you will see quite a lot of things happening on this site in the next days.
CALENDAR
Raw Living Expo
Thousand Oaks (CA-USA) Jan. 31 - Febr. 2
When in California I was staying in Thousand Oaks, so I know that town very well!
WiGreen
Milano (Italia-EU) February 13-14
A forum on environmental sustainability
Bicycle World Forum
Curitiba (Brasil-AM) February 13--16
...on the way to Curitiba...
BLOG
January 2014
THIS MONTH's THEME:
Screenshots of the World
Never bend your head.
Always hold it high.
Look the world straight in the eye.
Helen Keller
Back to literally everything!
Hi everybody,
welcome back to the attentive and compassionate readers of this blog.
I know, I know... this site is still highly unfinished and in a messy state, but not so much as it seems, actually.
It's just that most work is going on behind the scenes still.
I was just wondering what more could possibly delay it once more, and now I know.
In fact, last year ended in a definitely not expected way.
Had a bad bike crash!
Crashed at high speed into a concrete wall and was bounced a couple of meters back.
My bike got unusable, and me... same...
Well, it could have gone much much worse.
For a second I thought I was dead, but it wasn't so bad to be dead it seemed.
To my big own surprise, when I raised myself from the asphalt I could not feel any pain.
I definitely could, more and more, during the evening (New Year's Eve by the way!),
so I could only stay home and sit as still as possible, not to feel any pain.
Anyone else would have gone to the Hospital, but you know how nearly impossible it is to get me there.
I assessed my status.
Following the impact, one foot was distorted and was hurting like hell, but it wasn't broken.
The real problem was all my right side, the one impacting. It was compressed badly, especially the chest, and breathing
was a horrible pain. Besides, the handle bar got violently pushed into my stomach / lungs.
Suspected some ribs could have been damaged or even broken, and some internal organs like
the lungs injured, but from what I could feel prioprioceptively and from my movements it seemed not.
What a New Year Night!
Decided it should only be the end of the year, not the beginning of a new one!
So, just imagine to go to a Hospital on New Year's Eve... done it actually when I was a teenager, never again!
Took a big risk, decided to heal myself as usual, and to make the best out of a crazy night.
As said, I could only sit still, but it is amazing what you can do sitting like a robot on a chair on New Year's Night ;)
Yes, I did a lot of things that I would love to do all next year, like playing guitar, singing and more, and it was indeed
a nice start of the New Year.
The problem has been to sleep, in the last days: either I found a comfortable position to sleep, but the pain was unbearable
or I managed to feel not so much pain, but it was an absurd position to sleep, you know,
with my arms in the air or such...
Anyway, last might it went much better, and today I felt quite well for the first time, once again it is unbelievable how
much the body can heal itself when it is relatively healthy.
Have been quite worried, but I have been getting better, and it seems like once more I have managed to take care of myself,
let's see how it will feel in the next days.
So, I hope you will forgive me if this site is still not as it should be.
Kept my word about starting blogging today again anyway, and tomorrow I will explain what this month's blog will be about.
p.s.
why did I crash into that wall, incidentally?
Long story, it wasn't much of my fault, I was actually quick enough to react and save my life.
It was someone else's irresponsibility and you wonder why I am getting more and more misanthropic?
Me and the World
Don't worry, I am fine.
Today I had a nearly normal day, only the nights are being a problem, as I still feel pain, but it is getting much better.
So, what will this month be about?
Every start of a new year I ask myself what the most important to do is,
related to the situation out there in the world.
I wrote yesterday, I am getting misanthropic, and somehow it is true
(it is actually more the world that has got misanthropic to me, somehow).
That doesn't mean I am not using most of my thoughts for empathizing with it,
and trying all what I can to help improving it.
Have not become a sociopath monster, hating it and wanting to destroy it. There is plenty of that around, in society,
in politics, on the Internet, in life in general.
That's not my agenda, mine is shaped by my annual reflections, by what I know and see being the state of this world.
In the next days I will share this personal awareness with you, trying to give to you, and to myself to start with, a
clear and transparent picture of the world's status, in bad and good, no matter, just how it is, right now and everywhere.
The little world and the big world
When looking at the World, one can have a subjective or objective view, and a restricted or global one.
As banal as it may seem, it is nevertheless fundamental that we are aware of what we usually use. As it will determine the way we conceive our whole life.
Let's make some examples.
One can often hear statements like: «Life is beautiful!».
Nothing wrong with thinking that, life is beautiful indeed.
Is it though beautiful for who? Everybody on Earth? Is it actually the normal condition for human beings
here on the Earth?.
Unfortunately, definitely not!
That statement can be surely true for that particular person, not for everybody, and thus reveals to be a subjective
and restricted one.
Another statement could be: «Financial speculation is destroying the world»
You might protest, you are honest, you are not carrying any speculation on!
Again, true for sure, and yet that statement is true, revealing to be an objective and global one.
So, how do we get out of this apparent dichotomy?
As we should usually do: letting the individual and collective meeting in an interpersonal plan.
We could also call it an 'intersubjective' one, or 'communitarian', 'joint', 'united'.
It can go by many names, it simply states that neither the individual nor the global points of view can live isolated,
they need to join their partial truths and create something new, a collective shared awareness.
How will that affect our lives then?
Well, it is rather clear that most of us live in a little world.
After all it is what we experience every day, and for some that's all, it will be the same for their whole life.
We might go to school, travel more, read more, watch TV, surf the Internet, learn languages,
and yet most of us will base their life on individual plans, goals, actions.
Shortly said: we will think about ourselves and the closest ones surrounding our life,
we might even care for our village, city or Nation,
and still all that as if the rest of the world didn't exist.
That lack of awareness, or lack of congruency in between our awareness and our real life, is actually the matrix of all
what we see happening on this Earth.
Health (and unnecessary lack of)
Last week I introduced the idea behind this theme.
This world is a whole, including every single life in it. It is what it is because of the interaction in between them.
Yet, most of us individuals do not seem to be aware of it, living as if the rest of the world did not exist, or at least
was completely unrelated and uninteresting to them.
From today I will start trying to give descriptions of the actual state of this world, what I called 'screenshots',
as I cannot actually show it to you, it can only happen by means of this blog, on a virtual computer screen.
This month started with my own bike story. Told you of how it affected my health, and so we can start from that. Is people on this Earth actually healthy?
First of all how can one define health?
Here it is what the
WHO (World Health Organization) proposes: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of
disease or infirmity."
Of course, assessing to what extent the above statement is true for all the people on this Earth, is beyond the
scope and possibilities of a little post like this one. Anyway, I will give you some significant highlights and link
to the WHO pages where you will find a wealth of information.
When we consider the "physical" part of the statement, a lot of interesting facts emerge already.
What is absolutely evident is that if a human being is dead or alive, if he/she is healthy or how long they will live
depends mainly on where they were born and live.
Differences are huge.
We can just consider one fact: About 54-55 million people die in the world every year;
a lot of them, 1/8th, are children under 5yrs old;
most of them die in poor countries (74% of child deaths in Africa and South-East Asia).
Health is indeed a positive concept, not a negative one, yet, we need to realize, as a 'positive' chock,
that too many people, children especially, die unjustly in this world, and that ought to be prevented before we can even
start talking about the positive, proactive side of health. As I bluntly use to say: «Dead people are not healthy by definition!»
Considering the "mental" part.
Again, the picture is not that nice: Around 20% of the world's children and adolescents have mental disorders or problems.
That's one out of five, is this a happy world we live in?
I won't consider the "social well-being", mainly to save you from my caustic remarks about how sick a
spectacle most of our dead-smart societies present us.
I will in stead leave you with the whole corpus of data and analysis
WHO
provides us.
Also to remind you of the importance of having such global institutions, another treasure most people does not seem to be
aware of, or valuing.
The glass is neither half empty nor half full, that glass is just the way it is
Unfortunately, I was not able to write in the last days. This month's blog started late already, so I will need to
concentrate it in a much fewer posts than usual.
Regarding what I wrote last Monday: it is not a matter of seeing only the negative side of things.
Of course, if 20% of children suffers of mental problems, that means 80% does not.
The latter does not eliminate the former though, and we won't solve
those problems by ignoring them, or by only cherishing the good examples.
The point of all this blog is namely to promote an altruistic mentality. When some people is not feeling well, or their
lives are unworthy, then it will affect all of us, in direct or indirect ways. It is totally illusionary that we can avoid taking care of the rest of the world, no one will live well in such a
situation.
So, it is not a matter of 'if' but only of 'how' we can solve our shared world's problems.
What can be done about Health problems then?
Well, that's an incredibly complex matter, but here we go with a few considerations.
- first of all: eliminating hunger is the first moral urge.
- we saw how the welfare of the Country where one lives is determinant, so filling the gap in between rich and poor
countries is also needed.
- the previous one mostly depends on fair distribution of resources, but also on moderating those in the richest
countries. There is no way to avoid that, our present standard is not sustainable, and we need some massive forms of
degrowth.
- the cost of practically any health system in the world is exploding. There is no doubt, that is not
sustainable either. We need a radical change in our health politics.
From cure to prevention; from medicines to the body's own healing ability;
from centralized, hierarchic, corrupted medical models to diffused, community ones;
from money based to need and engagement based Medicine;
- from neglecting the fundamental
importance of Nutrition to the total acknowledging of it; from animal based nutrition to a
plant based one; from cooked to raw food; from junk to real, home made or community made meals;
from chemicals to organic food, and from toxic environments to clean and natural ones;
- regarding the mental and social aspects of Health, a shift is needed there too. We need to give a
much higher priority to those aspects.
Prevention is even more important here than in the physical frame, and for what concerns our societies, I was being
caustic for some solid reasons. Our societies have indeed become so sick it hurts.
We need some radical changes, less materialism and nihilism, more sense of the limits, respect, care, commitment and
ethical values.
World Forums
The annual World Economic Forum
started today in Davos-Klosters (Switzerland-EU) and will run until Saturday.
What is it?
Well, according to their own presentation: «The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world
by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.»
As any definition, it can mean a lot of different things in practice, from committed geeks from all over the world to
a-not-really-so-independent-and-slightly-Bilderberg-inspired den of conspirators.
You can see an example of the kind of critics that can be made to it here:
"On the controversial WEF"
As mentioned in that article in fact, another parallel annual meeting was founded, the
World Social Forum,
trying to gather the people that is not represented in the other forum.
This is a fairly typical situation, a split among different categories of people, call them 'classes' if you prefer,
living in parallel worlds inside the same World, and not really communicating with each other.
Isn't it the same in life in general?
How much do different social classes mix with each other in real life, in year 2014?
Not much, do they?
Electronic environments
Isn't it a huge paradox that in the 'Age of Aquarius' in the times of media, communication, mobile devices, in the
times of people continuously exchanging messages and informations, this is in reality still happening mostly inside the
same small villages as before?
Personally, I have never used a cellphone, I would actually not even be able to operate one if needed; I am neither on
Fakebook, Twister, Missplace, or Instaspam (as I use to call them), this is my one and only site;
don't go round with smartphones, tablets or the like; not even a watch on my wrist, actually.
Spend a lot of time in front of my laptop computer when at home, no doubt, writing this blog for ex., but when I go out,
it is just myself that I carry with myself, or a book to read in the worst scenario.
That means I am free to enjoy life around me, to
observe, to talk with the people I casually meet on my way.
So, it is a spaced out feeling I get, with most people around me not interacting, despite the possibility, because
they are too busy with their gadgets in stead.
People loudly talking on the mobile phone, people talking with themselves (those wearing a nearly invisible earset),
people frantically typing in, messaging, SMSing and so on, a veritable circus of neuronal and electronic wires.
The 'funny' is, even being as minimalist as I am, willing or not willing, in reality I kind of swim anyway in a completely
electronic environment.
In fact, for that circus' show to go on, transmission is required and it happens wirelessly, be it wi-fi, Bluetooth or
whatever it is.
In hotels, schools, libraries, cafés, trains, even open places like squares and parks, practically everywhere we are
continuously immersed in a sea of radio frequencies and electromagnetic streams.
Towers are needed to amplify the signals, and they visually and electromagnetically pollute our landscapes.
Apart from the more sociological implications, is all that of any concern, when it comes to the effects on health?
Well, of course yes, it is a massive exposure we have to radiations and EMF, you can read a summary here:
Wireless electronic devices and health.
No, I do not want to be labeled with any definition.
All that was self-ironical, to remind you of something that matters a lot to me: whatever I write is just my opinion, and
it does not come with any 'string attached', meaning I don't expect you to accept it uncritically, or want to force neither
myself nor you into any category, ideology, fixed set of meanings, or anything else really.
In other words, there is no hidden agenda behind what I write.
All theories inspire me, I get what I need from them and then proceed
further, my own way.
Wish it was the same for everyone, as ideologies tend to become cages and barriers.
I indeed provided some pictures, the famous screenshots, of how atomized our societies can get, despite all
the opportunities we have got in our contemporary societies.
There are already far too many causes of separations to advocate for more.
Besides, I would be a hypocrite, I do not oppose Science and Technology, do use computers, electronic music instruments and
a few other products of technology.
Don't live off-grid.
Even if my life is rather minimalistic, I am perfectly aware that even the little resources and materials and technologies
I use do require an extremely wide and complex set of other resources, materials, technologies and most important of all,
human beings handling and working with them.
We simply can't escape the fact that our contemporary world has an infinitely complex structure, and to understand, manage,
change, govern it, equally sophisticated knowledge and consciousness are needed.
Complexity and globalization are difficult to handle, and many react to them with oversimplifications, plagues like
populism, exclusion politics, tribalism, sectarianism, blatant ignorance, bullying, intolerance, primitive thinking,
nationalism, individualism and so on and so forth.
Our World as a whole really needs to evolve to a higher global consciousness, and upgrade all our institutions, starting
from families and schools, to implement complex rational and emotional thinking in all our lives.
Screen-slides of the World
Tonight you won't read many words by me, I will in stead embed a video that pretty much sums up and expands all what we
have been mentioning in the past days.
Global health, economy, media, communication and what are the actual factual data that can help us know all that and get a
grip on what is actually going on in our World.
When it comes to conveying information no one beats the Scandinavians, so what can be better than the Swedish professor
Hans Rosling's conference at the University of Oslo?
Global Complexity served in the most visually appealing and amusing way.
Enjoy.
What blurs the picture of a wonderful World
Last three posts of the month and of this theme.
Today I will write a list of as many as possible problems that need to be addressed in this World.
Tomorrow I will propose hopefully at least as many possible solutions.
And on the last day, Friday the 31rst, some general conclusions.
Problems? What problems? Isn't our the best of all possible worlds?
Well, I am afraid I have to humbly declare that I do not agree with much of what
the author of that famous sentence meant. «Le meilleur des mondes possibles» or «Die beste aller möglichen Welten» stated in fact Gottfried Leibniz
in 1710.
Right, he could not possibly know our contemporary history at that time (read: world wars, shoah and such),
so we can have sympathy for his attempt to deal with the presence of Evil.
s become
No matter what the philosophical explanation of Evil can be, it is a matter of fact lots of troubles afflict our world.
- children: how do we treat our highest treasures and our future?
about 25000 die of hunger every single day; nearly half of that is caused by malnutrition; poverty; about half of
the refugees in the world are children; many are orphans, because of wars and AIDS; many have no rights, as they lack all
legal requisites, not being registered at birth; lack of shelter; no access to education; forced child labor, children used
as soldiers, prostitution, child pornography, pedophilia; all kinds of psychological problems due to neglect; hundreds of
thousands are sold, trafficked, enslaved; political, ideological and religious indoctrination and abuse.
- wars, guerrillas, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction:
there are about 50 conflicts going on right now; hundreds of guerrillas; 60 countries
are involved in wars; more than 500 militias; more than 150 officially designated terrorist organizations; plus state
terrorism and 'lone wolves'; proliferation of weapons (be it chemical, nuclear or biological) is definitely something we
must fear.
- violence on women:
there is absolutely no reason for any discrimination and yet that is practically the standard everywhere in the world;
violence on women, sexual violence, murder; unfair wages; limited access to work opportunities and career, unemployment;
forced domestic labor, and lack of economical recognition of it; exploitation, pornography, prostitution;
lack of security and free, safe movement.
- climate changes, ecological and environmental issues, energy sources:
these are enormous problems, and are discussed here all the time, so I won't add much;
let us not forget animal rights, extinction of species and reduction of biodiversity.
- dictatorships, discrimination, political harassment:
right now in the world there are about 40-50 dictators or rulers of not-free countries;
about 50 millions refugees; civil rights not respected, gender and sexual discrimination;
- health, overpopulation:
this has been discussed already, but I need to add some serious and common problems:
no access to water or sanitation; GMO food effects on our health; we are already more than 7 billions, how many can we
become before it gets completely unsustainable?.
- economy:
as we saw last Monday, things evolve steadily all the time and the world is an extremely complicated net of interactions;
what I would like to point out here is how interconnected the economic and financial world have become; debt,
uneven distribution, speculation; the risk of a disastrous global collapse is not improbable at all, it is definitely there;
So much more that could be added and expanded, but there is already enough to be solved for generations to come.
Most pressing problems were at least mentioned. If you feel like knowing more, you can find lots of resources on the
Internet, you could for example start here, at the UN's overview: global Issues
The needed solutions?
Well, what a ton of problems was it yesterday, wasn't it? Even more complicated to propose solutions to all that.
There are at least two levels where one can act.
The individual one, what can be done right now, where we live.
It is very important, as the world is a sum of all our individual behaviors, we should never forget it.
So, the first move is to steadily improve ourselves, to get better persons for every day that goes.
It should be as wholesome as possible, involving both our physical, emotional, rational, cultural, relational, loving and
spiritual dimensions.
One can never improve enough, so there is a lot to do, through all our lives.
Just look at the list of issues I wrote yesterday: ask yourself if you are a part of that in any way, big or little.
Or if your personal qualities may rather contribute to avoid, prevent, heal all that.
The other level is the collective one.
As we will see tomorrow, many have a difficult time when dealing with it.
Yet, it is necessary to take responsibility for it.
I stated already that, thinking one can barely live as an isolated self is an illusion.
At this level too, it is never enough what we do.
The most important progress can be to shift the focus of our life to this level.
How to do it and what to do requires a lot of work, of studies, of exchange with people with knowledge and experience.
Requires deep and complex thinking, freedom to look at the world as it is, without letting any rigid scheme acting as a
limiting frame for it. Most of all it requires honesty and responsibility, and this is really something when most of us
can walk miles of progress, for sure.
We are all different and have different tempers, characters, dispositions, qualities.
But no matter what and how, it works when we express ourselves gently, may be powerfully but still gently, kindly,
in a loving way, with honesty and an authentic sense of care.
When acting on a global plan, there is a word uniting all that: nonviolence.
There is no violent solution that has ever worked, there are no shortcuts possible. Changing the World is a long and patient
work.
There is no other sensible, effective and lasting way.
What is people doing in this world
Facing all what I wrote in the last days, different people can have different reactions: - not being interested at all
- being interested but feeling overwhelmed
- getting committed and trying to do something
- actually changing the world
Personally, I don't think I can do much any more about the first group.
When I was younger, I thought the main problem was informing people. Not knowing enough about these problems, united
with emotional issues, was the cause of them not getting involved in active work for a better world.
Of course those factors are fundamental: school, education, information do are the basis for all progress.
Yet, now I don't know any more, as we have never had access to so much information as we have now, and still most problems
are growing and getting worse, because people in general does not care enough.
Some people are more aware than before, some less.
As there is so much more one can do now, so many possibilities, objects,
activities, sport, leisure, stressing works, careers, travels, and so much more. All nice possibilities, but the focus has
definitely shifted from the collective and fundamental global issues to individual pleasure and needs.
That is what is fed all the time and massively by medias, advertisements, marketing, and to abstract from that is not
something most people can do, or even wish to do.
The fourth group is that of the rare individuals that can manage to change the world, alone by their
own personal powerful qualities. We are in the class of people like Gandhi or Mandela to let you understand what I mean.
It could also be common people with exceptional qualities who act as big catalysts in everyday life, when the spotlights
are not necessarily on.
If they are lucky they find the environments where they can develop their qualities and use them to promote huge changes.
Not much one can do about it, they just appear on Earth from time to time, and as said, they are unfortunately way too rare.
The second group. Quite a big chunk of the population. Sometimes a majority, sometimes a minority.
I am sure many of you can place yourself in that group: aware of some issues, would like to help, but don't know how,
feel overwhelmed and think your effort would not change much, or you do something on a little scale.
May be it is not good enough, but it is still a well-willing part of the population.
Here there is a lot that can be done, as information, initiatives, campaigns, meet-ups, street- and neighbor happenings or
such can usually get a lot of them involved.
Probably not permanently, as they will likely forget again about those issues, and revert back to their life, only
occasionally contributing again, in case of emergencies for example.
Finally, the third group: the definitely dedicated, committed, engaged, altruistic people.
They are not a little group, but not so big either, definitely a minority.
They can't stay away from the issues they care about, they offer a lot of personal energy to the cause.
It is important to appreciate and support their work, as they often feel frustrated: they would do what they do any case,
no matter what, but it is human to expect results out of that, and sometimes it can feels like they are not seeing much of
it, or not enough.
Where have you belonged so far? What will you do this year? For the rest of your life?
These are the question I have been asking myself all my life, and they definitely pop up again every start of the year.
This month's blog was an invitation to you personally, to ask yourself the very same questions.
The month is over and there is just left to let you know that I will need another month to dedicate to this site.
That means, I will work behind the scenes, you are very welcome to visit from time to time, and look
at the changes here.
Will write on this blog again in some next time.
See you then, have a very good and fruitful time.