Sometimes music speaks louder than words.

Morning after morning, after morning the coffee is brewed and we sit on our couches and drink it often in silence.  Getting dressed for work and a bite to eat, and perhaps out the door or over to the home office to start work.

Work with some breaks, perhaps a bit more coffee and the work day comes to an end.  Back home, sometimes with anticipation.  Dinner, maybe a walk, and of course the ubiquitous T.V.  And then bed.  Hmmm.

Lying hurts.  It hurts us as individuals and it hurts us as communities; it hurts us as a country and even as a species.  There are many lies that are accepted and in doing so we are accepting pain and anti-progress.  We become numb to it, but not immune to it.

Lying is killing us.  It is killing us as just as cancer kills its host; just as a gun kills its victim.  Lying kills by a million cuts and with atom bomb generality.  Death is natural; murder is not.  Lies only grow in fertile ground; death grows in desert plains.

Lying is easy.  Lying is easy for individuals and communities; it is easy for governments.  Lying pays off and it works.  Lying provides comfort and security or the feeling of superiority and the power of revenge.  All of it is false just as an untrue statement; just as an untrue belief.

We can say:

“Don’t lie to anyone for any reason.”  But, we will.

Perhaps we should revise the statement to align with Kant’s proposition:

“Don’t lie, but if you do know that it is never justified.”

There’s an apparent contradiction in our universe between quantum and classical physics.  When reading about physics on a micro-level, and noticing the world around, the contradiction does not seem important.  However, it poses problems to what we would like to believe and what we must accept.

There’s also an analogy to this in our daily lives; one which many have, perhaps, experienced first hand.  Leaders (politicians, CEO’s, administrators etc…) tend to tell those that work for them that they, the leaders, have a 30,000 foot perspective and that they, the workers, do not see the “whole picture”.

This seems paramount to saying: “I don’t care what quantum physics tells us, I don’t believe its true because I don’t live in that world.”  The problem is that we all live in one world, we are just not acutely aware of it.  This lack of awareness often leads to the acceptance of contradictions as truth.

Contradiction is deadly in math and logic, but there is also potent paradoxical poisons in other arenas: the dismissal of truth for the sake of belief; the narrowing of perspectives for the sake of power; apathy for the sake of comfort, and personal certainty for the sake of ignorance.  All of these are poisonous to real progress, and more times than not it doesn’t matter at what altitude we fly at.

Sometimes silence is good, and sometimes it is not.  This blog is a simple testimony to philosophy and a single perspective on that endeavor.  However, for some time, there has been nothing but silence.

While this simple, probably overrated, most likely unimportant, device for writing (the blog) is really nothing more than personal meanderings to a very few people, it is also in that it is something that was created with a certain intention: to be consistent.

In this aspect it has now been a failure; for the silence that has overtaken it has outweighed the personal responsibility of this writer to be consistent.  There are explanations and excuses, but only important to the writer himself and of no consequence to the blog.

I offer no apology to myself nor do I offer any explanation; it is simply how it has been in the months since the silence.  All of this is to say that once an endeavor has been taken on, it is important to accept the responsibility for that endeavor.  I have been irresponsible.

Sure it is, that there are very, very few people that this blog reaches, but that is not its point.  The point is to keep alive an endeavor that is as old as civilization and just as important; silence is the killer of that endeavor.

If anyone hasn’t noticed: it’s difficult to be happy.  There seems to be no good reason for this, unless you really think about it.  Being happy is hard work and takes a conscious effort.

First, the most difficult perhaps, put your ideals aside and be happy first.  There is no point in being miserable in order to uphold values and ideals.  Be happy first and then set ideals.  This seems so simple, but it is truly not; it takes work.  But happiness is worth it.

Secondly, meditate.  Busyness is a sickness, an excuse; it is a downfall and is a symptom of something larger, and largely wrong.  Being busy is fine.  However, take time to silence the noise, even for ten minutes or so.  This will put a smile on anyone’s face and puts things in perspective.  This is coming from a great source: Sam Harris, and personal experience as well (I’m a newbie).

Third, take time.  Just take time.  Take time to look up at the night sky, hug those you love and care for; go for walks, enjoy the day.  Time is all we have and is priceless.  Take time to give it the attention that you need.

Finally, be honest…brutally honest.  This does not entail being brutal or mean, but just honest.  Don’t lie…ever.

Think about it; what do we have to lose.

If you have ever slowed down and thought about your days it might have occurred to you that most of them are lived either in the past or the future.

“What do I have to do…”

“What did I do wrong…”

Fill in the blanks and your life is not much different than anyone else’s.

***

Human history is a continuous story of wars; wars against others, but most often wars against ideologies.  Wars are fought over women but seldom over men.  Wars are fought over land, but rarely over the environment.  Wars are fought over money, out of greed, but much less over social needs and/or progress.

It is though we humans cannot stand a moment’s peace; it is as if we cannot stand to progress.  This is, in part, not true.  However, the reasons for the wars that we have fought have never changed; we fight the same war over and over again.

***

Welcome to never-never land; the place to be, to forget, to dream.  Neverland is yours to keep, but you must keep it a secret for it is for all who can find it.  The imaginary reality of sleep; the induced coma of life.  Buy yourself a ticket and come on in.  There is a price, but it is but a pittance.  It is, of course, your soul, but you won’t miss it much.

For most of human history human life was one of fear, misery, and basic survival dotted ever so slightly by short periods of happiness and even contentedness if one was lucky.  Nowadays, for a percentage of people in the right areas of this planet, those times seem long past.  Now we have social media, Starbucks (and I like Starbucks!), and cynicism.  We have so much and more is yet to come.

Liberty is such an esoteric term, almost antiquated in its cute  and lovable self-importance; so different from the all-important happiness, so daring in its veracity.  The flag-waving crowd throws the term around along with “freedom”, but what is the difference?  First, it would seem that we do not have to “pursue” liberty.  Secondly, it would seem to have something to do with freedom.

Ah yes, freedom!  We are, after all, Americans.  And so, perhaps, when pursuing happiness, we have the liberty to choose non-fat or skim milk; we have the freedom to pay with paypal or with a credit card.  We can choose Whole Foods are another franchised food mart.  We can choose to shop today or tomorrow.  These are our rights…

But rights, those are a different story.

Change is the only consistent- a moniker that is true, yes, but only on a level that is truly meaningless to us as people, as a society.  History proves this somehow obvious truth, false.  All it takes is a short trip through history.

We, as a society are having the same conversations, almost the exact conversations, about the same concepts (such as rights, religions, politics and justice) and have been for some time.  For example, do a short research stint on slavery, or women’s rights and read the arguments for keeping the former and fighting the latter.  Bigotry is consistent but in a changing way.

The world that we have created is getting better, that much is fortunately true, but the battles that the good are fighting are the same battles that the good have fought since the dawn of man, which is much less fortunate.

Consider if real change was actually possible, these “debates” and political debacles would be non-existent.  Women wouldn’t make less than men, and racism would be accepted as a human weakness based in ignorance and considered as such by everyone.  We would not be “discussing” the evidence behind climate change, and still making decisions on antiquate belief systems that weren’t that good in the first place.

Real change is possible, but not through policy.  Real change is only possible with the change, or even giving up of ideals and ideologies; real change is only possible when fear is controlled and violence quelled at almost every level; real change is only possible when we as a society change our motivation from greed to good.

But again, change is the only consistent-a moniker that is true, yes, but only on a level that is truly meaningless.