Starry, starry night ...

Vincent van Gogh sold just one painting during his career.  The best of his works were done in a brief three-year period before he took his own life, "... for the good of all." 

Attempts were made to bring him back from the edge where his mental dysfunction had dragged him, but with little effect.  There was no science or medical understanding in those days for the brokenness of his mind, the chemical imbalances, the upside-down causes and effects.  The world had no place for him.  Things are perhaps a little better now.

It does make you wonder, though.  Our human world seems well-equipped for some but perhaps not for all.  At its center, the successful among us find society welcoming us and making a place for us.  Moving outward from that center though, life becomes progressively more difficult.  Less opportunity, less welcome, less of a comfortable place and more of a struggle just to survive.

At its center, success shapes more success for itself, and it does so at the expense of the larger whole. 

World trade practices favor the powerful and wealthy, while often negatively affecting people struggling to make a living.  World governance shapes itself to foster business and power, often at the expense of justice for the marginalized.

In a small African country, dad and his kids tend their prolific garden plot.  Okra (!), corn, beans, manioc; enough to
feed themselves and sell a little.  A family of six, they're working hard and making progress.  We get to be part of it
with them.  (A friend from the states provided the start-up help.)

Perhaps the next world will be better.  Or rather than resignation, might we instead reshape this one?  One little piece at a time!  What could be more fun than that?

Merry Christmas, 2012.

Don't want to be numb

numb dumb blind.

Meeting my brothers and sisters, and their kids ... probably the most fun you can have this side of the next world.

A bit of a dilemma followed.

Coming back yet again from Africa, I find it hard to face my own home.  All I can think of is moving to a simpler place, a cabin perhaps, or a garage.  I'm uncomfortable with my lifestyle.  The years spent in pursuit of education, career, retirement ... all oddly out of balance viewed from recent experience.

Sackcloth seems more appropriate, somehow. 

It hadn't occurred to me in my youth that much thought was needed in regards to others.  Things would work out, I supposed.  

Things will work out?  They don't, actually.  Kids go hungry, adults work harder for less.  Poverty in my country is considered wealthy in most of the world.  

For many, $65 a month is a typical wage if they have a job.
 
An average U.S. home, converted to materials and money, would provide housing for between fifty and perhaps a few hundred families in some other places.  The economic differences between countries are a problem; the people, well we're all pretty much the same.
 

Neighborhood kids, out of school for the afternoon.  'Don't call me 'Babe' on my goddaughter's shirt.

I have no idea where that one came from.  :)

Growing up, I believed the common version of class distinctions; that wealth was somehow an indication of having worked harder or being smarter or better. 

Then I saw that those without wealth work harder than anyone I know, that they rise up and try again and again, and that they genuinely understand community.  They know more about survival and what's really important.  And they're nicer than me, most of them.  I didn't know.

Cooking requires firewood for the stove.

It's taking awhile to re-balance my own worldview.

Old questions have different answers now.

• The world's finest gentlemen may well be ...
• The most noble among us are perhaps these ...
• The most hospitable of families are ...
• The truly courageous today are those ...
• Strength, grace, joy, hope, and faith are most visible in ...  
• Members of my hero short-list are ... 

Bishop Samuel in Kenya and kids he helps to stay in school ...
I got to meet one of these kids when I was there.

The family that adopted us ...
UPDATE: 2016 - the kids are
grown up and on Facebook!
We text msg sometimes and
video chat.

Balance!  I'm still reeling a bit.  My wife, too.  :)  What fun!  OK, not so much fun, maybe, but what fascinating changes.  

Wife and dear friend in western Africa

Now there are no longer insiders and outsiders, gentile and gaijin, us and them, but just the one family, and one God and Father of us all.

 

Hmmm.  Where do you go with that kind of thinking?
 

The legacy ...

The top 0.1% ...

The richest people in the world.

People whose wealth exceeds that of a million average folks.  Wealth that for the median income group has no frame of reference for a discussion.

The odd and unasked question ...  why are they so rich?

Is it because they work harder? 
Is it because they are smarter? 
Is it because they deserve it more than anyone else?


Some of them are the hard-working, clever ones like Jobs or Gates.  And generous as well, some of them.
Some are brilliant innovators like Oracle's Ellison or Amazon's Bezos.
Or smart investors like Buffet.

Some are celebrities, athletes, and others who get paid extraordinary amounts for the entertainment value of their appearance or physical talent.  

Just in case you were beginning to think rich people 
were deeply misunderstood and that they feel the 
pain of those who are less fortunate, here’s the world’s 
wealthiest woman, mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, 
with some helpful advice.
“If you’re jealous of those with more money, don’t just 
sit there and complain,” she said in a magazine piece. “Do 
something to make more money yourself — spend less 
time drinking or smoking and socializing, and more time 
working.”
Yeah, let them eat cake.
Rinehart made her money the old-fashioned way:
She inherited it.  Her family iron ore prospecting
fortune of $30.1 billion makes her the richest woman
on the planet.
“Become one of those people who work hard, invest
and build, and at the same time create employment and
opportunities for others.”  Right. She makes more in a
minute than most folks make in a year.  In her defense,
she gives away around 1/1,000th of her income to
charitable work.

Too, there are a disturbing number of folks whose wealth arose from doing more harm than good.  Wall Street is awash with such from the hedge fund industry.  Billionaires selling worthless derivatives.  Million dollar/year and /month types.  Hedge funds, leveraged buyouts, investment banking, and money laundering management; they provide little benefit to humanity; they just skim off the collective wealth of the world.

Then, of course, there's the world's top 20% ...
Interestingly, the gap between the wealthy and the rest is widening faster than ever before. 

The gap between the rich world and the poor world is quite visible, and is now the subject of broadly based discussion.  And concern.

So what legacy will the wealthy leave to the rest of their relatives?  To the rest of humanity?

Around 80% of humanity lives below the western world's poverty line.  That's five billion people.

Around 27% of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of that deficit are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.  (If you walk the streets there, you'll meet them every day along with their families.  By the hundreds in a given hour.  Sweet folks, most of them.)

According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”<sup>Source 4

Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.Source 7</sup> 

In developing countries some 2.5 billion people are forced to rely on firewood, charcoal and animal dung for cooking. In sub-Saharan Africa, over 80 percent of the population depends on traditional biomass for cooking, as do over half of the populations of India and China.^{Source 14}

Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000, and of course, it didn’t happen.^{Source 8}

Oh, and why are the poor ... well, poor?

"There are 47 percent of the people ... who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. ... My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives." -Mitt Romney (further analysis)

"They should have fewer children; it's their choice.  Children or air conditioning." -anon

What might be the conclusion of such thinking?  And what of the ever widening gap between rich and poor? 

Thoughts?

Now is the time ...

What time is it?

• question: Where are we in the flow of history?
• answer: This is the change point.  It's as big as our move from wanderers into agriculture and cities. This is the move from an era of empires to the global era where we're all connected.
• basis: History, future studies, anthropology, archeology, global modeling, global trend analysis.
• strategy: Look again.  Wrestle with a whole-world context, and find the ethical points for involvement.

To see the world in terms of yourself and your norms is as sadly uninformed as Columbus was about 'Indians'.

Now our choices touch the world.  Every day, we choose.

What legacy shall we leave our children?  Money?  Land?  Or a good conscience and an ethical worldview.

Chance of a lifetime!

Powerful change!  Extraordinary opportunity!

These will not be the 'boring years'!

• The last century has brought unprecedented change in the economy and the environment, in population and technology.

• We face challenges, including that humanity now exceeds the long-term biocapacity of the Earth.  It can't sustain us in our current way of life.

• Our response to such challenges has been limited as we work through institutions and ideas developed in earlier times. The gap between our challenges and our ability to address them seems to increase with each passing year.  We'll adjust and adapt, of course.

You might notice which national policy issues include consideration of the long-term sustainability question.  Many of our folks deny there are any such problems.  Perhaps they can do so because as a nation, we're wealthy enough to hold the problems and the reality at a distance.  Try looking with a global perspective though, and see what others see.

Making a place for everyone is perhaps the greatest challenge we face now.  Providing one meal a day for our children has become more difficult.  Population growth has been stunning over the last century, and most dramatic in the developing world. 

Energy is the enabling resource for our standard of living.  The next few decades will, of necessity, see radical changes.   We will peak in our capacity to produce fossil fuel based energy in this generation, by optimistic estimates.  Our children will see a sharp decline in energy available beginning around 2030.  We will make adjustments in every area of civilization.  Home, office, roadway, store, farm, shipping, entertainment, mobility, business, travel, all will change. We will adjust and adapt, of course.

UN projections suggest population will top out around ten billion or so in the next decades.  That limit will be triggered by population support capacity more than by any particular choice. Our ability to feed and house  ourselves is limited by energy, primarily, and there are a finite number of locations where populations might be supported as well.  We'll change to adapt.


At least, most of us will.  The worrisome side of such change is that often, personal needs and required adjustments are made by the wealthy because they can.  The poor, of course, are left behind.  Reports this year tell us of the wealthier folks in North Korean making the move to China because food is more easily available there. The poor remain behind where they live in great distress; many die, and some have begun to take their own lives rather than starve.  That's today's reality.  We're in the process of choosing tomorrow's reality.

For now, the wealthy gather themselves and their possessions and say of the rest, it's their fault they're hungry; they shouldn't have so many children, they should work harder, they should stay in school, they should plant more rice/wheat/corn/soy/tomatoes.  The rich draw the line at their borders and say of the rest, "let the rest solve their own problems."  They've discovered that they can indeed walk by on the other side of the street.  "So sad, but not my problem."

Here's our chance!  So, how shall we then live?  And how might we prepare our children?  Does our worldview contain a rational understanding of such things?  Or our theology?  How's our selfish/selfless balancing act these days?  The upheaval is now a given, and as it approaches, we get to choose our response.

We'll perhaps see: 

• divergent societies - already visible among secessionists, preppers, offgriders, alt economy participants (millions,  perhaps 2-3% of pop now), philosophically now an emerging sub-culture; all good.
• cultural separation between the 'havers' and the 'doers' - separatists now visible in every professional venue; formalized rebellion against fiscal/social model, increasing dissatisfaction with a pure capitalist market approach; all good
• disintegration of nationalisms - already visible - embarrassed to be western, searching for non-nationalistic identity; not inappropriate
• multi-fracture generational disassociations - greater numbers of young idealists drift off the mainstream, some discontinue participation in nation and state; perhaps for the best
• abandonment of fiscal-centric in favor of member-centric communities/businesses/orgs/gov - we're perhaps a couple of decades into this emergence. The change is strongly opposed by federal and state governments.  'Occupy' is perhaps the recent expression of those most abused.  It's about time.

Large and perhaps a little frightening are the changes we'll see in the next generation.  Shall we let them sweep us and our children along, tumbling down the river?  Or might we take a step or two on our own?

Suggestions on finding our way?  :)

Off in the distance, our goals ...
  Nobility
    Courage
      Generosity
        Compassion
          Strength
            Powerful vision

Change makers and help bringers

The hard question.

The gap between rich and poor continues to widen, and the poor ... well, there will always be some among us that are poor, right?
  
There are some interesting things we know objectively and in general about our world's poor.  One, they work harder than one might expect.  Two, they know more about survival than is common across the population.  Three, they're bright, creative, innovative, and willing to try new ideas. The availability of resources, of education, employment sites, agricultural venues, even fresh water, all of it varies from place to place, from region to region.  Not everyone will have the same opportunity, particularly if the rich bend things in their own favor as is common.

An interesting issued was raised in the 70's by Eric Fromm, 'to have or to be'.  His thesis is that two modes of existence struggle for the spirit of humankind: the having mode, which concentrates on material possessions, power, and aggression, (and is the basis of greed); and the being mode, which is based on relationship, the pleasure of community and productive activity.  The having mode has given us our current circumstance.



How might our family or any family qualify to live in poverty?  If we're lazy?  If we won't work or refuse to learn?  Those are the causal elements often suggested.

But ... they didn't choose poverty for their family, for their children.  Day after day, it is done to them by government, by the rich, by the developed world, by the world economic community.  It is done to them by those who somehow think there is enough for everyone if they'll just work really hard for their share.  Foolishness.


A deadly by-product, the variations in the market place.  Congress wrangles over the debt ceiling or Wall Street triggers a another hiccup, and we see price fluctuations.  We're annoyed, perhaps, but in the developing world, the fluctuation causes a family who spends 50% of their income just on food to fall short of enough.  Now they have to choose who goes to school or who gets enough to eat.  We do that to them.  All the time. It's globalization; it's been with us for almost a century.


Our cultural choice to 'have' causes a competition between the rich and poor for resources.  As an example, biofuels now compete for grain with the world's poorest who depend on maize meal (corn meal) for survival.  The gap widens, the rich get richer, and the poor pay for it.  At the lower end of the world's economic scale, the poor ... well, survival choices become more difficult.