Our love is either rose or thorn.
One leaves us whole, the other torn.
Which one is which? There is no trick.
The first we smell; the second, pick.
When we pick love we end our growth.
Not just who's picked but of us both.
Together we must each have 'ground'.
That's where love's nourishment is found.
The 'ground' is our capacity
Which realizing sets us free
From self-destructive tries to fill
The void with love; we never will.
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My mother said, "I don't get war.
This killing makes no sense to me.
If I kill you I'm sent to jail;
In uniform I kill for free.
You have the answers, tell me son".
I know just where I will begin.
It's all about philosophy.
Ours is the one we need to win.
If I kill one that's personal;
A crime we can not tolerate.
When we defend our way of life
We kill no one; we're killing hate.
"What can we do?", my mother asks.
"This killing's going to do us in."
My mother's wise beyond her years.
She knows in war no one will win.
So this is what I said to her.
Just look at our philosophy.
It's meant to fill the void within
Ignoring our biology.
Capacities we have to fill
That are unique in all respects.
Unless we act within ourselves
Our conflicts are the sole effects.
If we realize capacities
Our paths of life run parallel.
It's when we try to fill the void
Created life resembles 'hell'.
And so the 'hell' of war we have
As constant in our daily life.
But if we see 'hell' is in us,
We'll live in 'heaven' without strife.
MOTHER'S DREAM
MOTHER'S GAMES
MOTHER'S HOPE
MOTHER'S LEAVING
MOTHER'S MARKET MEMORY
MOTHER'S MEMORIAL BENCH
MOTHER'S SAD ATTACK
MOTHER'S WAKE
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Down by the water is a bench.
We went to sit on it today.
It is a small memorial
Of Cameron who has passed away.
There is a plaque on which it says
He loved to ski as well as fish.
To share these lovely mountain views
Now seems to grant his one last wish.
I sit with Mom who's ninety-one.
Some private tears fall in the lake
As thoughts that precious memories
Are all that from her life I'll take.
I do my best to stock my mind
With scenes that will forever last.
I know the time for all of us
Is short and will diminish fast.
I am not sure how I'll go on
Without her smile to light my way.
She's been with me for six great years;
It hurts to know she can not stay.
I know what I'll put on her plaque.
It's one out of so many things.
"Although you felt you tied me down
You gave me joy and eagle's wings."
MOTHER'S DREAM
MOTHER'S GAMES
MOTHER'S HOPE
MOTHER'S LEAVING
MOTHER'S MARKET MEMORY
MOTHER'S SAD ATTACK
MOTHER'S WAR
MOTHER'S WAKE
Let's wage a war on poverty.
That should be easy if we try.
It is a foe that we can see.
If we could just discover why.
We'll call a meeting, rent a hall
And cater to our every need.
The experts hired will tell us all
The poor are with us due to greed.
Then we'll commission larger groups.
We'll give ten million to a judge
Who will in five years give us scoops
Why poverty won't seem to budge.
Meanwhile the poor can do without
Because we have to get it right.
It won't be easy, greed to rout.
Greed won't go down without a fight.
There'll surely be some legalese
That we will have to organize.
More money for the lawyers please
To cross the T's and dot the I's.
We'll need a program to direct
Toward the problem that we find.
Though hazy goals will be suspect
It's being will bring peace of mind.
For when we seem to do some thing,
It's usually just good enough
To take away the critics sting
Pretending that they are so tough.
And to the poor we'll also give,
A strategy that's meant to ease
Our sense of guilt so we can live
Believing that our God we'll please.
We do all this to hide the facts
For then we're able to avoid
The reason poverty attacks.
We try with cash to fill the void.
It sneaks among us as we slave
In order to secure our place
In history of those who save,
As winners of the human race.
If poverty we wished to kill
We could; just end the race to wealth.
It is the only plan that will
Restore humanity to health.
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Let's have a war; we’ve made up rules
So God won't think that we are fools.
They were conceived in Switzerland.
To keep war 'right', they’re kept at hand.
It shows to all that we are wise
For killing we legitimize;
And say it is completely sane
Providing that it is humane.
We've said it is alright to hate
But just outside a country’s ‘gate’.
Within its walls one shot we see
A crime against society.
We justify our senseless fight
Behind a wall of human ‘right’
To rid the world of all we find
That seem a threat to peace of mind.
But war is just a veil so thin
We use to hide the threat within.
To win we think will leave us buoyed
But winning cannot fill the void.
If we don't try all wars will cease!
Throughout the world there'll just be peace.
When living Nature’s planned ideal
A freedom from the void we'll feel.
Our make-believe will turn to dust
As Nature's way of life we trust.
Without them we will end all strife,
Replacing war with peaceful life.
The explanation of life and related writings.
02/02/24
INTRODUCTION
Like everyone, I inherited an existence. Mine collapsed circa 1970 while I was at McMaster U, Hamilton, ON, Canada, getting a BA(math) and B. Phys Ed, so I could teach. While sorting through the rubble of my life I noticed, though not as pervasive as it is today, a continuum of varied and increasing conflict permeating our existence. I wondered why.
Though wondering for myself I thought I should find the reason for conflict before a student I might teach asked me. I couldn’t deduce the reason with math; nor did I think I found it in the 5 major religions and their thousands of offspring, or in the 11 volume history of philosophy I skimmed for electives.
So besides my formal degrees, I graduated with a major degree of motivation to find before I taught, the reason for conflict. I never taught. By the time I discovered the answer to why increasing conflict pervades our existence, I’d become, with the help of my brother, a self-employed carpenter.
I tried and failed to share the answer at least three times and each time I vowed to quit trying. The last was in 1998 when a friend of a friend, a philosophy professor, wished me good luck on other projects. To help keep my last vow I started an addition to my house. I received even more help in 2000 when I began caring for my parents.
But then, when my father died in 2004 I was motivated to try sharing my analysis one more time before I died. I was still thinking of a hard copy when a friend suggested I publish on a website. I’d never heard of websites nor could I type but with more help from my Mother I bought a computer, learned to type, and with expert help, created a website.
I first thought I’d bury the reason for conflict in an essay. But having already experienced web attention deficit disorder I decided to highlight the essence of it in my website logo and add context with blog posts.
Since there is no answer to “Why am I?”, attempts to answer it, such as the myriad religions and philosophies I skimmed, and a variety of other responses I found, are tries to fill the void. Though we can mix them, some may be similar and even have identical names, because we direct them to the void within us, our tries are all opposed and so cause conflict to the extent of our belief in them.
But, conflict is not inevitable. We can diminish it and resulting death to the degree we empty the void. Now, if we choose to empty the void, our lives are not then devoid of activity, on the contrary! Because it is essential, we each possess some remnant of “reaching out to the limits of our capacities, to others and to Nature’s God”, the natural activity that creates and tries to maintain all life.
So, even though in the 200k years since the birth of humanity we have replaced almost all our inherited natural activity with the human made unnatural, self-destructive activity of trying to fill the void, if we choose to empty the void, the remnants of our natural, self-creative activity will at least refill our lives and possibly answer “Why am I?”
I have been trying share these basic facts of life for a few years by advertising. Last year (2023) I bought 8 million page views with half the value of my home, without effect; but this time I won’t quit. The warnings about fatal climate change by hundreds of climate scientists over many more years have also been ignored.
However, I do have to reduce my advertising. If it is too late to prevent it, I’ll need a place to live where I can watch the increasing conflict within us, between us and with Nature, causing at least the death of us and maybe all of Nature, possibly even before I’d have died in peace.
If you feel moved to help me share these facts you can by using the share icon at the end of any post, notably my most recent piece of rhymed reason, “Analyzing Conflict”, or any other way of sharing. If you also click on the like icon you will see an explosion of hearts, an expression of my gratitude. 🙏 Doug E Barr.
Part 1.Nature’s ideal diet: It was designed to maintain our immune/ maintenance system at its optimum operating condition to protect us from both pathogenic and autoimmune diseases. It protected our predecessors from conception to the birth of humanity when they realized the mental capacity to choose. It can still protect us but over the millennia increasing numbers of us chose to ignore ’Her’ ideal, and thus our increasing disease. Specifically, ignoring the overlap causes, it could save the $34 billion cost of weight loss drugs, about $800 billion cost for treating type II diabetes, and many billions more in other healthcare costs.
Part 2. Nature’s ideal life: It protected our predecessors from conflict until the birth of humanity. It can still protect us but over the millennia increasing numbers of individuals chose to ignore ‘Her’ ideal and thus, our increasing conflict.
Part 3. The integration of parts 1 and 2
Part 4. Existential risks: They are the result of our ancestors increasingly choosing to ignore Nature’s nutritional ideal. They may be reduced by expanding our mental capacity beyond what was realized at the birth of humanity. It would only take an instant, but the time we have to make the necessary choice is quickly running out.
Part 5. Appendix: Mostly diet related math that may have caused the mathematically challenged to quit reading in the middle of Part 1.
