Putting religion and politics aside for just a moment, deep down we all want peace in all its shapes and forms. War on the other hand is all we've had through out our bloody human history.
And I wonder, why? Why does war exist? When it's peace that all of us dream of having. Us --the simple people, the majority. Why do we fight? What can we do to bring peace to our troubled world?
Being cursed with an analytical and logical mind, I started to try and analyze. You know how it goes, givens, findings, requirements, solutions, etc. In short my mind wandered as usual in all the unusual paths.
Is it possible that if we know how and why wars are started, we could stop them? Wishful thinking I know. But logically and theoretically speaking it is a valid assumption. So, what is war? If you want to stop it you need to know what it really is. I'm not talking about dictionary definitions. I'm talking what war REALY is. It's destruction, rights violation, loss of loved ones, money going to waste. This is war.
Economy is the heart of the engine that runs our world, and most wars are fought to control the economy one way or the other. What baffles me (me and my simplistic thinking) if you spend all the money used to fight a war on your own development, you won't need to get it from someone else. I do not want to delve further into politics and other taboo matters that start wars such as, border conflict, chain reactions, religion, because in my opinion they all are just as silly reasons as power and economics.
I just have one question. What gives anyone the right to take a life just because they don't see eye to eye with them?
The interesting thing I have noticed is that all wars were started by one person (Hitler, Saddam, you can fill in the spaces) Why? Truly. Why do we as a human race allow one person to drag us into this? I remember reading once an article by Margaret Mead where she asked the question of whether war was a biological necessity or just a bad invention. She adopts the opinion that it is a bad invention, and I'd like to believe her. But unfortunately as societies not just as nations, I mean on the personal level as well, we just seem to have lost our capacity to tolerate. Violence has become the first resort. We're not blood thirsty creatures, we are not violent by nature, but that's all we see. Sometimes I think that many people do not know any other way to settle differences or conflicts except through violence, and by violence I mean physical, verbal and emotional. And we're not doing anything about unfortunately. So it will never end.
I think I'm right where I started with no answers what so ever. I have more questions though. What are * you* going to do to bring peace to our world next year? I'm not asking for anything major? No Noble prize efforts are required. Just create peace around you. If we each do this, it might spread.
Wishing everybody a peaceful New Year.
All I Really Need To Know
by Robert Fulghum
I Learned In Kindergarten
- an excerpt from the book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned in KindergartenAll I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.
ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do
and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not
at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the
sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some
and draw and paint and sing and dance and play
and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic,
hold hands, and stick together.
Be aware of wonder.
Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup:
The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody
really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even
the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die.
So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books
and the first word you learned - the biggest
word of all - LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.
The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation.
Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any of those items and extrapolate it into
sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your
family life or your work or your government or
your world and it holds true and clear and firm.
Think what a better world it would be if
all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about
three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with
our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments
had a basic policy to always put thing back where
they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you
are - when you go out into the world, it is best
to hold hands and stick together.
© Robert Fulghum, 1990.
Found in Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, Villard Books: New York, 1990, page 6-7.
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