Often we speak of “following your heart”, or the difference between “the mind and the body”. But we are not animals that ought to always do what we feel. Nor are we a duality, a thing within a thing. We are people and we have the choice to make decisions. Yes, we have a choice to make decisions.

However we choose to speak we must always be clear as to why we are doing something. The “old brain” is powerful, however. It’s will is the product of eons of evolution and it is spurred by survival at any cost. Yet, we as humans have come a long way from the days of starvation and hardship, at least we think we have. But that is the “new brain” telling us that.

All the while there are eight billion people on the planet, up from 3 billion in the early sixties, and we continue to procreate. All the while we are led by fear in the guise of gods and greed. Most of us are neither good or bad, divine or evil. We are human beings, hairless apes that love and laugh and want the same for others. And yet…

The old brain commands. The old brain leads us. Even as the new brain reminds us that there is the heart and the mind. And then there is the reality.

While the next lines up to ruin what we have built, what shall we do? While the armies line themselves with steel in their eyes, what shall we say?

While we satisfy and quench our blood-thirsty ways, what shall our history be? While the fists of violence, of ignorance, of greed, of avarice, of apathy grow and turn the green to grey, what will be our excuse?

What shall we do? We shall turn and wait for the next and make excuses, and we will justify our means for their ends.

What shall our history be? It will be the long lineage of ideologues killing others with smiles on their faces and a serious stare.

And all the while days will go by.

And all the while we will flood the waters with our despair and excuses.

And all the while we will watch as we kill what we truly ought to have loved.

How we treat the weakest among us is the measure of our progress. And who are the weakest among us and how do we treat them? Take a walk through an animal shelter or down the streets of the down and out. Go out into the country and see how the weak are treated. Take a drive through southern Kansas or west Texas and roll the window down as you pass a CAFO.

Take a ride through Arkansas and Missouri and stop at one of the long, silver, enclosed halls and listen. Smell the air and know that on our dinner plates are the weak among us. Stroll up to the doors of a hunting club and look on their walls. Listen to those around you talk and what they say. Their words explain how we treat the weak among us.

Go to the “wrong” side of the tracks. Listen to yourself and know that those thoughts, and the inevitable words that follow will decide how we treat those among us that have no voice. The internet, social media, witty comments and ignorant claims. We will be defined by how we treat those that cannot help themselves. We will live or die determined by our attitudes of how we view that lone, lost dog, or that neglected cat. We will progress determined by what we think when we see someone in need.

How we treat each other is how we treat the weak among us.

The Basic Laws Of Human Stupidity by Carlo M. Cipolla

Stupidity is often defined in different and inconsistent ways, but it is important to have a basis for stupidity. Stupidity seems ubiquitous but is a subject that is seldom discussed seriously, but needs to be. Mess things up for everyone else without a benefit for themselves. Stupid people are consistently stupid which makes them problematic in many ways. Cipolla presented five rules of stupidity to give us a base line to deal with stupid people.

First, we all underestimate the number of stupid people in the world.

Secondly, it is important to remember that stupidity is independent of all other characteristics that the stupid person might have. This sometimes makes stupidity difficult to recognize.

Third, the issue with stupidity and stupid people is that they cause losses to others with no benefits to themselves According to Cipolla, a person who causes losses to others with a benefit to themselves is a bandit, a criminal.

Fourth, non-stupid people underestimate the danger of stupid people. Nowadays, this particular point is unfortunately becoming more and more obvious. It is becoming more and more necessary for non-stupid people to act against stupidity.

Fifth, stupid people are the most dangerous people on the planet. This is perhaps not so obvious as to why, but the reason is that stupid people have no beneficial place in a civil society. The cause havoc, create losses and add no benefit.

This is a short synopsis, but on a subject that truly needs study.

James Joyce writes, “When the soul of a man is born, there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight.  You talk to me of nationality, language, religion.  I shall try to fly by those nets.”  Those nets hold us back, but sadly often we freely entangle ourselves in their snare.  As the writer and traveler Ken Ilgunas reminds us, “We need so little to be happy.  Happiness does not come from things.  Happiness comes from a full and exciting life.”  We have the freedom to do just that; if we would only do something about it.

Perhaps instead of chasing the next thing we could chase our next idea, our next experience? Imagine if you can a world full of curious people exploring and knowing as they do that what they see is truly divine in that irreligious way. Instead of accepting what our society tells us we ought to do, we build a society that we actually want.

We can be happy and it does not “come from things”, or ideologies, or nations, or others. We have it in us. But first we must free ourselves from those nets that so many throw at us. Don’t get fooled by their silver linings. They are cages in the end. Do not accept a cage in any form that you might find it. As you fly by those casting their nets smile and know that although they scream at you that you are lost and that they will save you that it is they that are standing, shackled.

Start with a question and see where it leads you.

The drive to be best is…well, very American. And this drive is often the engine carries us through those hard times that we all will experience. The persistence, the ability to push through pain in circumstances that call for such measures, is that independence and aptitude that so many refer to when waning poetically about how people “used to be”.

But this drive is also that thing pushes people to be overly competitive, rude, selfish and arrogant. The need to better than everyone is oddly enough the same thing as the need to do one’s very best. They are the same, but one overtaken by ego while the other is the result of personal ideals. The need to beat is not the same as the need to do better.

Ah, and only if we could learn this early on. It would save most of us from much brow-beating and self flagellation. When we are young we are often not capable of differentiating the need to beat from the need to do better. We will learn, but it sometimes takes a lifetime.

So, do not lose the need to be better, but remember that thought. It does not mean the need to be better than someone else. It can just mean the need to be better. Virtue is the shining difference. There is no virtue in honor or pride. There is only virtue in knowing that you have done the very best that you could.

Remember this the next time you look back on your life and pull the birch out. Put the switch down. It’s time to remember that we are all only human.

When the arrogance of humanity becomes too much.