Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog

We live in extremely precarious times.  We need to go beyond mere depression about things; we need to act and not merely “go along indifferently.”  The planet is getting more and more overcrowded with people (and people are still cranking out more and more babies); there is less and less space (especially for animals and plants).  Extinctions in nature are occurring at an unprecedented rate (with over a million species going extinct lately).  There is much less healthy agricultural land (as pollution is creeping in everywhere imaginable).   Carbon emissions and plastics are ruining the globe, while the Amazon and Western U.S. forests (and other world forests) burn rampantly, while some flat-earth political groups deny global warming and heavily contribute to the deterioration of the environment.  There is less viable fresh water.  Guns and weapons of mass destruction are on the rise; unfortunately, with many not realizing it, germ warfare is a very real possibility.  Automated robots will soon be replacing millions of people in the workplace.  The over-use of unnatural, made-made food products and the over-usage of synthetic medicines is making the human population more and more unnaturally sick and corrupt, with immune function diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, cancer, depression, mental problems, and such things as diabetes becoming all too common, with increasing frequencies of occurrence.  We are rapidly losing what little freedom we had; political figures are becoming more and more dictatorial and propaganda news channels (much like what Nazi movies did in the past) are making crass people believe very crazy/hateful things. 

What is one to do regarding all of this obvious insecurity?  Too many of us are looking at the problems fragmentarily.  The problems are not isolated; one problem is related to another problem.  There is a bigger picture that is more holistic, more comprehensive, insightful, and caring.  We must look beyond the $-oriented opportunistic greed that is contagiously expanding as if it (i.e., such greed) is an accepted disease (that is OK).  A holistic, truly compassionate, non-indifferent mind of wisdom and insight would not be a huge contributing factor (to the above terrible situations) and would even seriously try to help change things.  A mind that operates in the old, traditional patterns, staying fragmentary, staying comfortable and barbaric (full of bias, indifference, and callousness) would not significantly help with the earth’s present very serious problems and with the problems that human beings face; such an indifferent/crass mind would merely continue to make the earth a living hell.  We can be stable and holistic or we can be fragmented and uncaring.  We can, (in all of this danger, fragmentation, and disorder), be order, wholeness, compassion, and largely be freedom from fear. 

No matter how terrible or disorderly things may seem on the outside, wisdom would primarily be stability and joyous harmony on the inside, in consciousness; it’s wisdom’s responsibility.  It’s wisdom’s responsibility not to be sad in a sad world; it’s wisdom’s responsibility not to be nuts in a nutty world.  Empathy would still exist; we wouldn’t look away from the suffering of those (supposedly) at a distance, and we would act to help; it’s wisdom’s responsibily.