HEALTH, RESPONSIBILITY, AND GOOD FORTUNE

It seems that a large part of the current national rift can be defined as the resistance of many citizens to the concept that we Americans are all in this together. The mindset has become us versus them.

Many people seem to be carrying the belief that their personal good fortune is totally due to their having lived a responsible, hardworking, and ethical life. Therefore this line of thought follows that the less fortunate people must somehow be flawed individuals.

The great force that is unrecognized by these Americans is fortune itself, otherwise known as luck. It plays a larger part in our lives than one might initially think. But the reality is that life is one big lottery: where you are born, when you are born, who your parents are, whether you are a male or a female, and on and on. These basic factors of luck are strong influences in the direction one's life takes.

Here is the cliche argument that I keep hearing. "I've worked hard all my life for every penny and everything I have, and I'll be damned if I'll help pay for medical costs for someone who drinks, smokes, does drugs, is jobless, and has squandered every dollar they've ever had."

Well it's not that simple on either side of the equation. Most people are basically good. If this was not true, then society could not exist. But there are a thousand turning points of fortune that can lead a good little kid to become an irresponsible person with a skewed attitude. And it's possible that good fortune will fail to shine any light at all on a person who is striving to make a better life, and strands that person in a dismal living scenario.

So then why should those who are more fortunate be asked to chip in to help those who are less fortunate? Because that is what being a nation is about. It is about a people's common destiny.  

Absolutely we should each be held responsible for our own life decisions. But equally important, we each should never forget that good fortune, or luck, plays a generous part in the course of our individual lives.

Good fortune has placed us in this particular nation at this particular time. There should be no whining by anyone about being asked to give. If we as a nation don't wish to devolve into a soulless culture of survival of the fittest, then we must promote the concept of gratitude for the fact that most of us do actually have the ability to share part of our personal bounty with others who are in need.

We need to remember that individuals are not simply good or bad people, but also lucky or unlucky people. And never presume that your own luck won't change for the negative, and that you will never need to seek help from the kind hearts of your society.

OUR CONTAINERS

Unless we are an identical twin, each one of us is walking around as a unique combination of our parents' DNA. This is part of life's lottery. It is lucky or it is unlucky. Once we are born into this world, there's only a limited number of alterations we can make to our ever changing "containers". 

Whichever culture a person lives in has its own standards as to which types of containers are deemed alluring, and which are not. First world cultures tend to attach an unwarranted amount of social significance to this. Too many people spend a tragic amount of energy, time, and money fretting over this challenge.

Women in such cultures are pressured into making their faces into a painted canvas. Some results of this are very beautiful, but they are only a culturally approved mask, and nothing more than that.

My unvarnished youth

I'm not saying that it's not a true pleasure to be at that momentary point in one's life where one's container looks so alive and fresh. If only we could convince the young to fully appreciate the transitory nature of this, and persuade them that aging is not a sin or embarrassing. Aging is life's success story, and that's just the way it is.

Our containers are just one aspect of our existence as we walk this planet. It is our visual identity, but not the most important thing about us. People who never come to realize this can end up going to drastic measures to try and stop the progression of time upon them. Most people who do that end up looking at least a little off base, or even no longer like the person whom others have come to know and love. Or worse, they end up looking sadly bizarre.

My unvarnished age

We all must try to keep our containers functioning properly. We all must try to stay out of physical harm's way. We all must come to realize that our containers are part of the "wakan tanka", the great mystery, of this universe.

Beauty beyond time and circumstance