We have failed…through our lack of responsible awareness…and thus added to suffering around the world. All of us are cripples—some physically, some mentally, some emotionally. We must, therefore, strive cooperatively to create a new world. There is no time left for destruction, for hatred, for anger. We must build, in hope and joy and celebration.
Three Worlds One Vision 
The problem with his conclusion in this quote is, you cannot build on a collapsing infrastructure and an utterly corrupt, reprehensible, toxic system of kleptocrats in government, finance and business. The entire system is entropic so how can any, however sincere, person or group, hope to build something trustworthy on such a garbage pile? Wisdom and common sense dictate that the entire global societal structure must be annihilated before anything really new can take root. To keep patching the existing decaying garbage pile is to feed more life into the parasites crawling through it and feeding on it. Those who insist on fixing are planting seeds among well-established weeds. Their “crop” stands no chance at all.
We allowed it to get this bad, now we must bite the bullet and admit this “war” is utterly lost. Or do we want to feed more children into the parasites’ wars so they’ll have more free blood to drink in their end times orgies? There-is-no-longer-any-fix-possible.
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Disagree.
Nothing is impossible !
Only negative or positive…
attitudes can change influenced by what
we read/write/think.
Numbers are fixed
Thoughts/dreams not.
Free mind and spirit way forward.
And am no hippie
Dream on it’s free.
Kamtan
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Dream and build a new house on a sand dune, Kamtan – I won’t be buying it.
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Hilarious !
Built my second home in south Spain
…not for sale ! In the alpujara mountains
mountains 500m above sea level.
One year with melting snow/rainfall combination lost 40 fruit trees on river
bank. Nowhere is 100% safe…not even
in Timbuktu.
Climate/nature cruelty/kindness.
Take the point that one should build ones
life on “solid foundations”..facts…verified
facts !
Have a merry season without its religious
fermentation’s ..but plenty tinto Veranos !
Red wine with a touch of fresh
Lemmon juice !
Saludos
…
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Though I am sympathetic to the idea that these are desperate times, there have been others, though desperate in different ways. Here is Churchill’s famous “Never Give In” speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKGXo4g26Ds
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Yes, Dr. Stein, I agree with Churchill that we should never give in when faced with an impossible situation. What we humans are facing are the existential crises of a climate emergency and ecological collapse. These are no ordinary desperate times.
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Hi Dr. Stein… ignoring the speech as spoken by a degenerate elitist blowhard and war criminal… yes the people of Earth have had other hard and desperate times. The difference between then and now it important to note however: then it was still possible for many to escape the terror, whether nature or man-made. Now the ring has closed and as “democracies” fail and fall into totalitarian military/security regimes, with environmental degradation and climate change making the ring tighter; with a much larger and unsustainable population, there is no longer any escape except for a minority of lucky ones, and that will also be temporary. Mankind has forced itself into a crucible of its own making, the heat (chaos) provided by climate change, population, dwindling and poisoning of potable waters, loss of arable lands, conflict over resources and failing technology as more of it is funneled into military expansion and urban infrastructure deteriorates for lack of remedial resources. The “collective” in whatever format that has been the foundation and support for man’s civilizations is now an obsolete concept. It no longer works. Wisdom says, look for something entirely new for mankind.
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I agree with much of what you say, Sha’Tara. I am concerned, however, that the portion of humanity that is open to working on the problem must have some reason to hope in order to continue that work. Without it, then all hope and effort is lost.
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An excellent point, Dr. Stein. My Christian upbringing taught me that there are three major virtues to live by: faith, hope and love. Religious or not, mankind proceeds on the basis of these three forces. It will have faith that something better can be achieved despite all evidence to the contrary. It will believe that love will solve its greatest problems, again despite all evidence to the contrary, but what will push it to ever and anon attempt to create a better future will be done in hope. As could be readily observed by an open-minded individual, that has never worked, except in very short term and easily reversed periods – as we are globally experiencing at the moment. The best of man’s thoughts on collective expression lay in democratic governments but the process, begun in lies, was never expanded to actually create a single true democracy, hence its inevitable failure. Democracies (or democracy as a concept of just societal interaction) were still born. That, of course, was a deliberate ploy to institute the rule of capitalism. (The intent was to confuse “democracy” and capitalism in people’s minds. Any thinking individual can reason how that works.)
When I became aware of the world around me, of its history, and I learned to project into possible “futures” I saw how the process went and decided that I would deliberately eschew faith, hope and love. Faith I replaced with awareness or you can call it knowledge. Love I replaced with compassion. Hope I had/have no use for and no need to replace that chimera with anything. Whomever knows the future through a detached awareness has no need of mental or spiritual crutches because s/he no longer walks in the common denominator fog of uncertainty.
The many predatory forces sucking the dregs of civilization will play out to their bitter end. Little hopeful events will surface here and there only to be swallowed up time and again by the main event. Life on Earth is going to reinvent itself and nothing of man’s current civilization will play a part of that new thing except the common memory that will ensure a continual and utter rejection of all that homo sapiens invented and boasted of. That’s not hope, that’s certainty.
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Sorry beg to differ ….
As a child growing up a song remains in
my memory…
Faith Hope and Charity
That’s the way to live successfully
Then The religious idea kicks in…
How do I know
The bible tells me so…,
Now have no faith ..only in myself.
Hope for better …improvement
Charity …begins at home
Love a very misunderstood human behaviour.
Primed with emotional disorder.
Live thy neighbour as thyself
My take
Simple Simon
…
W
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Sha’Tara, as I see it, the physical world that we humans have created for ourselves will be transformed by more fierce storms, wildfires, flooding, drought, plagues, mass migrations, and much more. Our entire global societal structure will collapse under the resulting chaos and wars for food, water, and refuge. Since we cannot wait for total collapse “to create a new world,” the visionary, sane minds among us must begin to “[plant] seeds among well-established weeds”–already under stress of its own creation.
You’ve fought the good fight, my friend. You’ve come this far. Hold out hope to the young of our species who will inherit the chaos our generation has created. Support them in their struggle. Share with them why we failed to prevent the toxic weeds from taking root.
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Come on
It’s not Armageddon !
Doom and gloom !
Surely the next generations will improve
on the previous. It’s called progressive!
Way forward and upward.
Positive mind sets !
…
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Thank you for sharing!!.. one fails when one quits… 🙂
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, the man who at best knows achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
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I agree, Dutch, we cannot quit, no matter the odds against us.
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Pingback: Thought for Today: We have failed… – by Rosaliene Bacchus | Guyanese Online
Beautiful, so true.😔
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The quote is sadly so relevant to our world of today, thanks for posting this mindful truth.
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Epictetus (circa 100 C.E.) was an early proponent of what is most frequently called The Serenity Prayer. Climate change is sadly relegated to “the things (we) cannot change.” Unfortunately, climate scientists knew by the mid-70s that countering a dangerous addiction to fossil fuels really was among the things we could change. Now we are not only at the crossroads, but we are also in the middle of the intersection and sitting in a stalled vehicle. Chaos looks almost certain, and I most definitely have more faith in the younger generations than the older generations who have a very bad track record.
“…saving the one million species faced with extinction, or preventing the deaths of hundreds of millions of people- as hard as it is to swallow, that is not within our power by any rational assessment. To quote a radically different source (Pirke Avot 2:21), ‘It is not up to you to complete the task, but neither is it yours to neglect it.’ ”
View at Medium.com
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Some will pray !
Some will ignore !
Most should do something about it !
It is the radicals that will change the world
Hopefully next generations.
Too little too late for the old fogies !
Kamtan 🇬🇧🇬🇾🇪🇸🇬🇧👽
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Bill, thanks for sharing the link to Gindin’s article. Lots of Epictetus wisdom for consideration.
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You are most welcome, Rosaliene. Thank *you* for introducing me to Ivan Illich, a fellow traveler who speaks along a wavelength I recognize, respect, and tune in for just such nuggets of distilled wisdom. 🙂
There is no time left for destruction, for hatred, for anger. We must build, in hope and joy and celebration.
Indeed.
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I agree with the idea you don’t fail until you give up. Who’s to say where the end point is? Historically, many civilizations have been built on the ruins of old ones. None was perfect, by whatever idealized standard you use, but humankind has not finished evolving yet.
“Science” is no more evolved than the rest of humanity, although the aggregate of “scientists” has been accorded almost god-like status in our world of half-truths and pretend-knowledge. If “scientists” were as smart as people suppose, they would have solved the climate change dilemma rather than work in their tenured university slots vying for government grants to study the problem.
As long as we’re still breathing, we are emitting CO2, and methane comes out the other end, so each living being with lungs and anus is contributing to the presumed problem. The plants, however, are striving in the opposite direction, yet the genius scientists discount the smarter plants and forests as amassed human hubris generates more costly and less effective technological solutions to technologically-caused problems.
Under this scenario, even the weeds growing in cracks in sidewalks are doing more good for the earth than the scientists, but the sidewalks themselves are storing heat, preventing moisture from cooling the underlying earth, and suffocating the earth itself.
But you’ve heard my rant before, Rosaliene, and at least you have a garden so are doing your part to counterbalance climate change. We haven’t failed yet, even if we are still breathing.
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Katharine, I’m well aware that you’re not yet convinced that we humans are facing an existential climate crisis. It saddens me that you think so little of our scientific community that has made our lives so much better over the ages.
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Rosaliene,
I consider myself a scientist, so I know first hand how subject to human hubris scientists are. Also, since “science” has divorced itself from morality, the generic “scientists” are not guided by any overriding moral principle.
I also wonder if they have truly made our lives better, and what you mean by “better.” Even the title of your blog indicates you have lost some faith in humankind’s desire or ability to save ourselves and the planet from human-caused disaster.
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Simple Simon says
He who pays piper calls tune
Most scientific research is corporate
funded with a corporate bias !
Until they are funded by their
self generated discoveries most of their
findings are of little or no signifance.
Useless waste.
Most R+D programmes are funded by
their taxpayers contribution as a percentage of GDP. Minuscule by comparison to corporate funding.
Go figure
Kamtan 🇬🇧🇬🇾🇪🇸🇬🇧👽
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Katherine
So true ! Will science save mankind from
Armageddon. Doubt it !
Have science made our lives better
or worse ? What we don’t know doesn’t
matter !
Must we believe science to be truthful/factual
Or just speculation.
Sorry my jury is out !
Science helps us in understanding
the principles of life and tries to
explain its meaning …it is just another
belief system of the purpose of life
itself. The why when where how but
not what’s …
The god thing !
Go figure
Kamtan
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Wow, very profound.
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Q how does one measure failure ?
That is the question !
To admit failure is like giving up !
Accepting defeat !
No sir …
We have not failed ! That is why we fought
in two world wars. Should we have surrendered to Hitler and his nazis ?
No sir
Now go figure
…
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An amazing admission of guilt and a call for transformation and action, all in one. Thanks for this reminder Rosaliene. Happy Christmas.
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Thanks for dropping by, Bruce. I’m now catching up after a break for home renovations. It was a stressful and chaotic Christmas. Wishing you and your loved ones a peaceful New Year ❤
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Hope everyone on this blog had a merry
season and hopefully a better 2020.
Our world is changing, will change, must
change …hopefully for better.
Remain optimistic for the future
Fairer freeer world is not impossible.
Nothing is today !
Onward and upward
Kamtan 🇬🇧🇬🇾🇪🇸🇬🇧👽🙏
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Best wishes to you, Kamtan. Our tiny apartment became a stressful worksite this past Christmas. I can breathe again. Within my workspace, order and my Internet connection have been restored.
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I believe that the connections and the conversations here are changing the world. Each person can begin to make new choices for the next year; for example more public transportation, less air travel, 1-2 more vegetarian meals per week… It’s not hopeless, unless we are.
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I totally endorse your comment. Individually, one by one, is how we break free and we do it through whatever is available to us to work with. We don’t look back, we never despair even if things continue to get worse… on the surface. We work below the surface, unseen.
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Thank you, hope is our currency for a better world.
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I agree with you, Rebecca.
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I hope more people wake up from the delusion that rules most of humanity. Soon.
By the way, Winston Churchill was a war criminal. Just saying…
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It is my hope, too, Shift.
As to Winston Churchill: Hero or villain are two sides of the same coin. It all depends upon which side one is on.
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what a great reminder for all of us.
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Thanks for stopping by, Pallavi 🙂
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Profound and thought-provoking quote, Rosaliene, that inspired an important, spirited dialogue! Bravo on creating created a space where people can express differing views and disagree respectfully while still sharing collective concern for the fate and well-being of the earth.
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Always great to hear from you, Carol! Thanks for dropping by 🙂
Our scientific breakthrough led us to think of ourselves as gods over all of Mother Earth. Now we humans must pay the price of our arrogance.
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This is a wonderfully truthful quote. We must develop more connection and sympathy as well as combatting divisiveness.
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I totally agree, Mark!
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Thought provoking quote with a thoughtful conclusion… Hope is still alive!
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A beautiful quote, Rosaliene. Chilling, but strangely challenging, as it seems some of your other bloggers have noticed. You’ve created an interesting conversation, nicely done.
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Thanks, Cath. So glad you dropped by 🙂
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Earlier today, I saw an article about failure being necessary for learning. I didn’t have time to read it, but understand the process of learning from one’s mistakes. The level human mistakes have risen to is frightening. No one knows for sure how bad it will get, but we must not let ourselves become overwhelmed by despair. I can feel it trying to immobilize, or at least distract me. Thank you for these words that help us look reality in the face and give courage to work cooperatively to create a better world for all. I needed this hope today. We all do.
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Thanks for adding your voice, JoAnna. I am also struggling to remain focused on the positive and not to become immobilized by the growing darkness in our world.
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Late to this post, but excellent and very thoughtful comments.
I’ve been trying to send you a poem I thought you might like, but it doesn’t seem to go through..perhaps your blog dismisses links?
Anyway it’s called Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind by Carl Sandburg. It’s long but has a lot of meaning in today’s world, I think.
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It’s never too late to drop by, Mary 🙂 Thanks for sharing the link to Sandburg’s poem, powerful in its timelessness. Yes, everything passes, even “the greatest city, / the greatest nation,” yet we never learn from the mistakes, futility, and arrogance of the past.
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Which begs the question: why do we not learn from the lessons of the past?
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I think it’s as simple as our brains don’t work that way…repeated patterns in DNA?
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