and I write under the moniker of citizenschallenge.
Born in 1955, my family immigrated from Germany before I was a year old, I grew up bilingual/bicultural in Chicago, Illinois until 13, then we moved to San Francisco Bay Area where I attended Burlingame High School (class ’73), there I learned about climate science, Earth sciences and about the dawning realization that Earth was finite and that we humans and our burgeoning society was reaching limits to growth - in particular, Earth’s ability to sustain us.
I was a science loving bright eyed tree hugger who participated in the first Earth Day celebrations. I never became a scientist still I never lost my love for science and learning and have proactively kept up on homework and scientific news, so I am familiar with the scientific trajectory and findings of this past century and these past decades, where amazing insight have been achieved.
Here in 2021, our society and Earth is living out my worst fears, and I’m a bit startled that mine and younger generations actually allowed things to go so terribly off the rails. I expected better. Still here we are. Today, in the short term, the one thing I know is that if the Democratic Party doesn’t start changing minds, we will continue losing and watch the corporate oligarch’s well executed decades long hostile takeover of our government consummated.
Constructively confronting off-the-rails thinking will require the “liberal” crowd ( science based rationalists, humanists, pluralists, people of empathy ) to rediscover themselves. To regain enough self-assurance and clarity to enable us to constructively confront the unhinged, honesty hating, corporate money fueled, reactionary extremism of today’s Republican Party.
The Democrat Party needs to worry less about donations and more about helping change minds and engaging citizens to care enough to try to stand up to the ever more scary bullies that the Republicans are brainwashing, grooming and unleashing on us.
The Democratic Party needs to start proactively nurturing a real grassroots community spirit, by helping us concerned individual citizens network with each other, so we can reinforce each other and better develop constructive ways to confront the various Republican campaigns of willful belligerent ignorance.
A healthy democracy demands an informed and engaged citizenry!
But how to change minds if there’s nothing to offer as an alternative?
My experience has been a lifetime of living and working, most of it outdoors in southwest Colorado. All the while learning about Earth’s biosphere, our evolution, the birth of geology, then biology, then the dance of Evolution between the two.
Consider the many startling realizations along the way, beyond stardust, we carry genetic codes and biological machinery within our blood that trace back, not just millions of years, but billions. We are part of an incredible biosphere and web of life and an ongoing adventure, born of wonderful changing environments, that we are only beginning to comprehend.
I’ve discovered there’s a profound difference between hearing that you are an element in the pageant of evolution - yeah, yeah, so what? It’s quite another experience, to have an actual visceral appreciation for the majesty behind the evolutionary reality of who we are inside .
Sure beats the paper thin salvation holy books and pick-pocket preachers offer. Like the difference between a postcard and being there. But, to appreciate all that requires a serious honest curiosity and proactively learning.
I’ve also discovered that a key to understanding the roots of human folly, is recognizing our fundamental inability to get beyond lip service, when it comes to actually appreciating the Human Mindscape ~ Physical Reality divide and its implications.
Rather simple, but quite deep once we start realizing how much western philosophy has been shackled by the age old egocentric blinders that all three Abrahamic faiths straddled western society with.
All that led to the contrived mind/brain problem, which is more of an Ego/God problem than any biological conundrum.
If any of that resonates with you, please explore and share these writing and my student resource: “The Case For Reality” .
I can’t help believing there’s a group of thinkers and writers who are looking for someone like me to join them.
I keep hoping someone will help me find them.
I wrote this a while back, now I have a few days where I’ve promised myself to make an effort to engage, stop my endless procrastination and make another effort.
So this is my warm up.
See if it stirs up anything.
