Will you think of your 'Collective Obligation' this Holiday Season?
Will you think of your 'Collective Obligation' this Holiday Season?
Some humans have a limited ability to empathize or express sincere care for others. I find it tremendously sad how tragic moments and events in our lives: such as war, terrorist attacks, natural disasters or pandemics pull the veil from our lives and reveal the true character of each and every one of us.
Our psychology: our cognitive abilities to empathize or not to empathize is the great equalizer within humankind; the Amobarbital to many who wish these moments of crises creating needs from others, would just go away.
This undeniable reality carries us beyond political parties or what country you live in, what race you are, or what societal demographic in which you reside. It is an undeniable fact that it is our neurochemistry which dictates each and every one of these aforementioned scenarios.
Empathy is the kryptonite for the selfish at heart, for there is no hiding our true selves while historically tumultuous times prevail. Our brain chemistry reveals just how we will cope, react, how we mend ourselves or how we will work to mend others. Or perhaps we will fail miserably, while we toil through life's trials and tribulations. Our neurobiological self, is everything we are and everything we will be in this world, unless we chose to commit ourselves to becoming a healthier human, a healthier mind and a healthier spiritual soul.
My first question, is why have we spent so little attention on this matter? Haven't we reduced smoking to prevent lung cancer? Haven't we altered our diets to prevent heart disease? Perhaps we wish to look away from this, for this will be a cleansing to all and to cleanse oneself, one must look at the darkest things inside as well as on our surface.
This review of our neurochemistry would not exclude anyone. From the top seats of the political, financial, scholastic and scientific worlds down to the lowliest most unfortunate souls on earth. It would force every human being on earth to justify themselves in all they are and why and what they do on this earth. With this, a monumental shift in civilization's trajectory would ensue.
If we make a beginning, we must look at the clinical breakdown to any psychological diagnosis which stems from
the three contributing avenues of a human's psyche:
a) genetics b) social and c) environmental. The first, we have little to say about, except for the advancements of medicines which help us deal with the cards we've been dealt, for there is not much else we can hope for at this moment, according to the present scientific research at hand.
As far as the 'b & c': we must agree that this country's systems regulate our social and environmental factors far more than one’s own efforts do. In this, we find the great divide. The linear, right brain, usually right wing conservative proclaims: "nobody helped me!... I picked myself up by my own bootstraps... my tax dollars are not for hand outs are for the lazy wastes of society...."
While ignoring the preexisting social, financial and psychological conditions that tend to be over looked by most of the Conservative based government administrations, we find ourselves in the eternal revolving door of the haves and have-nots.
"...We can't let the damn liberals give our money away, all this empathy crap will brake this country's financial system!..."
The "trickle down economics" that never happened, the elimination of the federally supported mental institutions, educational programs, housing and food assistance, etc., has slowly eroded a once token effort of 'empathy,' previously administered by the conservative right wing based administrations, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower's.
In result, the loss of 'a national empathy' for the less fortunate has grown at an epidemic rate and has resulted in the rampant poverty, homelessness, overcrowded prisons, record illiteracy rates never before seen in the United States.
A product of the lack of Empathy within the human consciousness of Americans and the unwillingness to understand, that not all who are in need are lazy, worthless, criminals, addicts or con-artists.
Proven factual numbers by researchers reveal: There is no more welfare or unemployment fraud in this country than there has been insurance, medical or legal fraud, yet the federal prosecutors seem to disproportionately pursue the citizenry than the industries.
Empathy: this Holiday Season...?
What do we do with this, when the holiday spirit of this time is so blatantly contrary to the capitalistic, dog eat dog world we live, which we are urged to take part and prosper faster then your neighbor? Do we empathize for the twelve days of Christmas, the eight days of Hanukah, the thirty days of Ramadan or the seven days of Kwanza, then resumes or normally scheduled programs at the stroke of midnight? Are we so simple that we cannot practice the gift and power of empathy all year round? Every day?
The state of a nations empathy to its citizens is the finite determining factor of how we will live, procreate, educate and hope one’s child’s contributions to the world will be something we all can be collectively proud of. In an expansive analysis, we can see which groups of our citizenry live within what category and who's child will have at least half a chance to do something useful for this world.
In closing: Neurologists now know the cognitive mind can retrain itself, (if genetics allow) but the most destructive cancer within the United States today is the illness of: rampant individualism, misinformation and the systematic sterilization of intellectualism and spiritualism within the psyche of its citizens.
A self-induced narcissism cannot and will not sustain a nation in dire need of a "collective obligation."
“This country will not fall from without, but from within” Take responsibility of what we teach. Take responsibility of what we do not know. Refuse to allow ignorance to prevail.
This is why empathy is the great equalizer of humankind. For it knows no race, no politics, no wealth, no creed. Anyone can practice this. For it takes nothing more than the kindness of one’s heart and the spiritual measure of one’s soul.
So easy, yet so elusive.
It is the collective obligation of humankind to ensure the peace and to embolden ethical and moral deeds which protect the worlds civilizations from the darkness. Unim Orbus Unim Veritas
#TomMacLear
