Sunday 6 January 2002

Pic of the day: Sunset outside my home. (Not screenshot from DAoC. Not that you would know if I hadn't told you. But I still think real life has the best graphics, at least outdoors.)

Better times

I'm sitting here listening to Infinity (Norwegian trance-dance band) playing Better times. Nice melody. The lyrics are a bit disjointed, but basically the message is that "better times are coming now". Perhaps so. I guess it depends on your goal.

For all of my lifetime, and probably yours, economic growth has been like a law of nature. There have been some speed bumps, but decade by decade the standard of living has crept upward. So has life expectancy, and more and more of us are healthier and more active longer. To top it all, each new generation is measurably smarter than the one before them. (Though this does not always apply to each family. Heh.)

So we did not build cities in space. We did not return to the moon, and certainly we did not settle on Mars. Perhaps we never shall, now. But we have built worlds in cyberspace. Young people (at least here in Scandinavia) are connected by mobile phones at virtually all times, including in bed. (I hope their parents are not reading this!) Thanks to text messages on the mobile phone, and e-mail, the deaf are also connected seamlessly in the same network of minds.

***

And yet, for all this deluge of benefits, growing like a garden all around us, like a rain from a horn of plenty, happiness evades people. They did grow more happy as hunger ended, as health improved, as more infants survived. But happiness has not kept up with the growth in riches. People are comparing with the overly rich, hoping to be like them; but even the rich and famous are not always happy. They have their share of depression, substance abuse, divorce and suicide.

The next steps we need to take are not along the road we have walked in the past. We have sought and found things, material goods, tangible objects. To some extent services, especially entertainment. We are in these things over our heads already. But there are other needs not fulfilled. Ignored, even. We need to connect to other humans. We need to care, to love. And we need to connect to nature. Not just run through exotic places taking pictures. We need to reach out and touch the trees, smell the flowers and the pine sap, and remember that we are a part of all this. And we need to connect with our own creative spirit, the ability - and even need - to express ourselves. Not all art is such as can be seen in museums. The making of a new and better soup is also a work of art, an act of creation.

And as we reach out to each other, to nature, and to our creative spirit, we can kindle our spirituality. We must open our minds. It is simple. There are always those who want to harness your faith and use you to pull their own cart. But those who brought good news in times past came with a message of freedom. Freedom for the spirit, not for all our needless desires. We have already tried the way of wanting more and more! Now we need a new direction: To become not black holes that demand more and more, but brigh shining stars that radiate energy. Suns, warming those around us. Making the darkness flee with the light from within.

Then better times will indeed be coming. First for ourselves.