This need not be
I have a dear friend who is dying of cancer. This need not be. No one needs to die from cancer ever again if medical techniques available or considered now are studied and fully developed.
I have noticed as I get older that I have to fight against slowing down and work a little bit harder to move at the speed I used to. I am aging. We all are. This need not be. We need not lose our edge bit by bit. We need not lose our loved ones to gradual memory loss, senility, perhaps Alzheimer's, to death. We could all have an unlimited stretch of years before us to seek whatever happiness, purposes, knowledge, joy that we wish.
Each day approximately 150,000 human beings die. Many die from some disease or another. This need not be. The promise of biomedicine and especially of medical nanotechology is a cure for most conditions that kill today. Another large group dies of old age and this need not be. Another group dies of malnutrition and lack of clean water. This need not be even without major breakthroughs in technology. It does require breakthroughs in how we envision ourselves and this world.
Another group dies in wars. Now we are in a non-war against "terrorism" that is said to never end. We live in fear and deal in fear. We live and die in fear and kill in fear. This need not be. There can be enough of all good and needed things for all people. There is no need to squabble over scraps when infinite abundance is within our grasp. There is no need to kill each other over current opinions and ideologies when infinite time to understand and transcend our differences is ours if we wish. But instead we divide in "us" vs. "them", turn everyone into terrorists, aider of terrorism or fellow combatant - or into enemy or friend combatant. This need not be.
Yet the energy, the culture, the frenzy, fear and anxiety all try to tell us that this must be. It is so very difficult to see a new possibility. It is more difficult still to embrace it, to attempt to live from it and to teach others to do the same.
I have noticed as I get older that I have to fight against slowing down and work a little bit harder to move at the speed I used to. I am aging. We all are. This need not be. We need not lose our edge bit by bit. We need not lose our loved ones to gradual memory loss, senility, perhaps Alzheimer's, to death. We could all have an unlimited stretch of years before us to seek whatever happiness, purposes, knowledge, joy that we wish.
Each day approximately 150,000 human beings die. Many die from some disease or another. This need not be. The promise of biomedicine and especially of medical nanotechology is a cure for most conditions that kill today. Another large group dies of old age and this need not be. Another group dies of malnutrition and lack of clean water. This need not be even without major breakthroughs in technology. It does require breakthroughs in how we envision ourselves and this world.
Another group dies in wars. Now we are in a non-war against "terrorism" that is said to never end. We live in fear and deal in fear. We live and die in fear and kill in fear. This need not be. There can be enough of all good and needed things for all people. There is no need to squabble over scraps when infinite abundance is within our grasp. There is no need to kill each other over current opinions and ideologies when infinite time to understand and transcend our differences is ours if we wish. But instead we divide in "us" vs. "them", turn everyone into terrorists, aider of terrorism or fellow combatant - or into enemy or friend combatant. This need not be.
Yet the energy, the culture, the frenzy, fear and anxiety all try to tell us that this must be. It is so very difficult to see a new possibility. It is more difficult still to embrace it, to attempt to live from it and to teach others to do the same.
posted by samantha at 1:46 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home