With all our glad talk of progress in our modern world we have been lulled into a sence of superiorty in all regards over our ancestors when the awful truth is not one step forward in compassion and empathy for the other has in fact happened. We fail to consider entirely that evil keeps pace with good step for step breath for breath and we mistakinly believe we can correct the balance of nature and arrive at last in a state of perfect benevolence. We live in the human jungle we always have and we always will while we remain prisoners of flesh. The old guys had it worked out eons ago that there could be no human development without equal parts of love and hate, good and evil. In the end we are forced to love the enemy because he has shown you the way. So for all those depraved rotten souls the best course is to show compassion and thank god you are not them. That would be true power. All these eons of human existance have demonstrated that the perfection we seek is not in the material realm but reached through it by impecable performance transiting the red sea.
I went out earlier this evening to fetch storm supplies and came home with raspberry ripple ice cream but no batteries.
I think I'm a little more hopeful than you about mankind\s progress forward but only slightly and that comes i believe because I work in a helping environment and there are a lot of people working there that I respect that view the world in a similar way to me.
I remember when 9/11 happened Deepak Chopra said that act had set the world back a 100 years I didn't quite get it at the time, but I knew that it had some kind of truth in it. Now I believe it was just the beginning of devolving. It's back to every man for himself in lots of ways. It's barbaric. If we lose that love, that compassion for others what's the point?
I believe the show The Walking Dead nicely portrays what happens when the trappings of civilization are all stripped away. You watch people slowly slowly become more animalistic, kill, maim brutalize...but there are always pockets of people who regardless of the circumstance do not cross certain boundaries, would rather die than cross those boundaries. And slowly strangers become a family. and care and love and support each other. It is inbred in us.
My parents lived through WWll and I remember them speaking about how it was the worst of times and the best of times. When the bombs dropped you didn't know if it had your name on it, if today was your last day, but they banded together and shared even when there was little food. They made it and there was a lot of sacrifice and compassion. So yeah, you are right, the material realm means nothing when everything gets stripped away.
In the end, we just have what and who we are and what we have allowed ourselves to become.
