It runs along the valley floor
Then onward to the sea.
Like lives before and after us
It carries you and me.
We gaze upriver to the source
Where each of us comes from.
We look downstream where at its end
Together we all come.
If only we could keep in mind
What happens at both ends,
The time we have between these points
We'd all spend being friends.
"Down at the bottom are the poor.
Above them is the middle class.
Then those who can afford to say,
'The rest of you can kiss my ass.'
The upper class is next to God.
That is the way it's always been.
I know I promised you real change
But changing that would be a sin.
There is a change I'll try to make.
The middle class I'll reinforce
So those of us who ride on it
Won't kill this economic horse.
I also plan to help the poor
So they can better scoop horse shit.
I'll tell them to "the Dream" aspire
Though they can have no part of it.
I know our Declaration says
We're equal in the sight of God;
But in my view there 'd be no life
Had we no one on whom to trod.
And so fellow Americans
Joe will not give the common ground
Where 'life' and 'liberty' and the
'Pursuit of happiness' are found."
Barack Obama: attack on greed
Barack Obama: a cautionary view
Barack Obama: fighting for change
Barack Obama: my hope
Barack Obama: inauguration day
Barack Obama: victory speech
Barack Obama: sacrificing lives
Barack Obams: healthcare
Barack Obama: his Gulf oil war
Barack Obama: winning the future
On January twentieth
It was Barack Obama's day.
So many came to worship him
I thought that God had come to stay.
God didn't though; and where God is
I'm certain God will be annoyed
That once again the voters think
This President can fill the void.
Obama could have led the way
Toward the change we all ignore.
Instead he left the 'law' that says
The President we must adore.
My hope for real change has been dashed.
I wished not for another star.
It says we're "equal"; if that's so
We should praise each for who we are.
We each should have our own parade
To celebrate what we can be.
For President and cobbler too
We should recite some poetry.
The Presidency can't contain
More meaning than in mending shoes.
Perpetuation of this myth
Ensures more of our life we'll lose.
The change that leaves us "equal" all,
To "happiness" and "life" pursue,
Is not the President's to make.
It's something only we can do.
If each of us dispelled the "myth",
Which is a major source of strife,
Without Obama signing law
We could inaugurate new life.
Barack Obama: four more years of same
Barack Obama: attack on greed
Barack Obama: a cautionary view
Barack Obama: fighting for change
Barack Obama: victory speech
Barack Obama: my hope
Barack Obama: professing change
Barack Obama: sacrificing lives
Barack Obama: healthcare
Barack Obama: his Gulf oil war
Barack Obama: winning the future
"Free markets" is another myth
Upon which we build life;
But like our 'faiths' they can't be free
Because they cost us strife.
We fight because there's not enough
To fill the void within,
The purpose of the market race
We think we need to win.
What is the point? We have to ask,
Why strive to get ahead,
Since we all know that at the end
We're tied when we are dead?
The market that we could set up
Which would be truly free,
Is one at which we each share our
Unique capacity.
When we invest in these life shares
Returns are mutual;
And to us our life dividends
Are only paid in full.
Not one will lose; we all will gain.
For in our common thirst
To be what we can be that's when
Humanity is first.
There was a PM named Steve Harper.
Than others he thought he was sharper.
He cut off their nuts.
He skewered their guts.
And now we are all in the crapper.
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.
