You have a way with words, Vince. I like that a lot. But I also see you not establishing boundaries, where boundaries are of the essence.
Talking about God, Science, the universe, and the place where we fit in is like mixing three letters of the alphabet, two numbers, a smiley face, and a TV commercial into one output. You are not delineating.
In science, the word God does not exist. It is not part of the dictionary. Meanwhile, we can use the word energy and we do find it in both dictionaries. A person declaring God dead is like someone who said that dresses are out of fashion, who needs them anyway?
But I hear you when you describe being unsupported by solid ground underneath your feet.
And the question mark arises immediately if that is because you are in the USA or somewhere else?
When somewhere else, I'd like to hear where you are from. If from the US, then I fully understand what you are saying. The solid ground underneath the US is not as sturdy as it was forty years ago. Perhaps we did not change. But the rest of the world did change and our role how it used to be has changed. We're on the move and we have no idea where we are going.
I always point at the political system, how it got established in the 18th century, and how other nations passed us a long time ago upgrading their systems. But it is also China with its solid embrace of state-capitalistic freedoms that we helped set up, and are still picking the benefits, perhaps till five years from now, but no further. The winds are shifting, and the controls are not all in our hands.
That means we need to look at two things:
* our role in the world: would we be worse off if we weren't the leading nation in the world anymore?
* our choices for ourselves.
This second point to look at is quite important. If the dollar stops being the global currency (which will happen, but we don't know yet when and it could be soon), then the ground underneath our financial feet will not be as sturdy anymore. When oil is less important in our future, then the dollar is less important in the world of finance. Our bedrock is getting softer.
Hopefully, we will land softly, but we will land at a lower position than the one we were in for a long time.
As a leader, we helped the world move in a certain direction. But as the abandoned leader, we will need to re-imagine ourselves first before others will look for our leadership and example again.
What I propose is that we give ourselves a little bit more freedom, internally. Our two-party system is like having a half-straight-jacket on our body. I don't mean getting a system with 20 little parties; more like Germany with 5 or 6 parties that give us direction without destabilizing ourselves (20 parties would destabilize us for sure). The German system is already much like our own, but more 3D.
Today, we live in a USA 2D world, politically, whereas other nations have more a 3D or even a 4D system (if you know 4D systems, that is).
The world is changing, and we are not. That means that if the world gets ahead that we will be left behind. That may make us look for God, but the Roman Empire fell apart while they were looking for God so that is not the advice I would give. A Roman Empire that would become more like Greece may be the better path forward, achieving the best standards possible for ourselves, controlling ourselves the best way humanly possible; that may be our path forward.
God knows we have neglected enormous parts of our society, blinded by the elite, eating the ideal whole that we are the best. But all people in the world know it: any nation that says it is best has an inferiority complex. We can do better by trying to be ourselves the best way possible. We don't need to lead; we don't need to follow. We can be ourselves and give ourselves more freedom to be ourselves.
Again, you are a gifted writer. I like how your write, but I had to say these things to color in some of your positions.
