When I was young I was an idealist, dreamer and believer in humanity.  Now as I grow older and reached the half century mark I am not as much of a dreamer but I still fight to be an idealist. My belief in humanities potential has not changed but my belief in their willingness to change has diminished. It still there, just now I see things from more of a realistic view for the dreamer is not dead just less optimistic I guess. I believe that the internet and mass media played a big part on the decline of my optimism. The constant onslaught of information being consumed comes with a heavy toll. Bad news always prevails over the news of miracles and good news. Just how it has always been in this human world far back as the first spoken and/or written word.

I dare not give up on believing in a possible future where humanity works together for the common good instead of individualistic goals or gains. As humans we are wired to be selfish because we have our own perspective of what reality and life is. We are geared for self preservation and self promotion. The mind is geared that way to ensure survival, but we also have the side of us which is compassionate and focused on the group, the emotional side of ourselves is geared to ensure survival of the group and/or species in a whole. The problem is most people have imbalance between those two sides , Some tend to see taking care of themselves as the highest priority and the taking care of the group or whole as the lowest.  Both should be high priority, the whole should be the highest but the self should be right next to it in priority.

For if one is either totally selfless or completely selfish it does not serve the group or themselves in the end. Look at it in this way, if you had a horse and it worked selflessly, not eating or drinking to pull a wagon to market it may die before it makes it there. Just the same if it was selfish and ate, drank and rested all the time for it would either never reach its destination or would reach it too late.  One extreme or the other does no one any good, I will not say there is not times that we may have to make sacrifices or be totally selfless to get jobs done, just pointing out that only in extreme circumstances that we should do such.

Well Thank you for reading the ramblings of this old fool, and may you find your own path in life.

Blessings

Ray Barbier