Health care professionals who are not yet vaccinated against Covid-19? Teachers who are not yet vaccinated against Covid-19?
OK, I understand there are some people who cannot go near a vaccine. For medical reasons. But they are few. And, anyway, most of them do not ‘belong’ to this line of work.
But the rest? What is it which prevents them from getting the jab? The ‘mandatory’ part? Why do I care about it being mandatory if it saves my life?
Am I being oppressed for having to breathe in order to live?
Am I feeling oppressed for having to work – as in being useful for other people, in order to lead a decent life?
Is this the real reason for which so many of us, teachers and health care professionals included, refuse the vaccine?
‘I am not going to sacrifice my health for the misconceptions and irrational fears of others.’
I don’t care about anybody else but me?!?
Only time can judge this.
Which was smarter. To accept the vaccine – and contribute to the general well being, assuming the non-0 risk involved. Or to weather the storm. Hoping the pandemic will die on its own. And/or that enough of the others will get the jab.
But to find out what time will have decided, each of us must live. Must survive the pandemic.
And here’s the catch. The strongest amongst us will survive. Without a mask. Without a vaccine. While many of those who didn’t have to die will have gone under.
But what kind of a world will that be?
Dog eat dog?
Are we OK with that? Is this what we want to leave behind?
For whatever reasons, vaccine arrived later in some countries. For whatever other reasons, some people had chosen to ‘opt out’ in those countries where the vaccine had been plentiful.
‘Truth’ is a convention. You cannot understand ‘truth’ without ‘lie’.
Watch the video. Go on, I won’t go anywhere!
It’s irrelevant for the current discussion whether the drongo lies consciously or has just developed an ‘ordinary’ skill. Equivalent to that of feeding itself by ‘fishing’ worms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwVhrrDvwPM.
It’s enough for me that both us and the meerkats are able to notice that the drongo did lie. And, at least once, did sound the alarm about a real danger.
Hence it is possible, for both us, humans, and the meerkats to tell lies from truths. Again, I have no idea whether the animals do it in a conscientious manner.
All I know is that we, humans, did coin the concept of ‘truth’. And that of ‘lie’. And we not only coined the concepts but also attached names to each of them. We agreed among ourselves to name them truth and lie, respectively.
In fact, we have made an agreement. A gentleman’s agreement… About when to use each word.
And a subsidiary one. About when we must definitely tell the truth and when a lie is acceptable.
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As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
Don’t you dare to tell me how to take care of my body! Or that I should wear those face diapers of yours and that I should accept to be immunized! According to my book, my individual right to be the sole master of my body trumps your collective right to survive a pandemic. And, by the way, this whole Covid thing is a fraud.
On the other hand, the same book I’ve already mentioned gives me the right to deny all women their right to determine what happens to their own wombs. I infer from reading that book that an unborn fetus is a person – even before it had overcome the viability threshold and despite Roe vs. Wade. The way I see it, my simple declaration – that an unborn fetus is a full blown person, is reason enough for me to consider that anybody performing an abortion – or aiding a woman to have an abortion, is committing a crime. And being witness to a crime is detrimental to my well being. To my spiritual well being, in particular. Hence whenever I learn that an abortion has happened, I’m entitled to receive damages.
A bunch of ideologically motivated criminals got together and perpetrated a horrible act of terrorism. A group pf courageous passengers got together and partially foiled the terrorists’ plans.
Both the terrorists and the courageous passengers eventually died. The terrorists died killing people while the heroes died saving lives. The terrorists didn’t reach their ultimate goal – the US is still standing proud. The heroes did achieve their goal. The hijacked plane crushed in a field, far from the target the terrorists aimed to destroy.
Doing something alongside others isn’t enough. For that something to end up well, the goal must be wholesome!
They keep telling that I made them. Them and everything else.
I don’t remember any of this…
All I remember is learning how it happened. From them.
There had been many versions. Each new one more compelling than the last.
The interesting part, for me, is that they have never been able to agree upon one version. The sad part, for me, is that their disagreement upon which version is true has generated dire consequences. And continues to… Hate, war… Unbecoming for the rational and God loving beings they consider themselves to be ….
They say I know everything. Strangely enough, I now understand why I should. Why I should be able to… But I don’t. Know everything… For me to know something, anything, they have to learn it first.
The moment any of them learns something, anything, I know it too. In reality, I don’t know everything but I know everything they know. Everything each of them knows. Everything each of them has ever known. Everything each of those who had ever lived had ever known. I don’t know everything but I remember everything I have ever found out.
They say I can everything. And that I’ve done a lot of things. Some good, some bad… depending on who’s telling.
They pray. A lot. To me and to some people who have contributed to my existence. That’s how I see it. They are convinced these people have taught them about my existence. Where is the difference?
Anyway, they pray. Asking so many things that fulfilling some of those wishes would mean denying others.
They pray in vain. Many of them. Because I can’t do anything. Anything in particular, that is. Everything which happens – I’ve come to realize, happens through me, indeed.
But not by me!
Hence any of the prayers which are answered come through by exactly those who have prayed. Most of the prayers who come through ask for inner peace.
All prayers which come through are put in practice by those who wish them to come trough. ‘Put in practice’ means those wishes are possible, of course.
And here’s what keeps me awake at night. (Joking. There’s no such thing as night and day for me. But you know what I mean.) Sometimes – many times, actually, some wishes coming through means a lot of unhappiness. For other people, usually. But sometimes even for the wishers. Sometimes because the wishers hadn’t been wise enough and other times because the wishers had been actually evil. My problem being that I can never do anything.
I can’t answer prayers. I can’t stop anybody. From doing anything. I can’t even ‘open up’ anybody’s mind.
All I can do is to feel everything. To remember. And to learn.
To what goal?
That is my other problem. They say I made them. Them and everything else. But if true, then who made me?
The only possible answer, to both my problems, being that they are the ones who make me. This way. To have somebody to lean to. To comfort them at night. And to have somebody to point their finger to. For the good and for the bad…. in their lives!
Had I been obsessed with ‘efficiency’, as too many of my earthling children are, I would have distributed pretexts for happiness in a different manner.
The more an individual was capable of being happy, the more reasons for ‘that’ I would have given to that person.
Since I’m more interested in personal development, I let them exercise their freedom. Their freedom of choice.
Hence I spread ‘reasons for happiness’ in a random way. Having nothing to do with their personal merit nor with their ability to transform those ‘reasons’ into actual happiness.
And I continue to wait. For them to learn.
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And maybe the same kind of thinking had motivated this ‘concerned citizen’…
An almost empty beach. Half past five in the evening. One person – some sources maintain it was a woman, other refrain from specifying this, notices a woman ‘pleasuring’ herself. That person ‘duly’ records the incident using her phone and then reports it to the police. The ‘trespasser’ is identified – she didn’t even try to hide, admits to the ‘offense’ and is eventually “booked for indecent exposure and disorderly conduct”.
Remember that only one person had noticed what was going on. And was hurt in their feelings. So hurt that they had to alert the authorities.
There are some things each of us should do in moderation.
Drink, eat, ‘rest’…
There are some things each of us should never do.
Lie, steal, kill.
The things we must do ‘depend’ upon our DNA. Unless we do what our DNA tells us to do, we die.
The things we shouldn’t do have been determined culturally. Our fore-fathers have noticed that not doing ‘those things’ helped a lot. That communities who taught their members to not do those things survived a lot easier and fared a lot better than those communities who had been ‘lax’ about ‘things’. Teaching what to do and what to not do across generations transformed learned information into culture.
In time, culture has fulfilled the same function as DNA.
DNA had made it possible for life to exist. For species to survive. And to evolve when needed. When the environment had changed.
Culture had made it possible for communities to survive. Individuals belonging to each generation didn’t had to reinvent fire each time they were cold. Or afraid. Or hungry. They just remembered what their ancestors had taught them and put it into practice.
But there’s also a huge difference between DNA and culture. Both consist of information passed over generations and both are instrumental in the survival of those who depend on that information being put to use. The difference consists in the fact that DNA actually demands a certain behavior while culture only recommends certain ‘answers’.
There’s more.
DNA is a ‘language’. It has ‘letters’, ‘syntactic’ rules and even means to correct errors. Culture uses languages as a vehicle.
Both code information using ‘letters’ and ‘words’ but they differ in how that information is passed to the next generation. DNA passes that information in a way more ‘rigid’ manner than culture does.
While it is true that slight differences occur whenever genetic information is passed from one generation to another – that’s how evolution works, those ‘directly interested’ in the process have nothing to say about this whole thing. The differences occur accidentally and survive only if they don’t harm the organisms where they appear.
With cultural information things happen in the exact opposite manner. Differences occur only when enough individuals notice that it would be beneficial for them to change that particular habit in that particular manner.
And now we have reached the moment to contemplate another similarity.
As the DNA has become more elaborate, the ‘superior’ organisms had enjoyed more individual ‘freedom’. Or ‘lee-way’. Insects have more lee-way than worms, fish have more lee-way than star-fish, dogs have more lee-way than frogs and humans have more freedom than the rest of the apes have lee-way. Similarly, people belonging to the hunter-gatherer culture had accrued a lot more freedom when they had learned – and taught it to their children, how to make fire. And so on. Those who had learned how to grow their own food – and passed the information to the next generations, had far less chances of dying of hunger. And a lot more lee-way to conduct war… Those who had learned how to make metal tools were a lot freer than those who shaped their tools out of stone. And very soon the stone-shapers had been ‘subdued’ by those yielding bronze weapons.
And so on to the present day. Those who have become adept users of mass-media are seeding ‘change’ into the minds of the naive.
I only hope that they will eventually find out what Ernst Mayr had to say about this process.
The problem with the ‘lee-way’ generated by culture being that whenever it becomes too wide the whole system becomes fragile.
Whenever people get high enough on freedom they forget that in order to survive we need to remain inside the ‘straight and narrow’ mandated by DNA and endorsed by culture.
Otherwise put, being torn between musts and don’ts is far better than being stuck. In a grave.
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As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
I was arguing in my previous post that our job is to determine meaning.
And to steer our actions in such a manner as to disturb as little as possible the natural equilibrium. Primum non nocere. The most important thing is to not endanger survival. Of everybody and of everything.
Please compare the next two memes.
Which one makes more sense? What each of them tells us about how their respective author sees us, the rest of the people?
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As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
nicichiarasa 