Saturday, August 17, 2013

Bing Doc-ing


Binging on documentaries has been my favorite pastime in the past few weeks. Thus, a bevy of marvelous new facts have imbedded themselves in my neuronal pathways. For example, human beings have created 180 new breeds of dogs in the past 150 years; before that, there was just the basic dog, descended from the wolf and made to be our friend and surrogate mate. Also on the menu was one about the physiology of mating. Apparently, sexual attraction and bonding is almost 100% chemical and subliminally based. Did you know that women glow when they are ovulating, thus making them more attractive to the pollinator?
 
On a more serious note, I watched documentaries about man-made ecological disasters, genocide, corporate thievery and other criminal acts. A few actually discussed how to improve the track record of Homo Sapiens, thus providing a proverbial safety valve that let off the steam in the pressure cooker, despite the horrors documented in so many of these moving pictographs.


After feasting on a smorgasbord of films, it seems that poverty, crime, drug abuse, starvation and suffering of all stripes are not accidental. Karmic cause and effect are the culprits, triggered by people wanting more at the expense of others who have less. This tyranny is often an organized, calculated plan by power brokers running governments and businesses. While these plans may not be as calculated as the Final Solution of Adolph Hitler, leaders at all levels of society have a tendency to brainwash underlings to think and act in ways that bolster self interest at the expense of another culture, race, religion, tribe, country, gender, or class.

 
Are we doomed as a human race to plunder and pillage and consume our way into oblivion? Or are we adaptable creatures that will come to recognize our common good on this jeweled spaceship Mother Earth, finding brilliant solutions based on compassion and caring for each other? 


Both scenarios are possible and we each have to make a choice which side we are on. As Eldridge Cleaver once said, "Either you are part of the problem or you are part of the solution."



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