The Pursuit of Knowledge - You

This past week the world was rocked, shocked, incredulous or bewildered after the remarkable American election win of Donald Trump.  I don’t want to write about how I feel as it is only more of what has already been posted on Facebook or elsewhere.  Let’s give the man a chance to prove that he is worthy of the position that people have elected him to and move on.

What I will say about the general state of the world is that many factors are moving us inexorable to a day of reckoning.  I am not talking about a religious apocalypse but rather I am talking about a push from people who are feeling marginalized economically, politically and socially.  Danish clergyman and philosopher Kaj Munk said that the branch is supple and can be pulled back, further and further, but eventually it will slap back and beware it doesn’t hit you in the face (I paraphrase).  I learned this as a little child and it struck me forcibly as an excellent description of how people can rise up and protest.  In history we have seen many rebellions and revolutions around the globe and there is one thing that they all have in common, the hunger and suppression of the “common man” causes an uproar at last.

Today the world has the potential to provide for the whole of humanity with complete sustenance; food, shelter and warmth.  The world has the knowledge and the means but the few who actually control the distribution of the means do not have the will to do so.  Shame on them.  For some people, these people, enough is never enough.  They do not understand the meaning of “making a living, not a killing”.  They do not appreciate the words of wisdom “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.  These people consider themselves smart because they avoid having to give, they pride themselves on not doing their fair share.  They have contempt for the meaning of fair.

This is the world that we live in today but what is even worse is that the tendency of the world is moving even further in that same direction.  People take a narrow and egotistically view of where our world is going.  They seem to think that if it is not affecting them directly it doesn’t matter.  Or they believe that their vote doesn’t matter, nothing will change anyway.  The world will definitely change no matter what you think or how little you do and in the end those who do nothing are as culpable as those who perpetrate the ill of this world.

It matters whether you vote, it matters whether you inform yourself, it matters whether you stand by as wrong is being done.  You matter.  Never forget, each person makes a ripple in the world.  You matter.