Monthly Archives: June 2020

My Ark

Several years ago, there was a psychological project in one of my psych classes. It asked us to decide who you would want to share a lifeboat with. I actually don’t remember my response at the time but I’m sure it included family and friends. Nowadays I would need a bigger boat. Hence My Ark. And then I started to think a little more. I’m still gonna need a bigger boat.

So how about I change it up just a little bit more. Instead of a boat, let’s choose a world. And what kinds of people would I want to populate that world? Now the question is getting really interesting.

Of course, they’ll always be my family and friends included wherever I am. But who else? And how exactly do I classify a friend? People I care about but are not necessarily friends, I would still want them included. There are people I don’t know and are definitely not classified as friends but still I think there’s a place for them. So, let’s try to categorize this a little bit.

The world will always need its Dreamers. People to inspire us and make us look to the stars. They provide us with incentive. And then of course we will need the Scientists to help us create the perfect world. And scientists are only as good as the Workers that are able to make their ideas come to life. We will also need Engineers and Mathematicians. And Teachers to teach us the mathematics. And I think we actually need Politicians. I know it’s heresy to say that but think about it. We need people who can direct where the need is greatest. Perhaps we can come up with a different name.

We will need people who know how to make things grow and people to make us laugh. We need Doctors and Architects, Botanists and Artists, Writers, Singers, Entertainers. We need people who can play sports and those who can cook.  Every facet of life requires a different skill which requires a different person. We are all interconnected. We all need each other.

It would be easy to say let’s keep criminals off our world but how is that possible? Murderers are not born they are created. How? People commit crimes for a reason. If we take away the reason, we take away the need for the crime. Simplistic? Yes. That is why we need the Dreamers.

Of course, no world of mine would be possible without its animals. We need animals for companionship, for assistance, for food and for clothing. Remember the Bible story of Noah? I wonder what he felt like when he welcomed the mosquitoes on board his Ark? Mosquitoes are a horrible menace to us here and yet they provide a valuable service. They are food for birds, spiders and reptiles. They help to pollinate. It might actually have been a different world and perhaps not a successful one, without them.  There’s a lesson there.

We can’t pick and choose who we want to share our world with because we all have a part to play. All Of Us. This planet, this earth, this world is Our Ark. In order to make it work we all have to come together as one species: The Human Race.

 

 

 

Game Play

 

Little Jimmy made a face,

And scared the kids away.

But you know he had a plan,

There was a game to play.

 

The good, the bad, the ugly,

Were not party to his plan.

Cuz he had a thought you see,

That’s where it all began.

 

Games you play, they all have rules,

A way to make it fair.

But what if no one had to lose,

The wins we all would share?

 

That would be the perfect life,

And Jimmy knew that best.

But first you have to clear the way,

The bad you must divest.

 

When all you see is right and good,

The world will start to heal.

All together one and all,

And life will be ideal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Domino Effect   

I wrote this back in January 2014.  I hope you don’t mind. I just couldn’t come up with a new post this week.  I hope I will be forgiven . . .

I want to say something profound and memorable.  I wanted my first full post of 2014 to be something people spoke about to each other for days and weeks.  And then I realized I had it all wrong.  It’s not about the words I use.  It’s not about how I feel about what I write.  It’s about reaching out from the isolation of my home to the world. We are not alone.  We never have been.

I’m a big believer in the importance of chance.  You meet a stranger on the street and you smile in an abstract, bored sort of way.  The person you smile at doesn’t realize you are bored and his spirits are lifted just a tiny bit and when he gets home to his wife, he’s kinder.  His wife spends a little longer getting dressed that night because she’s starting to believe she’s beautiful because her husband was kind.  She speaks gently to her child that night and he goes to sleep feeling loved.  The next day he goes to school and does exceptionally well on a test because he feels good about himself.  His teacher is thrilled that her problem student has done well and she feels better about herself thinking she’s the reason.  She goes home that night . . . All of this happened because one woman smiled at a stranger.  It’s a domino effect.

We live on this little blue world made of dirt and water and people.  There are a lot of us.  There are wars and hunger, violence and apathy.  Every day we deal with our own perceived inadequacies, our own diseases.  But there’s one thing we must never forget: somewhere, someone is in much worse shape than we are.  Somewhere, someone is watching their life blood seep through a gaping wound, alone and frightened.  Somewhere, someone is watching as a loved one slowly succumbs to a painful and deadly disease.  A woman is raped and beaten, killed.  A man is shot dead by a stranger for his empty wallet.  A woman feels the hands of a lover on her throat tightening. Children are shot by children, men and women are tortured, planes crash, people are dying of hunger, disease and greed.

You have a choice.  I have a choice.  We can give in, be victims and wallow in our own self-pity.  Or we can take what quality of life we have, embrace it, relish it, enhance it if we can, and live.  Reach out to the stranger next to you and smile.  We are all in this together