Basic Concepts Summarized

It is rather early in the morning, as I woke up, and couldn't go back to sleep.  I started to think, and since I was thinking, I decided to try to put it down into a post. 

It is too easy to become distracted, so staying on topic and in focus may be a challenge.  But I will do my best.

The ideas here are a summary of many ideas expressed on this blog.  I will keep to the script that I prepared so that I can write it up. 

One of the ideas is to use examples from movies in order to illustrate a point.  But it doesn't have to be a movie.  Let's just say that I draw from other sources in order to help me illustrate a point, with movies being one of the sources.

An example is the movie Last Action Hero, in which a boy obtains a magic ticket which transports him into the movie, so that he become a part of the movie itself.   Like the boy, I try to imagine myself transported into a movie scene so as to understand better the point in which I am trying to make, and to be able to show it to my readers.  In so doing, I hope to convince you that my viewport is correct.

The most fundamental viewpoint underlying all of this discussion, and has been consistent throughout all of this blog, is that there's something wrong.  It isn't just my opinion.  Opinion polls have shown this consistently- that Americans believe that their country is on the wrong track.  I draw upon that source, which can be easily obtained. There shouldn't be much problem in convincing most people who could be reading this that something is wrong.  That happy song and dance routine at the Democrat convention may be akin to whistling past the graveyard.  Our country could be literally dying right in front of our faces.  Now is not the time to deny the truth.

A second movie using an example for illustration of a point is from the movie Deliverance.  There was a scene in which the character Lewis says that the "machines will fail, the system will fail."  Now the point here is that we may be too reliant upon machines and systems.  Machines and systems have their uses, but they aren't a substitute for people, and human judgment.  Computing systems have become so sophisticated and capable that it becomes much too easy to become too dependent upon them.  Once that happens, people lose skills that they may need if the machines do indeed fail, for whatever reason.  The character Lewis was a survivalist.  We may need to have a lot of such people in our society, and most, if not all people, should have some basic survival skills.  For, if we lose power for an extended period of time, we won't be able to use our machines anymore, and we might well die as a society.  That is sobering, but no amount of denial is going to feed and shelter you if the lights go out.

Another concept is the love of money.  An overdependence upon money is a system that can fail, especially if the lights go out.  When the lights go out, no amount of dollar bills can sustain you.  You can't eat money, you can only buy food with it.  If there's no food to buy, you will starve.  Something like that is happening in Venezuela right now.  The system is failing in Venezuela.  People there are going to have to learn in an environment that will result when the system fails.   Can it happen here?  Why would anybody believe that this country has immunity?

[long pause as I went to work and made my quota for the week--- barely ]

In keeping with the focus here, I picked up a book about the aftermath of a nuclear war.  It is called Alas, Babylon.  This book was written in the late fifties.  We are much further down the road, so to speak, from that time.  Nuclear war didn't happen, but the bombs are still out there.  It could still happen.  Many of the points made in the above paragraph were written about in that book.  Nothing new, then.

Why write about it then?  You know what?  The idea occurred to me not to publish this post.  But I will anyway.  Another source:  the Bible.  In it, it is said: "there's nothing new under the sun.  All is vanity."  But if religion ain't your bag, then it was also said that history repeats itself.  I think the person who said that was Karl Marx.

Why bother?  If life on this earth doesn't matter, then what's the use of trying?  All you can do is try. 

I can try to tell you.  That doesn't mean that anyone will listen.  But I must try anyway.

And so it goes...