Self-Reliant?

[Walking through my thoughts today - no insight expected - likely to repeat the thoughts of all of those who've contemplated their foreheads ever since humans could think outside the moment]

No one is an island, I get that. Even if a person lives in a jungle, on an island, on a farm or on a ranch with no other humans around, that person still requires input from the environment to live. Je comprends.

So why all this fuss over the definition of body/brain functions such as consciousness? Putting our excess capacity to use, of course. We've conquered survival and for the last few thousand years we've been and are looking for what else is out there, never realizing there is nothing else.

But there must be, n'est pas? After all, we can speak multiple languages, create new substances, predict the weather and send people to foreign lands.

I don't know...Je ne connais pas moi, beaucoup moins le monde, or something like that.

Today, I am unsure who I want to be in the next moment. I looked at the stacks of DVDs in the house, trying to find one to send to a kind salesperson, Bel, who works at the 10,000 Villages shop in Montreat, North Carolina, USA, making sure the DVD is somewhat kid-friendly but also informative. The DVD that stood out, "1 Giant Leap," contains mature content, including strong language and brief nudity, but the general message of the DVD is worth letting kids see -- "unity in diversity" -- so perhaps I can pass it on to Bel and her husband to watch and let them decide if their children should see the flick.

I checked the 'Net for info about the movie and found links to social media (whatever that phrase means, most likely socially-responsible, consciousness-raising material). I grew up in a neighborhood that contained adults who beat each other and their children, married adults who had sex with other married adults, adults who focused solely on their children's welfare and adults who spent any extra money they had or didn't need on the care of others (foster children, food aid for starving people and the like). I was raised with ethical/moral training coming from long-established religious dogma - in fact, my wife and I met when we were 12 years old at a summer camp sponsored by a church organization. Thus, we were constantly made aware of social iniquities.

I've always known I was open to helping others but my desire to help others in need goes through a case-by-case evaluation method and not through a systematic handing out of aid. In other words, I know human nature. I know the part of me that is not self-reliant and is willing to lean heavily on others for support, even to the level of lying in order to keep getting free handouts, especially if it means I don't have to perform physical labor or exert myself mentally to get them.

In my studies, I have seen the slash-and-burn technology of my so-called "self-reliant" forebears as they made their way through this continent after exhausting the lands of Europe, Asia and Africa, killing and eliminating large species, cutting down forests, planting crops that used up the soil, and digging up or blasting hillsides to get to precious minerals, metals or fuel. After they used up the land, they moved on to more fertile territory. All of us have read about or seen this, even in today's way of living -- it's like watching a slow-motion version of a comet crashing into Earth and reshaping the landscape. Of course, left untouched, forests grow back and new species move in to replace the old ones. Life goes on.

That's the point, isn't it? Even if we figure out how to rejuvenate extinct species like the woolly mammoth, life goes on. There is no golden age, only memories we create in which we can mentally stop time and pick and choose the moments we enjoyed in the past. There will always be someone somewhere beating up offspring, having non-monogamous sex, killing/eliminating species in the name of something/someone else that mentally justifies the action (For example, you want a recordable DVD player? Well, it requires dropping a factory in this rain forest where three species will be immediately extinguished and a dozen others will slowly go extinct.).

I heard a person state that 40% of us wouldn't be here if everyone stuck to monogamous sex. I have no idea if he/she was exaggerating or quoting a reliable statistical study. In either case, the point is that life is not perfect. There is no other existence out there that we can reach only if we obey a certain set of rules such as the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments. We've got what we've got and when we learn to teach our children to see the world as it is and not as some sort of simplified cartoon movie, we'll get closer to unity in diversity.

I guess it's the question of what diversity means that drives me forward, currently investigating the definition of consciousness. What does diversity mean? In other words, what can you tolerate? Would you stop the next-door neighbor from beating his children if you knew that one of the children would go on to be the greatest race car driver that ever lived because of the discipline and gritty determination the beatings provided? Would you stop North Korea from declaring itself a nuclear power if you knew that allowing North Korea to develop nuclear weapons and rename itself would free their people to develop a water purification process that would "cure" the world of drought?

In other words, do you know the future? I sure don't. I'm not even sure what I'm going to do in the next moment, although I'm pretty sure that I'll be typing here for a while and then will fix lunch for myself using food I bought at a local grocery store and honey that my wife's cousin's husband pulled from beehives he tends.

Self-reliance, diversity, tolerance, and censorship. Imagine those four words are the points of a compass and unity is in the middle. Now imagine four turtles representing the four points are tied together and trying to center a rock over the word unity. You get to pick one turtle to help center the rock, knowing that two people will be assigned to a turtle opposite you and thus three people to the turtles adjacent to you. Which one do you choose? [The other three words will be assigned to the remaining turtles only after you select yours.]