precede and always take precedence to possessions. Unless these needs are filled, the possessions are nothing more than cheap and hypocritical substitutes for what they really need.
Children don't want to be disrespectful, rebellious or ungrateful to their parents. If they are, it's because their needs were not satisfied, even if their physical wants were.
'Turning It Around' teaches what those needs are. Unlike any other book of parenting, TIA teaches what children need from the point of view of the kids.
Why are book stores not overflowing with books about what kids need, so their parents will know ahead of time? Because adults tend to look at childhood from the point of view of an adult. TIA is a book about kids, telling what kids need.
Having lived through childhood does not qualify anyone as an expert on what kids need. In many cases, it qualifies an adult to be an expert on what their own parents failed to provide. Even then the adults aren't certain of what those things are.
It's in the book. Get the book. Excuses for parental failure are no longer needed.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give paents the tools they need to be parents.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
"I want my kids to have it better than I did." This was a mantra for North American parents for decades after the Great Depression. It's still a mantra for immigrant parents who built new lives from nothing when they moved to western countries from poorer nations.
But what is the "it" that these parents want(ed) their kids to have? In most cases it involved possessions, stuff, things the children can use and show off to their friends.
This, the parents assumed, would make the lives of their children better than their own childhood years. In some cases, it worked. In many, the parents were disappointed at how ungrateful the kids were.
Children have many needs that precede and always take precedence to possessions. Unless these needs are filled, the possessions are nothing more than cheap and hypocritical substitutes for what they really need.
Children don't want to be disrespectful, rebellious or ungrateful to their parents. If they are, it's because their needs were not satisfied, even if their physical wants were.
'Turning It Around' teaches what those needs are. Unlike any other book of parenting, TIA teaches what children need from the point of view of the kids.
Why are book stores not overflowing with books about what kids need, so their parents will know ahead of time? Because adults tend to look at childhood from the point of view of an adult. TIA is a book about kids, telling what kids need.
Having lived through childhood does not qualify anyone as an expert on what kids need. In many cases, it qualifies an adult to be an expert on what their own parents failed to provide. Even then the adults aren't certain of what those things are.
It's in the book. Get the book. Excuses for parental failure are no longer needed.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give paents the tools they need to be parents.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Sunday, April 09, 2006
So, what's your soul doing?
"The soul desires to dwell within the body because, without the members of that body it can neither act nor feel."
- Leonardo Da Vinci
Only those who have no idea what they are talking about could have the bald confidence required to comment on this quote. Unless, of course, some sense can be made of the soul other than that proposed by various religions.
We know for a fact what happens to our bodies after we die. They decompose and their components are recycled. Nothing--no particle, no atom, no mineral, no energy--is ever lost to nature. Any matter that changes its fundamental form becomes energy (or vice versa), which some believe is a different form of the same basic components of existence.
But what of our personalities? We develop skills, we accumulate knowledge, we develop personalities and specialized expert persona that go far beyond the fundamental parts of our corporeal selves.
Even those who don't believe in humans having a soul agree that we have personalities that go far beyond that of any other animal or plant in nature. Is all that lost when we die?
Setting aside the experiences of hypnotists who allegedly take their patients back to previous lives, it makes sense that something as developed and sophisticated as the personality (or soul, if you will) would not disappear when we die as that would defy every law of nature we know.
Does the soul require a body to act or feel, as da Vinci claimed? That's a debate for those who love philosophy that doesn't have to be restricted by reality.
If the laws of nature require that both energy and matter must be conserved (that is, cannot and will not ever be totally lost), then something that is created as personality (or soul) should follow the same laws. Natural laws mean nothing unless they apply to all situations with similar factors.
Thus we may conclude that you have a soul that dwells within your body while your body conducts it business here on Earth.
Now, what will you do with it? It doesn't make sense to abuse your body as that would shorten the ability of your soul to do whatever it's supposed to do here.
It also doesn't make sense to destroy other bodies because their souls must also be here for some purpose. If we destroy others, their souls will return (the proposed Law of Conservation of Souls) to fulfill a similar mission, only in some other body.
Perhaps instead of debating whether or not we have souls or what our purpose is on Earth, we should become more focussed on how we can help our souls to advance the cause for which they are in our bodies.
It doesn't make sense for souls to try to eliminate other souls. It couldn't happen.
We have souls for a reason. It's not likely for the propagation of more souls, as that would also defy the laws of nature--the total amount of matter and energy remains the same, so the total amount of souls must also be the same. Maybe our souls get thinner as we produce more bodies.
More likely our souls have a collective purpose. Some direction that is not immediately obvious to most of us.
Give some thought to what the purpose of the soul you have is. Before your body loses it.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to make sense of the compoents of who we really are.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Leonardo Da Vinci
Only those who have no idea what they are talking about could have the bald confidence required to comment on this quote. Unless, of course, some sense can be made of the soul other than that proposed by various religions.
We know for a fact what happens to our bodies after we die. They decompose and their components are recycled. Nothing--no particle, no atom, no mineral, no energy--is ever lost to nature. Any matter that changes its fundamental form becomes energy (or vice versa), which some believe is a different form of the same basic components of existence.
But what of our personalities? We develop skills, we accumulate knowledge, we develop personalities and specialized expert persona that go far beyond the fundamental parts of our corporeal selves.
Even those who don't believe in humans having a soul agree that we have personalities that go far beyond that of any other animal or plant in nature. Is all that lost when we die?
Setting aside the experiences of hypnotists who allegedly take their patients back to previous lives, it makes sense that something as developed and sophisticated as the personality (or soul, if you will) would not disappear when we die as that would defy every law of nature we know.
Does the soul require a body to act or feel, as da Vinci claimed? That's a debate for those who love philosophy that doesn't have to be restricted by reality.
If the laws of nature require that both energy and matter must be conserved (that is, cannot and will not ever be totally lost), then something that is created as personality (or soul) should follow the same laws. Natural laws mean nothing unless they apply to all situations with similar factors.
Thus we may conclude that you have a soul that dwells within your body while your body conducts it business here on Earth.
Now, what will you do with it? It doesn't make sense to abuse your body as that would shorten the ability of your soul to do whatever it's supposed to do here.
It also doesn't make sense to destroy other bodies because their souls must also be here for some purpose. If we destroy others, their souls will return (the proposed Law of Conservation of Souls) to fulfill a similar mission, only in some other body.
Perhaps instead of debating whether or not we have souls or what our purpose is on Earth, we should become more focussed on how we can help our souls to advance the cause for which they are in our bodies.
It doesn't make sense for souls to try to eliminate other souls. It couldn't happen.
We have souls for a reason. It's not likely for the propagation of more souls, as that would also defy the laws of nature--the total amount of matter and energy remains the same, so the total amount of souls must also be the same. Maybe our souls get thinner as we produce more bodies.
More likely our souls have a collective purpose. Some direction that is not immediately obvious to most of us.
Give some thought to what the purpose of the soul you have is. Before your body loses it.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to make sense of the compoents of who we really are.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Religious leaders are responsible for violence
If it is committed in the name of God or country, there is no crime so heinous that the public will not forgive it.
- Tom Robbins, writer (1936- )
There is more hidden within this observation than immediately meets the eye.
Religion (or "direction from God") has been at the heart of the vast majority of wars that have begun over the past two millennia or more. That's not to say that religious leaders have been directly responsible for taking their respective countries into war, but that religion has been used as the excuse for going to war.
If war is begun to protect a religion, to protect people's right to practise a religion or at the direction of God, it's considered to be a good enough reason to begin a war.
So what? you may ask. Anyone who wants to start a war will find some excuse or other, so it might as well be religion as another reason. True, but...
Where are the leaders of the religion when political leaders are using their faith as an excuse for war? Are they standing idly by watching it happen? Secretly supporting the proposed war behind the scenes? Helpless to do anything about it?
Religious leaders have never been helpless, nor should they ever be considered to be helpless. They are, by nature and by profession, powerful people whose life objective is to sway the minds of people in the direction they want their followers to take. They are leaders by virtue of their positions.
Thus if religious leaders are seen to do nothing when political or military leaders propose going to war for the cause of religion, then the religious leaders must either support the cause quietly or denounce it publicly. No other positions could be accepted for real leaders.
Note that wherever a war takes place in the name of religion, the religion in question always, without exception, advocates peace at the core of its belief system.
When leaders of a peace-promoting religion support (actively or passively) war, we are left with two choices of what to believe of them. One is that they practise hypocrisy, that they preach peace but support or accept violence when it suits their purpose. The other is that they preach peace but promote a course of violence as a current running within their larger message of peace.
Every war, every act of genocide, every act of large scale violence in the world today may be attributed to one or the other of these choices by religious leaders.
Remaining silent, claiming helplessness, in the face of potential violence is, tacitly, a self condemnation as one who is at least partly responsible for that violence.
Either they are leaders who promote peace or they are supporters of political or military leaders who support violence. There are no other choices.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to urge people to convince their religious leaders to actively support and promote peace.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Tom Robbins, writer (1936- )
There is more hidden within this observation than immediately meets the eye.
Religion (or "direction from God") has been at the heart of the vast majority of wars that have begun over the past two millennia or more. That's not to say that religious leaders have been directly responsible for taking their respective countries into war, but that religion has been used as the excuse for going to war.
If war is begun to protect a religion, to protect people's right to practise a religion or at the direction of God, it's considered to be a good enough reason to begin a war.
So what? you may ask. Anyone who wants to start a war will find some excuse or other, so it might as well be religion as another reason. True, but...
Where are the leaders of the religion when political leaders are using their faith as an excuse for war? Are they standing idly by watching it happen? Secretly supporting the proposed war behind the scenes? Helpless to do anything about it?
Religious leaders have never been helpless, nor should they ever be considered to be helpless. They are, by nature and by profession, powerful people whose life objective is to sway the minds of people in the direction they want their followers to take. They are leaders by virtue of their positions.
Thus if religious leaders are seen to do nothing when political or military leaders propose going to war for the cause of religion, then the religious leaders must either support the cause quietly or denounce it publicly. No other positions could be accepted for real leaders.
Note that wherever a war takes place in the name of religion, the religion in question always, without exception, advocates peace at the core of its belief system.
When leaders of a peace-promoting religion support (actively or passively) war, we are left with two choices of what to believe of them. One is that they practise hypocrisy, that they preach peace but support or accept violence when it suits their purpose. The other is that they preach peace but promote a course of violence as a current running within their larger message of peace.
Every war, every act of genocide, every act of large scale violence in the world today may be attributed to one or the other of these choices by religious leaders.
Remaining silent, claiming helplessness, in the face of potential violence is, tacitly, a self condemnation as one who is at least partly responsible for that violence.
Either they are leaders who promote peace or they are supporters of political or military leaders who support violence. There are no other choices.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to urge people to convince their religious leaders to actively support and promote peace.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Friday, April 07, 2006
More pornography, less rape:learn the lesson
"... the amount of pornography available in the United States is considerably greater than thirty or even twenty years ago. One can consider alone the increase in home video rental and sales..."
"... we can see that the incidence of rape declined markedly over these last twenty years from 1975 to 1995."
- From the book "Porn 101: Eroticism, Pornography, and the First Amendment"
This data will make some people uncomfortable. They consider themselves to be morally superior to others whom they believe to be morally weak or even perverted.
There is no evidence, either in history or in recent sociological studies, to suggest that keeping people ignorant of any subject (anything at all) improves their condition, either their personal life condition or the conditions in their communities. Absolutely zero evidence.
On the other hand, there is an abundance of evidence to show that educating people on any subject informs them sufficiently that they will (almost all) make the wisest decisions, which are in both their best interests and those of their communities.
Why do the "morality police" consider themselves to be the experts on pornography, on prostitution, on crime, on drugs or on any other subject on which they pontificate and feel justified in condemning others for their participation in such activities?
The answer is that they are afraid of them, both of the activities and of the people who participate in them. They believe they know all they need to know about these activites, but they really know very little. They just know enough to feel better than those who commit these "sins." Feeling superior protects them from their own ignorance.
They have no idea why people get involved in such activities, nor do they have any interest in finding out. They have no idea of what the lives of the participants are like or why the "perverts" can't manage to avoid "sinful" activities as they can themselves. And they don't want to learn.
They remain ignorant, thus they can do absolutely nothing to improve the situation, other than to hire more police and build more prisons. Most of the time they would rather believe that these sinful activities don't even exist.
And there is the key. You can't solve anything until you admit that the activites exist in your community and nothing positive is being done to help the people who turn to them.
Sociologists have demonstrated in many studies that most inmates in prisons are socially underdeveloped or anti-social because they developed in ways different from the majority because they did not have sufficient positive social learning experiences as children.
Sociologist also know that most emotionally broken people are emotionally (psychologically) underdeveloped, meaning that they have insufficient skills to cope with events and situations in their lives that seem to overwhelm them.
Social and emotional development happens primarily in children, which means that parents and teachers are in the best positions to assist with them. Later, as adults, psychologists, therapists, counsellors and other guidance professionals may be able to help people with extensive and intensive reprogramming, but this is very expensive, economically impractical for large numbers of people.
Teach the children.
That's what the TIA program was designed to do. Turning It Around even provides many of the lessons that parents and teachers need to teach to children. These are not peculiar to any one religion or political persuasion. They are universally accepted and embraced principles of human social cohabitation.
Teach the children. TIA shows us how.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to show the light at the end of what seems like an endless tunnel of life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
"... we can see that the incidence of rape declined markedly over these last twenty years from 1975 to 1995."
- From the book "Porn 101: Eroticism, Pornography, and the First Amendment"
This data will make some people uncomfortable. They consider themselves to be morally superior to others whom they believe to be morally weak or even perverted.
There is no evidence, either in history or in recent sociological studies, to suggest that keeping people ignorant of any subject (anything at all) improves their condition, either their personal life condition or the conditions in their communities. Absolutely zero evidence.
On the other hand, there is an abundance of evidence to show that educating people on any subject informs them sufficiently that they will (almost all) make the wisest decisions, which are in both their best interests and those of their communities.
Why do the "morality police" consider themselves to be the experts on pornography, on prostitution, on crime, on drugs or on any other subject on which they pontificate and feel justified in condemning others for their participation in such activities?
The answer is that they are afraid of them, both of the activities and of the people who participate in them. They believe they know all they need to know about these activites, but they really know very little. They just know enough to feel better than those who commit these "sins." Feeling superior protects them from their own ignorance.
They have no idea why people get involved in such activities, nor do they have any interest in finding out. They have no idea of what the lives of the participants are like or why the "perverts" can't manage to avoid "sinful" activities as they can themselves. And they don't want to learn.
They remain ignorant, thus they can do absolutely nothing to improve the situation, other than to hire more police and build more prisons. Most of the time they would rather believe that these sinful activities don't even exist.
And there is the key. You can't solve anything until you admit that the activites exist in your community and nothing positive is being done to help the people who turn to them.
Sociologists have demonstrated in many studies that most inmates in prisons are socially underdeveloped or anti-social because they developed in ways different from the majority because they did not have sufficient positive social learning experiences as children.
Sociologist also know that most emotionally broken people are emotionally (psychologically) underdeveloped, meaning that they have insufficient skills to cope with events and situations in their lives that seem to overwhelm them.
Social and emotional development happens primarily in children, which means that parents and teachers are in the best positions to assist with them. Later, as adults, psychologists, therapists, counsellors and other guidance professionals may be able to help people with extensive and intensive reprogramming, but this is very expensive, economically impractical for large numbers of people.
Teach the children.
That's what the TIA program was designed to do. Turning It Around even provides many of the lessons that parents and teachers need to teach to children. These are not peculiar to any one religion or political persuasion. They are universally accepted and embraced principles of human social cohabitation.
Teach the children. TIA shows us how.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to show the light at the end of what seems like an endless tunnel of life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Not caring about others results in war
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place.
- Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
This is a sobering thought when you imagine a religious leader standing at the gates of a concentration camp where hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of her own people were gassed to death (to save the cost of bullets).
But a Holocaust reminder is not what this quote is about. It's about recognizing how potentially dangerous people are who are deadly certain that their way is the one and only right way.
It's a tough job to sort out those who support, promote and argue the merits of their position vigorously from those who believe there is no room to accept that they are wrong, that they might have thought something through inaccurately, that they might be imperfect. But it should be done.
When we look at the martyrs through history, including those in recent years, we should consider how wise they were to give their lives if they could have made choices to more good for a longer time by avoiding death.
How wise are political leaders who send their young men and women to their deaths in the cause of war? Someone wisely said "In war there are no winners." War is a situation where a political or military leader sends others to their deaths, knowing they will be safe themselves.
Was there really no other way before a war was declared? Maybe there would have been if our leaders were prepared to mind someone else's business before those people got themselves (and subsequently us) into tragic trouble.
They certainly have no trouble minding someone else's business when they declare and fight a war.
Not caring earlier makes weapons necessary later.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to demonstrate that people should care about others in their world before they get themselves into severe trouble.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
This is a sobering thought when you imagine a religious leader standing at the gates of a concentration camp where hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of her own people were gassed to death (to save the cost of bullets).
But a Holocaust reminder is not what this quote is about. It's about recognizing how potentially dangerous people are who are deadly certain that their way is the one and only right way.
It's a tough job to sort out those who support, promote and argue the merits of their position vigorously from those who believe there is no room to accept that they are wrong, that they might have thought something through inaccurately, that they might be imperfect. But it should be done.
When we look at the martyrs through history, including those in recent years, we should consider how wise they were to give their lives if they could have made choices to more good for a longer time by avoiding death.
How wise are political leaders who send their young men and women to their deaths in the cause of war? Someone wisely said "In war there are no winners." War is a situation where a political or military leader sends others to their deaths, knowing they will be safe themselves.
Was there really no other way before a war was declared? Maybe there would have been if our leaders were prepared to mind someone else's business before those people got themselves (and subsequently us) into tragic trouble.
They certainly have no trouble minding someone else's business when they declare and fight a war.
Not caring earlier makes weapons necessary later.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to demonstrate that people should care about others in their world before they get themselves into severe trouble.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Good advice from a billionnaire
"Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work."
- H. L. Hunt (US oil tycoon, reputed to have been the world’s first billionnaire, 1889-1974)
This quote is often used in articles intended to encourage people to devote themselves to making fortunes in business, as Hunt did.
However, it has importance because of one component of the equation, "decide what you are willing to exchange for it."
This seems easy! Just give my business endeavour more time and focus and it should flourish. Maybe it will. But without knowing what you sacrificed, how will you evaluate whether the time and effort were worth the result?
If the goal is money, then time, effort and determination will eventually produce good results. But money for what?
Most people who have enough money want more, not because they need it but because they have no idea what to do with what they have. They have simply bought into the industrial ethos that rich is good. And richer is better. It's what business is all about, greater and greater profits.
Before committing ourselves to a business venture, we should examine what we would need to sacrifice to achieve success. That means knowing before we begin what we value in life.
Peace of mind? There is no peace in business, of mind or anything else. Tranquility? Business, by its nature, is never tranquil--if it is, there is no business. Time to rest and recouperate? Most business owners don't dare take time to relax for fear their business will collapse while they aren't looking.
Can having more money than we need provide us with the kind of safety net we need to feel protected in our senior years? Recent economic downturns suggest that no one investment is safe or productive continuously. In a matter of months or a few years, a well-off person can become a pauper if conditions change and he or she deson't know how to adapt. Many can't adapt. Some turn to crime to prevent themselves from poverty. Just read the newspapers to see some who have.
How much comfort will money offer in the final months and days of our lives? Yes, we can give it to a worthy heir, but those with lots of money didn't work themselves silly for decades just to give their money away.
Before making major life choices, decide what is important to you in life and what is likely to be important to you in 10, 20 or 30 years. Then figure out if your new commitment would satisfy those needs and wants. If not, look for other choices.
The world's first billionnaire gave you good advice.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help everyone make balanced choices for their lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- H. L. Hunt (US oil tycoon, reputed to have been the world’s first billionnaire, 1889-1974)
This quote is often used in articles intended to encourage people to devote themselves to making fortunes in business, as Hunt did.
However, it has importance because of one component of the equation, "decide what you are willing to exchange for it."
This seems easy! Just give my business endeavour more time and focus and it should flourish. Maybe it will. But without knowing what you sacrificed, how will you evaluate whether the time and effort were worth the result?
If the goal is money, then time, effort and determination will eventually produce good results. But money for what?
Most people who have enough money want more, not because they need it but because they have no idea what to do with what they have. They have simply bought into the industrial ethos that rich is good. And richer is better. It's what business is all about, greater and greater profits.
Before committing ourselves to a business venture, we should examine what we would need to sacrifice to achieve success. That means knowing before we begin what we value in life.
Peace of mind? There is no peace in business, of mind or anything else. Tranquility? Business, by its nature, is never tranquil--if it is, there is no business. Time to rest and recouperate? Most business owners don't dare take time to relax for fear their business will collapse while they aren't looking.
Can having more money than we need provide us with the kind of safety net we need to feel protected in our senior years? Recent economic downturns suggest that no one investment is safe or productive continuously. In a matter of months or a few years, a well-off person can become a pauper if conditions change and he or she deson't know how to adapt. Many can't adapt. Some turn to crime to prevent themselves from poverty. Just read the newspapers to see some who have.
How much comfort will money offer in the final months and days of our lives? Yes, we can give it to a worthy heir, but those with lots of money didn't work themselves silly for decades just to give their money away.
Before making major life choices, decide what is important to you in life and what is likely to be important to you in 10, 20 or 30 years. Then figure out if your new commitment would satisfy those needs and wants. If not, look for other choices.
The world's first billionnaire gave you good advice.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help everyone make balanced choices for their lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Needs and greed: one or the other
Nature can provide for the needs of people; [she] can't provide for the greed of people.
- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
Despite the charming rhyme of "needs" and "greed", this quote seems to suggest that one of history's most successful, focussed and positive men was feeling the weight of depression when he spoke these words.
Every person has needs and those needs must be met in order for peace and happiness to be worthy objectives in a community.
Greed, however, is what results when we do not teach children the bad effects of greed, how they develop and their consequences to an individual and a community.
Greed is built into us, a holdover from our primitive prehistoric days as animals of the forest or savannah. It protected us in those days from starvation. Now that the world produces more food that it has people to feed, greed stands as an anachronistic symbol of our archaic social system where we do not teach of the evils of greed any more.
In fact, some people idolize greed--witness the popularity of Donald Trump's reality television program. Put weapons in the hands of his competitors and you would have gladiators who would be prepared to kill each other to win.
We have a choice: teach children to avoid behaviours we don't want them to have as adults or don't teach them and suffer the ravages that neglect exacts on our communities.
This isn't a hard choice. We simply aren't making it. Instead we watch as social problems get worse, as if our lives are part of a reality TV show we are watching.
Stand up and voice your concerns.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help everyone understand what their choices are. Act and be saved or be a spectator and suffer.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
Despite the charming rhyme of "needs" and "greed", this quote seems to suggest that one of history's most successful, focussed and positive men was feeling the weight of depression when he spoke these words.
Every person has needs and those needs must be met in order for peace and happiness to be worthy objectives in a community.
Greed, however, is what results when we do not teach children the bad effects of greed, how they develop and their consequences to an individual and a community.
Greed is built into us, a holdover from our primitive prehistoric days as animals of the forest or savannah. It protected us in those days from starvation. Now that the world produces more food that it has people to feed, greed stands as an anachronistic symbol of our archaic social system where we do not teach of the evils of greed any more.
In fact, some people idolize greed--witness the popularity of Donald Trump's reality television program. Put weapons in the hands of his competitors and you would have gladiators who would be prepared to kill each other to win.
We have a choice: teach children to avoid behaviours we don't want them to have as adults or don't teach them and suffer the ravages that neglect exacts on our communities.
This isn't a hard choice. We simply aren't making it. Instead we watch as social problems get worse, as if our lives are part of a reality TV show we are watching.
Stand up and voice your concerns.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help everyone understand what their choices are. Act and be saved or be a spectator and suffer.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Monday, April 03, 2006
How ordinary people become extraordinary
To know how to say what others only know how to think is what makes men poets or sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think makes men martyrs or reformers--or both.
- Elizabeth Charles, writer (1828-1896)
This is a good description.
But it doesn't go quite far enough. A poet, sage, martyr or reformer has the ability to assemble disparate bits of information into a cohesive whole, to understand its significance and its consequences, then devise a plan to implement that plan in the way of his choosing.
These people are considered to be heroes, especially after their missions (and usually their lives) are over.
While they are alive, in our midst, they are feared as much as they are respected. They are spectacles to be admired or keenly observed from a distance.
In general, they are ordinary men who have learned how to do extraordinary things.
They have done what they needed to do.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to show how ordinary people can become extraordinary.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Elizabeth Charles, writer (1828-1896)
This is a good description.
But it doesn't go quite far enough. A poet, sage, martyr or reformer has the ability to assemble disparate bits of information into a cohesive whole, to understand its significance and its consequences, then devise a plan to implement that plan in the way of his choosing.
These people are considered to be heroes, especially after their missions (and usually their lives) are over.
While they are alive, in our midst, they are feared as much as they are respected. They are spectacles to be admired or keenly observed from a distance.
In general, they are ordinary men who have learned how to do extraordinary things.
They have done what they needed to do.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to show how ordinary people can become extraordinary.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Langauge is a barometer of world peace
A different language is a different vision of life.
- Federico Fellini, film director and writer (1920-1993)
A language develops out of a need for a people to communicate in a way that is different from the way neighbouring peoples communicate with each other.
The need for difference might not be simply for security, but more likely because one people does things differently from their neighbours, make different objects, have different crafts, create diffeent foods, wear different styles of clothing, have different beliefs and customs.
Those differences are what distinguish one people from another visually, but language distinguishes them emotionally and socially. Much of their cohesiveness as a cultural group depends on the uniqueness of their language, even though some language in common is necessary for trading purposes.
As we see literally dozes of languages disappearing from our planet each year and increasing numbers of people speaking fewer languages, we hear more about a global community, common global issues, global needs and global solutions.
Today's world has more need for people to work together as one massive community than it does for thousands of fractious cultural groups, each with its own inadequate and perhaps destructive agenda for the future.
Ironically, war drives people apart, so they see their need to be different from larger masses of people rather than their need for common bonds.
It's not peace itself, but economics and security in peacetime that bring the needs of all people to their attention.
The more people speak fewer languages, the more we should see that as a sign that those people see their collective needs as being more important than their local or regional needs.
We all, today, feel a need for global peace. Believe it or not, there are fewer wars, insurrections and acts of genocide happening in the world today than there have ever been before in our history. Our media make it seem different from that, but the United Nations keeps track of such things.
The more our media report about wars, genocide and global pollution, the more inclined we are to see a global need for peace, security and clean air and water. That means we think more globally, even though any solutions are always local.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to enlighten us about how our needs shape our lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Federico Fellini, film director and writer (1920-1993)
A language develops out of a need for a people to communicate in a way that is different from the way neighbouring peoples communicate with each other.
The need for difference might not be simply for security, but more likely because one people does things differently from their neighbours, make different objects, have different crafts, create diffeent foods, wear different styles of clothing, have different beliefs and customs.
Those differences are what distinguish one people from another visually, but language distinguishes them emotionally and socially. Much of their cohesiveness as a cultural group depends on the uniqueness of their language, even though some language in common is necessary for trading purposes.
As we see literally dozes of languages disappearing from our planet each year and increasing numbers of people speaking fewer languages, we hear more about a global community, common global issues, global needs and global solutions.
Today's world has more need for people to work together as one massive community than it does for thousands of fractious cultural groups, each with its own inadequate and perhaps destructive agenda for the future.
Ironically, war drives people apart, so they see their need to be different from larger masses of people rather than their need for common bonds.
It's not peace itself, but economics and security in peacetime that bring the needs of all people to their attention.
The more people speak fewer languages, the more we should see that as a sign that those people see their collective needs as being more important than their local or regional needs.
We all, today, feel a need for global peace. Believe it or not, there are fewer wars, insurrections and acts of genocide happening in the world today than there have ever been before in our history. Our media make it seem different from that, but the United Nations keeps track of such things.
The more our media report about wars, genocide and global pollution, the more inclined we are to see a global need for peace, security and clean air and water. That means we think more globally, even though any solutions are always local.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to enlighten us about how our needs shape our lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Your old age could be torture for you
The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.
- Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860)
The chances of your being run over by a bus or of dying of some disease are low compared to the chances of your living to a ripe old age. That is, in all likelihood, you will have to live 24 hours of every day as an old person.
If that seems a long way off to you now, speak to someone who is a senior citizen and ask how quickly it goes. It speeds by, just as the hours of your day go quickly as you rush through your life today.
That leaves you, in your senior years, with far less to do and far more time to think, time to review your life. This is the time for self torture for those whose lives were misspent, filled with misdeeds, deceit and poorly chosen time choices.
This is NOT the time of life you want to spend suffering because you realize how wrong you were. This is NOT the time you want to say so often "If only..."
There is no "If only..." for those who live as if they will have to look back on their lives as elderly people and use their time accordingly now.
Live today as if you don't want to suffer regrets later. Those regrets are painful.
Maybe no one has told you that before. Regrets in old age are more painful than cancer. You suffer every day, every night. You ache for lost time, lost opportunities, lost friendships, lost loves, lost chances to help others out of the troughs of difficulties, lost possibilities to improve your wisdom, your health, what makes you the being you are or could be.
Today is your investment in your own future.
In old age, money is nice, but it brings absolutely no peace of mind. You can't buy that.
You have to earn peace of mind. Invest your life well.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help everyone to invest their lives wisely.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
- Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860)
The chances of your being run over by a bus or of dying of some disease are low compared to the chances of your living to a ripe old age. That is, in all likelihood, you will have to live 24 hours of every day as an old person.
If that seems a long way off to you now, speak to someone who is a senior citizen and ask how quickly it goes. It speeds by, just as the hours of your day go quickly as you rush through your life today.
That leaves you, in your senior years, with far less to do and far more time to think, time to review your life. This is the time for self torture for those whose lives were misspent, filled with misdeeds, deceit and poorly chosen time choices.
This is NOT the time of life you want to spend suffering because you realize how wrong you were. This is NOT the time you want to say so often "If only..."
There is no "If only..." for those who live as if they will have to look back on their lives as elderly people and use their time accordingly now.
Live today as if you don't want to suffer regrets later. Those regrets are painful.
Maybe no one has told you that before. Regrets in old age are more painful than cancer. You suffer every day, every night. You ache for lost time, lost opportunities, lost friendships, lost loves, lost chances to help others out of the troughs of difficulties, lost possibilities to improve your wisdom, your health, what makes you the being you are or could be.
Today is your investment in your own future.
In old age, money is nice, but it brings absolutely no peace of mind. You can't buy that.
You have to earn peace of mind. Invest your life well.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help everyone to invest their lives wisely.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl
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