Plato wrote the allegory of the cave in 514 AD and it is still very appropriate, but sadly few humans are open-minded enough to understand the importance of reading it and growing as per the writing.
Racism is still rampant, and religious persecution is at the same level as it has been throughout the decades. Given their druthers and asked confidentially with no consequences, many North Americans would likely be comfortable with a mass genocide based on the Social Media “reactions” I’ve seen. People still shame others to make themselves feel good; the need for validation has never seemed so high. The search for physical beauty to be visually perfect, along with the latest trend pretending to be a fraudulent genius and coming up with scientific solutions to “solve an issue,” are at all-time highs. Sadly the celebration of our ability to perform physical feats is steady and par for the course across the millennia, celebrating brawn over brains. At the same time, society says we need thinkers and cramming the squares into a round peg to stifle them.
Yesterday, I worked on what my son jokingly calls “mom’s dead people,” which are the 8,500 WikiTree profiles for random people I research. Walking through the steps of so many human lives has shown me more about the human condition than any book, psychology study, or media feed ever could.
There is this debate about how the world used to be better vs. the world is better today. People often are blind to see that humans have not changed much over the last few thousand years at the most basic fundamental level.
In first-world countries, we have improved living conditions and health care; we “think” we are more innovative and have more amenities. Many can have all the knowledge of the world in a device that fits in their hands, but in general, they use that device to share a meme, shame someone, vent about how the person at the store took up two parking spots and is an “Asshole parker of …. “. Our culture, our society is nothing more than a result of the choices each makes in the collective and that same device could be used to better the world, find beauty in decay, or create something that can leave a legacy.
However, in general, humans have no genuine desire to change; they like the comfortable, crave the known, and will begrudgingly move along only if given no choice. That is why they park in the same place, like the same comfy, homey restaurants, comfort food, tend to stick to the same shampoo, cologne. Most can not even come up with novel reasons why they can’t make a change, just repeating the same mantra of “I can’t,” not even admitting to themselves they can, but won’t. Yes, there are exceptions… however they are exceptions.
Today it seems that humans like to complain a lot about their neighbour, what’s wrong with the world, how hard they have it, their aches, their pains, their lack of money, or overwhelming stress. They go on about their inability to have a life balance, failing to understand where they are in life is nothing more than a result of their choice, and chose the road to be where they are today. I’m not sure if that has changed or not; to answer that, I’d have to peer into many diaries and be a fly on a wall 100 years ago. Alas, I’m stuck with newspapers, books and other accounts of the past that are factual to see if I see that trend.
It was the day I was looking for the link between Jimmy Hoffa and my Hoffa’s – I found it, and yes, he is a cousin of mine, 4th with a few removed in there. Being related to Jimmy Hoffa is nothing more than a party trick, as we all have a handful of famous people we can link to us. I was looking for humanity, finding Dr. Frank Hoffa, who spent eight years in jail for manslaughter. He might be worth researching, but then that fire came into my view, a gut-wrenching knot in my stomach as I read through it and could see the flames engulf the house and those in it.
The woodstove was roaring in the house they rented, and he had placed the solvent on the stove to warm it enough to use. His wife reached over to lift it, and it was then the explosion happened, catching her on fire, with the house not far after. I see the fire in front of me, seeing him lose two children and his wife, all because of trying to fix something around the house, and she picked it up.
In watching the skeleton of his life as it unfolded before me, in the decades that followed, did we see him collapse upon despair in the sense of guilt that he had left the solvent on the stove? He went on to remarry several years later and had more children. The community hugged him and helped the family recover from the tragedy.
In today’s world, that story would have become viral. Social media would tear his soul into two; one would be pushing for a go-fund-me account to help him recover, the other shaming him for such carelessness.
I’m sure people then had similar thoughts on the matter, but they say people in those days “kept their noses” where they belonged, or so they wanted it to appear. No, they didn’t; there were just other ways of communicating and presenting info at that time. But it did lead me to a question; is the human capacity of resiliency as much today as it was 100 years ago?
We know humankind can show remarkable power when faced with conflict but is humanity still given a chance to harness that ability fully? What changes are made epigenetically through the decades, which lines do resiliency run the strongest?
I appreciate the latest cultural shift towards the mantras of letting the pain flow through you, feel it, and be free. But I wonder if that can often have the exact opposite effect and result in someone making that pain part of their identity and wallowing in it as a victim. Lately, society seems to be so much a victim of anything and everything; I was wronged, I was taken advantage of, they triggered me!
After the age of 14, where you are in life is nothing more than your choices. So Umm no.. f** that sh*** – you get up, face a new day, shift your life, and rework the brain pathways to create new neural pathways and move on past what created pain.
The challenge with the human race is they do not understand what they are truly capable of. Sitting in offices by the day, staring out their windows, scared to take that leap into what would make them happy for fear of the consequences of what others think.
Well, the thing is, in the long run, people will not “think” much about you. You will be nothing more than the passing fancy of someone like me, who decides your life story needs to be shared. No matter your contribution to the world, everyone’s story should be there for those who share their DNA or even come from your community to understand what moulded their lives to be them.
The point in life is not to become rich, make our mark on the world, or accumulate tangible things. It’s to find peace, to connect with the world and seek perspective. We each need to find the key to unlock that part in us that allows us to smile from the core and a life that makes us glow. Sometimes that can be as simple as a naughty parrot or a spunky hummingbird; we as humans overcomplicate things.
Whether you are a woman who helped raise 22 children, you killed your brother with an Ax in his sleep or grew up in the same small town in Saskatchewan, never going more than 100 miles from where you were born – you are part of humanity, of our story.
The more that we attempt to change as a society, the more evident it becomes we don’t change. We don’t learn from history, and although we consider ourselves advanced, we are more cruel, uncaring and cold than our paradigms will ever let us see.
We, like our ancestors, want to congratulate ourselves for “getting it right.” Sadly in 2117, people will stand looking back at 2017, scoffing at how little we knew. In this, they will fail to see they are no more awake than those in 512 AD in Plato’s allegory of the cave.
Some will understand and wake up to escape the cave. It those that we must pay attention to, for it is those that have learned the secret of humanity; simply that we must respect humankind.
We must shift our paradigms, challenge ourselves, and acknowledge every step of every journey that has brought us to this moment. We are all interwoven through the cascading butterfly effect known as this thing called life through the quantum entanglement of life. We must build lives that respect ourselves.
I will always sit outside the crowd simply observing, never amid.
Watching, shifting my views, understanding, and belief’s as I become more aware. Unfortunately, once you become aware, you can not reverse it; you can not unlearn. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind was accurate; you can not erase it no matter how hard you try. As our experiences and observations make us beautiful, and they say being human is divine.
Now it is time to head back, to tell more stories, to ensure no person, no soul is left behind.
Perhaps I’ll see if I can figure out more about young 10-year-old Merrill Morton in Oklahoma, who ended up in the newspaper for training a Squirrel and freaking out the boarding house lady.
Whatever it is, you do tonight; remember, it will leave a mark on the world. That mark will create a butterfly effect, having two consequences, one you can predict and one you can’t
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