Ronald Reagan, Sustainability, and Happiness

Dear Ronald Reagan,

Yeah, what a great job you did. You created a great model for the Republican Party: Cut taxes, cut social programs, beef up the military, and make people feel good about themselves. Once the economy is revved from the tax breaks and deregulation you brag about it and get yourself and other Republicans reelected.

Except that the federal deficit is soaring each month and you're driving your country deeper into debt. And removing regulations harms the environment and the working class. But the deficit is an abstract that most Americans don't understand or care about. What everyone cares about is that they are enjoying prosperity NOW. Thanks, Reagan, for harming our country and setting a bad precedent for future Republican presidents.

I'm not sure why so many highways and airports are named after you, but I guess it's because you made people feel good. And now, 30 years later, I'm still waiting for that trickle-down wealth you talked about to trickle down to me. What really happened is that the 1 percenters kept it to buy more second homes and yachts, while the working class struggles to pay their bills.

Introspection

My epiphany for the week is that facts don't matter (even though they really do). You can bury people in facts but they will still believe what they want to believe because it's comfortable for them.

I'm amazed by the people who believe the Earth is flat. They will go to great lengths to justify their belief and nothing can change their mind. Are they just trying to attract attention? Do they really believe the absurdity?

Religion is no different. There is a website that lists the 1,000 gods invented by men, yet Western Civilization decided to choose some god invented by Middle Eastern goat herders 3,200 years ago. A massive amount of money, time, and resources are wasted on this god at a time when we all could be working on environmental sustainability. Instead of elaborate Christmas Eve musicals, that time and energy could be better spent planting trees.

Roadmap

I'd love to find a web site that teaches us all how to live a better life. Just because you inject "the Lord told me" into every other sentence doesn't impress me at all. What impresses me are the people who recycle, plant urban gardens, and take reusable bags to the grocery store.

Trying to live a sustainable life is difficult for most of us because the economy has been engineered for most of us to exist at the subsistence level. We are just struggling to pay our bills and many of us don't have much time to do volunteer work.

But here's the path I try to follow:

• Recycle, use reusable shopping bags.
• Live a simple lifestyle.
• Minimize driving and meat intake.
• Repair things instead of buying more junk. 

For the people who feel the need to drive luxury cars and horde wealth, screw you all. I have no respect for you. Except if you need the luxury car for your job, like to impress your real estate clients, okay, I grant an exception.

In addition to having good personal habits, I try to help in two other ways:

• Volunteer for good causes that help other people, animals, or the Earth. For instance, I do volunteer work for the Sierra Club, foster dogs, and financially support my three favorite organizations — Sierra Club, Population Connection, and Planned Parenthood. I feel these three organizations do the most good with my limited dollars.
• Engage in advocacy. This is best done by emailing and calling politicians and government agencies on the local, state, and national levels. I subscribe to email lists that let me know when important legislation is coming up and who to contact.

The other thing I try to do is be a good person and a peacemaker. If I am perceived as "meek" or "weak" for doing this, then so be it. I'm not going to change who I am.

Visionaries

My two favorite books are "Ishmael" and "The Story of B," both written by the late Daniel Quinn. One of my favorite quotes from "The Story of B" is: 

"If the world is to be saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds, people with a new vision."

When I see middle aged white men attacking Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez I know these two visionaries are on the right path. I guarantee you that anything a bunch of old, overweight white men resist has to be good. And if I see anyone attacking these women on social media, I unfollow them immediately. Why? Because big white dudes shouldn't be attacking young women, especially when they are trying to save our earth. So, dudes, go back to your Fox News shows and potato chips, and leave the good people alone. I know you think everything is "just right" in our world, but it is not.

Happiness

Before there were Hebrews there was the city-state of Canaan, and, honestly, I'm telling you, they are the ones who invented your god. So when you sing hymns to Yahweh from your tattered green hymnal book, remember that he doesn't really care because he doesn't exist. You are singing to the legacy of goat herders who spent a lot of time gazing at stars and needed something to worship.

To those of you who worship money, I tell you that it won't buy happiness. Rich people are just as jacked up on antidepressants and drugs as the rest of us. The wealthy folks can just afford the better drugs without having to steal, although they typically steal in different ways.

But, getting to the point, happiness for me comes from doing the right thing and being with the right people. I am told that happiness must come from within, which is partly true. But when I look my grateful foster dog in the eye or when I'm with a woman who completes me and energizes me, then I am truly happy. Happiness really is a warm puppy. And happiness is being at peace with yourself, and being fulfilled and content. Happiness is a form of completion.

Conclusion

Okay, Ronald Reagan, I actually did like you and enjoyed your thoughtful speeches. Even on your worst day you were a trillion times better than the current buffoon we have in office. You had an impressive record of activism and public service before you became U.S. president. You were extremely qualified for the position and even though you financially torpedoed the country you claimed to have loved, and even though you took credit for ending the Cold War (and thus stealing the credit from Mikhail Gorbachev) I still think you were a great leader. You just simply led us in the wrong direction.

  Photo: Nghia Le

Something From Nothing

I find that debating people is hopeless because everyone has their mind made up on their positions and rather than being openminded, people just defend their viewpoint. To save society at this critical time we all need to listen to the other side and use critical thinking skills.

When in a debate I usually don't think of a good response until after the fact, which at least makes me sharper for the next debate. But it's no use because if I get a few "zingers" in that only makes the other person more defensive and angry. PEOPLE DON'T WANT THEIR MINDS CHANGED. They like holding on to their stories, whatever they may be.

So, I don't really know what to do other than to listen and make a few points in the hopes that I am at least putting cracks in their walls. People don't like it when I disagree with them. They are frustrated when I don't swallow the dogma and regurgitate the script of southern white America. Please forgive me when I question, it's just that we are facing so much social and environmental peril right now that I feel like I must stick my neck out a little.

Before the Big Bang

Last week I talked about our evolution leading up to the Big Bang, which cosmologists are now able to date to 13.8 billions years ago. Just a few million years after this event the chemical building blocks of life started to form, which eventually led to us.

Now, to review from my past posts, we are mostly made up of hydrogen, which is the basic element of the Universe. In the super-heated furnaces of dying stars more complex elements are formed and when those stars explode they blast their dust everywhere. So, anything in our body more complex than hydrogen was made by a star. We are, indeed, stardust and no magician made us from a handful of dirt.

Until recently the belief was that before the singularity, where the Big Bang happened, there was simply no time or space. However, newer theories suggest otherwise. A more recent theory states that there is no such thing as nothingness, but rather, between the protons, and even between the quarks, there is open space where particles come and go out of existence. So, there never was nothing and at the time of the Big Bang that "something" apparently just changed form.

The point being is that there is no need for a creator or fairy tales to explain our creation. Physicists and cosmologists are slowly unraveling the mysteries of the Universe. To prove that a God triggered the Big Bang there is no way to create an experiment or apply math. If you really want to prove a mystery, capture some dark matter because no one really has. Getting some in a box would take us to the next level in understanding the Universe.

To learn more on this topic I recommend you study the works of theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss. His book, A Universe From Nothing, goes into more detail about the Big Bang or you can catch some of his lectures on YouTube.

Who Am I

As I try to figure out the mysteries of life and the Universe, I've also been trying to figure myself out more. In the human brain there are places that are similar to the deepest parts of the ocean — they are areas that hold great mysteries and remain unexplored. Even at age 59 I'm still trying to understand myself. For instance, sometimes I think I subconsciously sabotage my romantic relationships and I'm not sure why. The biggest problem I see is that people are unwilling to acknowledge their flaws. Their behaviors are always "right" and it's always the other person who does things "wrong." It would be helpful if we all did some serious introspection and learned to acknowledge the parts of us we don't like. Self-improvement and understanding needs to be an ongoing part of our life journey.

Rouge Leaders

On another topic I can't express enough my loathing and disdain for the current president. The man is a walking train wreck. But then I see the rise of these near-autocrat, right-wing politicians around the world. What's going on?

As I mentioned a few blog posts ago, race has been a main driver in American politics for 150 years. Now, we have immigration, and the fear it creates, to shape politics.

The irony is that there is a perpetual loop in place where citizens in wealthier nations panic when they see all the "different" people flooding their country. That's when they elect extremist leaders who promise to take action against immigrants. These wealthy countries produce more than their fair share of carbon, which affects the weather and causes droughts, famines, and natural disasters. These events, in turn, trigger human emigration as desperate people, who may have lost their farm or home, struggle to survive. It's a really screwed up situation and will only get worse as sea levels rise and more neighborhoods simply go underwater. Evangelicals will scream that God is punishing us for gay marriage and abortion, but the only thing that matters is physics. More carbon in the atmosphere means a greater greenhouse effect. So you can bitch about Al Gore flying around in a private jet but the real problem begins with the millions of American cars that are spewing out CO2 every day. Pray about that all you want.

But, anyway, to quote Mr. Krauss:

Unfortunately, the politics of fear that is promoting the rise of autocratic politicians is producing policies that are likely making [environmental] problems far worse. It is hard to see how this vicious cycle will easily end.  

Over the years I've come to view both religion and metaphysics as not only escapism but a serious danger to the world. In addition to serving as a distraction from the serious problems we face, religion also promotes fantasy thinking in other parts of life as well. The end result is that we have a society disconnected from reality. Where I live in the Atlanta, Georgia suburbs there are churches EVERYWHERE. Now, if people actually followed the teachings of Jesus we'd easily have a sustainable world. Jesus lived a simple lifestyle, spoke against the evils of wealth, and promoted nonviolence. The American Christian is NOTHING like the Jesus presented in the four Gospels. It's all a charade, a sham, and a joke. It's weird that religion and greedy corporations are speeding up the end of humanity, but, if you study cosmology you will find that the Universe is full of weirdness. So, I guess it's no big deal. But it is a big deal because of all the other lifeforms we are killing along with us. If I sound a little angry at religion, well, yeah, I am.


Additional Reading: Nuclear Synthesis (written in easy-to-understand English)

Photo: A. L.

Seven Billion Billion Billion Atoms and the XR Movement

I am in awe of the opportunity to briefly be alive and experience the Universe. I can't believe how anyone can NOT be in amazement, yet most people simply go through their lives in pre-recorded patterns and only focus on their immediate gratification. But a few us are sentient, and whether we like it or not, we are given an awareness of the overall world.

Nearly 14 billion years ago the mysterious Big Bang occurred, sending zillions of hydrogen atoms everywhere. Through fusion and heat, eventually atoms fused into more complex elements. At one miraculous point the complex atoms formed into living cells and those cells grew into spectacularly complex lifeforms. So, wow, here I am, alive, for a brief period of time. The cool thing is that of the trillions of atoms in our body, two-thirds of them are still basic hydrogen, and a quarter of our atoms are a slightly more complex atom — oxygen. So, the point being is that we are not very different from the Universe itself.

I know a lot of people brush off the miracle of life with a religious story, and in my opinion that's an insult to our Universe. There was no magician who made us out of dirt — that was just a story that ancient people created to "fill the gap" until we could figure things out more.

Sentient Beings

All my life my brain has been in constant overdrive and I think way too much. As a child I grew up in a super religious household and I remember trying to figure out how "Jesus came into your heart." At age 8 I pictured a bunch of little scientists in my brain pushing buttons, and when I became a Christian they were all thrown out, and Jesus sat in the middle of my brain with a glowing light behind him.

I'm a firm believer in the 80-20 rule which is roughly the same composition of air — 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, and the other 1% is argon, carbon dioxide, and other trace gases. I believe that human awareness is the same composition. Eighty percent of humanity eats, poops, and screws without ever questioning their existence -- they just continue on with the recordings that their parents put in their heads. The other 20% of humanity is aware of their existence and are usually sympathetic to the environmental issues that affect us. But it's that wonderful 1% of humanity who are the activists and organizers, and who make things happen in the world. These are the people who are humanitarians, environmental leaders, and politicians. They are the ones who chart the course for the future and even protect and guide us. I love these special people and they are the ones who give me hope.

Extinction Rebellion & Climate Change

I am just now learning about a new movement called the Extinction Rebellion, which conducts demonstrations around the world to raise awareness to climate change. These activists have my deepest respect. While millions of people are in church this morning, singing a few octaves off key, there are other people on hunger strikes and risking arrest to try and save our planet.

For 100 years we've been sucking oil out of the ground and burning it for transportation, warmth, electricity, and to run our factories. We've learned how to make thousands of products out of the black goop, which are all aimed at making our lives better and more comfortable. For this convenience we are paying a horrible price — we are sacrificing the future of our planet and children for the sake of convenience and comfort now. Well, golly, isn't that what we humans always do?

As a crotchety old environmentalist, I must admit I dig all the rhetoric of the Extinction Movement. But even if we plant millions of trees a day the best we can hope for is a carbon neutral society, and reversing the damage from the last few decades will be an uphill struggle.

I am perplexed as to why conservatives are so dead-set against recognizing the climate fiasco. The favorite line they tell me is, "Well, scientists don't really know. In the 70s they predicted the Earth would become a giant ice ball." Hey, okay, as a kid I remember seeing those pictures. Okay, I give you credit for that. But now the science is concrete and the symptoms of climate change are real and all around us. We are the frog in the slowly boiling water

Allow me to share some of the text from the Extinction Rebellion website (also known as the XR Movement):

The symbol above represents extinction. The circle signifies the planet, while the hourglass inside serves as a warning that time is rapidly running out for many species. The world is currently undergoing a mass extinction event, and this symbol is intended to help raise awareness of the urgent need for change in order to address this crisis. Estimates are that somewhere between 30,000 and 140,000 species are becoming extinct every year in what scientists have named the Holocene, or Sixth Mass Extinction. This ongoing process of destruction is being caused by the impact of human activity. Such a catastrophic loss of biodiversity is highly likely to cause widespread ecosystem collapse and consequently render the planet uninhabitable for humans.

It's a given that industry will resist climate action because they fear it will hit their pocketbook. Politicians will resist because they are owned by industry. Religionists will resist because climate action doesn't fit into their story line. But the 1 percenters, the real activists of our time, will take take action, and the 20 percenters will at least support them, even if it's just to vote or writing a check. I have no ill will toward the 80 percent of the population who doesn't care and will do nothing. I'm quite sure humanity has always been this way and I accept that. So, go to your church, go to the mall, go to your NASCAR race, and indulge yourself in comforts created by oil. Live your fantasy life! Watch your reruns of the Batchelor on TV, smoke your weed, pop your antidepressants, shoot your gun at militia rallies, buy your MAGA hats, do whatever you want. Those individuals who are driven to make a positive change will carry on, in spite of you.

Summary

One of my epiphanies lately is that the people who are seen as the greatest Christians are simply passionate humanitarians. These individuals would be helping their fellow humans whether a "Christian" label is slapped on them or not. It's built into them. And most of who we are is already determined by a very young age. As I spend time with my granddaughter and see her outgoing personality I can assure you that she will be an extrovert throughout her life.

So, maybe the secret to saving humanity is to, well, I don't know. I don't know how much of our personality is influenced by early childhood or what is simply built into us. But if there's a way to influence children to be more environmentally conscious then that might be the key to saving our planet. One thing I do know and that is bombarding them with religious ideology is NOT the answer.


Photo: Hal Gatewood

Love Lies Bleeding

I spent most of my life as a journalist because I felt I needed to write, and write I shall. I am inspired how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is speaking out against injustice, and I feel that all of us likeminded individuals need to speak loudly with her.

And speak I shall ...

For starters, I think the discourse in our country is becoming too uncivil. The partisan divide is only getting wider and more strained. A first step to recovery is dropping our labels. I will no longer allow people to stand behind their political party, religion, culture, race, or anything else as an excuse for their behavior. For instance, I now see that "conservatism" is simply an excuse for doing nothing. And people do nothing because they are inherently lazy.

You look at me as if something is wrong. But I will tell you that those of us in the progressive community are horrified at how people calling themselves Christians can align themselves with someone as amoral as Donald Trump. Is the abortion issue really that important to you? Or do you get revved up when he goes after the brown skins and all the other bogey men that he uses to scare you?

Can you wake up just for a minute? The wildfires, flooding, and super storms were all projected by climate change models developed in the 1990s. It's all coming true, so, yeah, I believe in climate change. My mind is boggled because instead of doing anything about it we slowly sink our country financially by sending disaster aid to one crises after another. Yet, you do nothing, America.

And as for you, the desperate woman who has made the difficult decision to end your pregnancy, guess what? For the first time and last time thousands of good Christians hidden in churches around the country will suddenly love you. They will love you just long enough to force you to have your unwanted child, and then they will love you no more. Once you have the child they will cut off your welfare and the school-assisted lunches, they will take away your Obama phone, and they will go back to their sheltered churches and their dozens of "activities" that make them too busy to help you or that homeless dude at the intersection.

If I want to see what love is, well, maybe it's in the form of idealism. We are an entire country bonded not by blood or ethnicity, but by the ideals of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. We are a country of idealists in an age where idealism is falling apart. We are a nation of oligarchs, who befriend the foolish theocrats only for votes, in return for supporting their crusade to end abortion and deprive gays of cupcakes. And there I see love again, because money-grubbing, power hungry preachers and their allies in the corporate world, who wish to stomp out the middle class in the name of profit, fall deeper and deeper into love.

I watch and study ants. They are the true example of collectivism, which is really the only way we humans can properly live. The whole idea of individualism is a failure, especially since we've chosen to multiply our species until we are packed like sardines. But we still hold on to our Wild West mythology and the idea that you can do whatever you want with your land, your garbage, your self, and whatever, Meanwhile, the Earth as a whole dies by a thousand tiny cuts.

Religion as we know it was made up by goat herders in the Late Bronze Age, and now people are treating these stories as fact and using their mythology to justify their amoral behavior. I do believe in Jesus and believe he was two thousand years ahead of his time, and he gave us the right way to live, which was promptly ignored by the Jews, Romans, and Westerners alike. Yet, when it's convenient, a few verses are cherry picked from a book that's never read and used to bash others over the head.

In college I studied the poem The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot and in class we spent days picking it apart. I kind of got the idea that the poem was a snapshot of life in the early 1900s. I kept digging and analyzing, and to my surprise I realized that the meaning was in the title: "The Waste Land." It's a poem written in 1922 that describes America today. But, what a weird way to start a poem:

“April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.”

What did that mean? It means that April is the cruelest month because the life and color of spring flowers throws our depression into a sharp relief and causes painful memories to surface.

So, there I was, my senior year in college, and it was April 1982. I had fallen in love with the girl I wanted to marry. I had given all my heart to her, and now I could feel the whole thing unravel. She was elusive and noncommittal.  I could see her drifting away and I couldn't think of anything more I could do, other than to love her more. It took me nine months to fall in love with her and during that first kiss in September 1981 the dogs stopped barking and the crickets stopped chirping, and everything in the Universe disappeared for a moment. I had created a chasm in the Universe, where I wanted to stay and live forever. But things were awash from the start because although she tried, her feelings were not the same as mine. I prayed, being the selfish dick that I was, that she would love me the same.

If there is any lesson to be learned it's that the one time in my life when I was completely, wildly in love was to become the microcosm of my life and for human existence as a whole. We want to stay in our shells, but sometimes our heart tells us to venture out and risk everything to experience love because it brings us happiness, and happiness is like a drug and we want more and more of it in ever stronger doses. So, I dared to give that once-in-a-lifetime complete love, I took the risk, and ended up like a crushed aluminum can on the side of the road.

To America, to the Christians with their nice cars, to the remnants of the middle class, and to those few of us who actually love this world, even more than this life, I say to you that it's okay to love, and to love one last time, even when you think you can't love any more.

Photo: Taylor Ann Wright

Ephemeral Stream

I loved my father so much, but he was gone for much of my life. He was a pilot and was sometimes away for three weeks at a time. By the time he got a job where he could stay home more, I was already in my 20s, moved out, and married. He did make it up to me and during those hard times in my life he was always there. But it didn't last long because by the time I hit my 30s he was diagnosed with cancer, and soon after he was dead.

What I remember most about him is how knowledgeable he was on every topic, and I enjoyed talking to him on a variety of subjects. If it was about aviation he knew everything, and he was also an expert on cars, home repairs, religion, politics, and you name it.

In his final years he restored and sold vintage aircraft and he was an international expert on the T-28 military trainer airplane. He would get calls from around the world and I remember him in the evenings jabbering away with people, always giving free advice. As he laid on his death bed I once commented that it was ashamed that all his massive knowledge would be lost.

All our brains are like an ephemeral stream, which flow for a short time after a rain, and then stop. So, during my 15 years of blogging and after 400-plus posts, I've tried to empty out my brain as much as I can. All my older posts can be found on my environmental blog, We Live on a Planet. I've dispersed my writings to five different blogs, and should they all crash, or should the host close them, I have all the email copies somewhere.

While I enjoy the support of a few faithful readers, for the most part my blogs go unread. If anything, the writing simply helps me to sort out my thoughts as I spend my life trying to figure out what it means to be human.

Epiphany #1

Today I had a life-changing epiphany. I've decided to dedicate the rest of my life to environmental and social sustainability, and teaching nature awareness. It would be a dream to do this kind of work for a living, but right now I have no idea how to achieve that goal. In the past three years I've developed a special love for hiking, and now that's all I want to do — hike in the woods with my dog Lucky and get away from all the shit.

Epiphany #2

I had another big epiphany yesterday. In 1997 when I was still a church leader my love for the environment started coming back to me, from my childhood days. There was a huge building boom going on in the Atlanta suburbs and seeing so many forests bulldozed was killing my soul. I began doing research and learned that global population was the issue where I could make the most difference. So, I joined the Sierra Club and immediately got involved in their population program. I also worked fiercely in their urban sprawl campaign.

Now, 22 years later, I've learned that laws to limit family size will never work, and are a human rights issue. I now see that access to family planning, women's education, and gender equality are the only way to address our exploding population. It suddenly hit me today that these initiatives are, in effect, a form of birth control. 

The Meaning of Life

As an evolutionist and as an animal, I have peace in knowing my purpose for this life. My purpose is to be here to support my family, friends, and anyone else with a good heart. And my purpose is to support the deer who know me in the forest, and all other animals. My purpose is to support candidates and public policies that move us in a positive direction. There is plenty for me to do in life. When someone has a need I want to be there for them, even if just being there is all I can do.

I don't have a girlfriend, but I have some lady friends whom I love deeply. Each of them, as well as my male friends, have given me new perspectives and a greater understanding of my being. I will die alone, and that's okay, for today I've decided to become an environmental priest. There is no time for drinking, parties, or movies — there is only time for the goal of protecting nature and making this world better.

I have always vowed to be as good a father to my daughters as my father was to me. I have big shoes to fill. But as long as I breathe I will always be there for them. 

Fear

My thoughts keep evolving and in the past few weeks I've learned how fear plays such a major role in religion and ultra nationalism. The entire underlying theme of conservatism is fear, and how half of America responds to it. I have no ill-will toward any conservative or Republican, but I have a difficult time understanding them. However, I pledge to always listen and to try to see their viewpoint. These red hat wearing Americans are not my opponents, but rather my fellow citizens who believe in a different path. Nonetheless, creating mythology and lies to provide self-comfort is never good. I'm learning that the truth is always the right course, no matter how painful and scary it may be.

Epiphany #3

This leads to my third epiphany, which is that conservatives are simply running behind in our social evolution. I thank them for not letting change happen too quickly. As always they will have to be dragged forward to every level of enlightenment and then we'll have to hear the usual, "I never said that" and "I never did that." It was a fight, but we finally got them to let go of slavery and Jim Crow laws, and they finally have let up on the gay-bashing some, thanks to Trump making the brown-skinned people the new boogeyman. But some progress is being made. No, I don't see the red hats carrying reusable sacks in the grocery store, but at least they are letting women vote now. So, there is progress.

Photo: Daniil Silantev

Diary of a Young Cynic

It was 1982 and I was standing at the stairwell between classes in college. I looked down the flights of stairs and watched the flow of humanity going up and down. My best friend in college Ken was there with me. We were in a deep philosophical discussion about religion. Over the past months Ken had been asking Christians his favorite question: Why does God let good people suffer? When he asked that question, people would cough and sputter and try to give an answer, but never really could.

I thought about it myself. During my senior year in college I went through phases of praying, going to church, and reading my Bible daily to being an angry rebel. I realized there was no correlation between me being a holy roller or hellion and good or bad things happening to me. It was all random. At the end of my senior year a series of bad things happened to me, despite all my hard praying. I thought God was trying to break my yoke, but I later realized that each bad event had a logical explanation — there was no man in the sky throwing lightening bolts at me.

So, on that spring day in the early 1980s I confirmed what I had suspected for six years — that the whole religion thing was made up. I had been tricked and lied to. I was the victim of a giant practical joke. The only supernatural being that existed is what I could conjure in my head. My epiphany that day was the beginning of a 20-year recovery from religious brainwashing.

Nationalism

In middle school I loved my history and government classes. But I eventually found that the textbooks were slanted. The Great Crusades were not about freeing the Holy Land from Muslims. They were about profiteering, corruption, power, and murder — including murder of not only Muslims, but Jews and other Christians. It was okay to kill the Orthodox Christians because they were different and didn't believe the right way. So, the Crusaders sacked and pillaged their land and cities.

When I was growing up there was a war going on. Two of my classmates lost family members and I remember the look of deep grief on their faces. We were all told that Vietnam was a struggle to contain communism and I believed that lie until I befriended a Vietnam war veteran and he gave me his book to read. His story sparked my curiosity and I begin researching the Vietnam conflict. I learned that the U.S. used a highly questionable Naval confrontation in 1964 as a pretext to expand the war. This act is no better than the Nazis, who staged a fake military intrusion in 1939 to begin World War II.

And secondly, the war wasn't about containing communism. It was a war about colonialism and rich capitalists versus the pheasants. The Viet Cong were not motivated to fight for political ideology, like I was led to believe, but rather they had been promised land. 

Back on our own continent, the United States has meddled in South and Central American politics for over 100 years. We are told that our interventions are to contain Marxism and promote democracy, but often it's to protect the commercial interests of American companies.

In short, the idea that the United States is a noble country that always pursues good is a lie. Our country does have a history of doing good deeds, such as rebuilding Europe after World War II, but our record is far from perfect. When you hear the euphemism of "promoting democracy," it is often a code word for "protecting the commercial interests of companies who have strong influence over Congress." Cuba is a great example of how our lies and meddling badly backfired.

Code Words

When I hear the words "job creation" I know that really means forcing a community to accept a big, dirty factory. The truth is, most production facilities are highly automated, and companies prefer to bring in their own people. In the end, a company expands and makes more money and the community is stuck with the impact, sometimes in the form of poisoned water or air.

As we are seeing right now, the "tax cut for the middle class" was a huge lie. Corporations received a nice tax reduction, but many average citizens are now shocked at seeing their refunds being changed to large amounts owed.

Little Ol' Me

There are different types of cynics, and I am the type who believes that everything is a giant joke. I see working class Americans who vote for a political party that only cares about big companies and the rich, at their expense. I see our country engaging in endless war to benefit large defense contractors. I see Americans tell me they don't WANT socialized medical care even though their insurance companies will fight them for every dime when they make a claim. And so much for the poor bastards who can't afford insurance — they just need to work harder.

After 30 years of pondering this I'm beginning to think that I'm not a cynic after all, it's just that the rest of the world is crazy. People accept and buy into lies way to easily, and the ability to question and analyze appears to be lost by the mainstream public. Whatever baby food we are given by our political leaders, so many people appear to just swallow. Hey, we were completely tricked about the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. How many more times must we be tricked before we finally learn?

The Wall

A main theme of my four blogs is to QUESTION EVERYTHING. When we are told that the U.S. is being invaded by sex traffickers, drug dealers, and criminals, what is the extent? Don't Americans create this problem by buying the drugs and prostitutes? And what is the percentage of good and bad people crossing the border? Aren't most of them good families simply trying to find work and a better life? Is climate change causing droughts that are forcing them off their land? Is our constant meddling in Latin America creating unstable political environments that's forcing people to flee? Do our trade agreements favor big agri-business at the expense of the common farmers? I will dare say that we created most of the fucking problems at the border, and now we want to build a steel barrier to keep out the victims of our greed, our lust for drugs and sex, and our insistence on burning fossil fuels. Look in the mirror for once — maybe we Americans are creating our own problems and screwing over the developing world.

So, going back to my early 20s, I have to ask myself the question: Was I really cynical in thinking that life was one big joke, or is maybe life really one big joke?

Photo: Steve Halama

Reflections of a Solitary Hiker

As I grow older I'm finding that all I want to do is hike. I love the sounds, smells, and different feelings of the forest. I love the feel of the ground as I walk. I look around and think "this is the way that our world once was, before humans so beautifully fucked it up."

I also love the solitude. I just want to walk, with my dog Lucky, into the deepest of nowhere, and stay there, and never come back.

Jaded

During the week, aggressive drivers buzz me on the highway, scammers call me on the phone trying to cheat me, and I read newspaper reports all week long of humans stealing, cheating, harming animals, and killing one another. What's up with our species? Why are we so violent and downright mean to one another? And why are we so extremely dysfunctional?

My mom called yesterday and said she can't use the bathroom at her favorite park because someone vandalized the bathrooms. More accurately, they just stole all the fixtures -- they even took the light switches out of the sockets. People steal anything that isn't nailed down, and even things that ARE nailed down. I'm disgusted.

History

In the late 700s the Vikings set sail and began plundering and looting coastal cities throughout Europe. As if Middle Age life wasn't bad enough, you always had to worry about a group of longboats showing up at your town. If a guy knocked on your door wearing a horned helmet it's a safe bet that it wasn't the Avon lady or a Jehovah's Witness.

I like to think that humanity has made some progress in the last 1,600 years, but I'm not sure that we have. We don't have those nonstop continental European wars anymore, but we are still uncivil, rude, greedy, selfish, and hurtful to one another in a hundred different ways. Whether it's physically or with harsh words, people are always inflicting pain on their fellow humans.

The Hike

So, more and more I just want to get away from it all. In the last few years I've found myself loving animals more and humans less. For the most part, animals are the victims of these rapidly multiplying and all-consuming creatures called humans. When I see a dead possum on the side of the road I hurt. Our stupid automobiles kill them daily by the hundreds. God gives no mercy to these animals or any other. All living creatures are at the mercy of their fate.

Anyway, on a more positive note, I recently downloaded a cool new app called AllTrails. The app finds hiking trails in your area, starting from the closest to the farthest. I've hiked most of the trails in the metro Atlanta area and I was anxious to find one that I missed. Sure enough as I scrolled through the app I found a 200-acre park called Clinton Nature Preserve, located in west Georgia. It is only 30 minutes away so Lucky, my dog, and I jumped in the car and headed west. As I left the suburbs and entered the rural countryside I could feel my blood pressure dropping and my body relaxing. I love being in nowhere land, away from the rat race.

The park is on land donated by a woman, who stipulated that the property could never be developed. The land features a lake, some pioneer homesteads, and numerous hiking trails. The longest trail is 4.3 miles, which is perfect for a day hike —Lucky and I will take on that trail next.

My Reflections

Part of me just wants to be a loner and hike forever. I've traveled, I did the marriage and family thing, I've been in love several times, and had my heart broken several times. I had a successful career as a magazine editor, and I spent years as an environmental activist. In short, I've done the whole life thing. Part of me wants to say, "I'm done, now it's time to just start hiking ... hiking on the dirt of past stars ... and hiking until I become dust for the next star."

Life didn't turnout exactly the way I wanted but in unexpected ways it did turn out just fine. I've gotten to travel, I've had relationships, and I've met amazing people who forever made my life better. I do not have a single complaint about my life, and I have few regrets. My biggest regret is that I wish I had of made better financial and career decisions. For a while, I had the attitude of "the heck with it, I'll deal with THAT later" and now later has arrived.

While my "regrets" have changed over the years, my other big regret is my lack of focus. I've gone through my whole life as a poet and a dreamer. My second grade teacher called me the Absent Minded Professor because I was always far away in a daydream and couldn't focus on the immediate tasks before me. My brain is always in deep thought, trying to figure out world problems or replaying some event from the past. I'm always somewhere else, so it only makes sense that I spend the rest of my life where I really want to be, which is somewhere else.




Photo: Aaron Burden