Tag Archives: meaning

Are Humans Really Great Apes?

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Under the Green Desk Lamp…

Green Desklamp

Scientific taxonomy classifies human beings within the family of hominidae, more commonly known as the ‘Great Apes’. We share this taxonomic family with three other genera, members of which include the orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees—all fine and majestic animals to be sure (Link).

Each of these creatures have found their niche within their local eco-systems, and have lived in a relatively balanced natural state for generations uncounted. They consume the resources available, and are consumed by the predators which are capable of doing so. They live within their means, and display a general civility to one another aside from occasional competitions over mates and territory. Meanwhile, the homo sapiens, or ‘humans’, have for the entirety of recorded history been putting on a childish display of wanton consumption and heedless destruction. If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that this begs a pretty important question: are Humans really ‘Great’ apes?

All things considered, we’ve had our fair share of positive moments. We’ve built some incredible structures, and solved puzzles that would leave the rest of the apes scratching their furry little skulls in abject bewilderment. We’ve spread our population far and wide, and survived countless changes to the world we live in. At the very least then, we may certainly be considered alright apes.

Of course, most of the cataclysmic challenges through which we have persevered have been our own doing. We have an incredible and unparalleled ability to intellectualize our world and use ration to consider the effects of our actions. Still, we have managed to destroy much of our ecosystem, and of the many wonders we have achieved, few have been able to endure. So in truth, perhaps we are really just ok apes.

It’s true that if we really want to compare ourselves to the other members of the hominidae family, we should take a serious look at their lives as well. Doing this, we find them knuckling along the filthy earth, hurling feces and screaming unintelligibly at one another. This might often be followed up by a good chest-pounding, or perhaps even an old fashioned beat-down. Needless to say, humans are little different. Despite our marvelous intellect and incredible capacity for empathy, we resort to terrible violence no less often—nor is feces-throwing ever completely out of the question. All things considered, we might really be quite ordinary apes.

The things about this, however, is that we are so perfectly equipped to do better. It’s a matter of achieving one’s potential—the old, ubiquitous notion that one must be compelled not to do better than all the rest, but rather to simply do one’s personal best. Our cerebral-capacity alone affords us the potential to accomplish so much more than the others, and to shift beyond this base-violence into a far more gracious and well-mannered state of being. The promise we have is unbounded by anything save our imaginations, and this has been shown time and again—as numerous societies have risen to show the glory of mankind’s innate potential. But for every rise, there has been a fall, and we have proven consistently unable to maintain any serious ascension into the epoch of equality and dignity for which we are so well qualified. We may build great cathedrals, but we inevitably use them for the spread of greed and power rather than grace and mercy. We may write of utopian ideals or great societies, but we fall ever short of realizing them as we capitulate to the temptations of wealth and fame. Perhaps then, we may best be described as under-achieving apes.

Much of this question comes down to potential. There can be little doubt that we as humans have the theoretical potential to be the most inspiring and beautiful creatures to ever grace this earth. Our capacity for reason and problem-solving could allow us to truly be the promised stewards of the earth—watching over our hominidae brethren and all the other creatures with whom we share this wonderful planet. But where we may have spread equity and joy, we have sown only despair and intolerance. Where we may have acted as guides and care-takers to the planet we have left it barren and unstable. Finally, where we may have been exemplars of decency and righteousness, we have fallen ever to our own doubts and greed—wallowing in misery as we toil ceaselessly for more of what we want at the expense of what we really need. In truth, the homindae family and the world in general may have been far better off if humans had never climbed out of the trees from whence they came. In the end, I suppose, we really are pretty disappointing apes.

-Brad OH Inc.

Soirees and Solemnity in the Square

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Under the Green Desk Lamp…

Green DesklampI sloshed along—weary, beaten, and soaked head to toe in Faygo. Heading back from the ICP show at the 2011 Bamboozle Festival in New Jersey, I’d taken the train to Penn Station, and was meandering, exhausted, back towards my hotel near Times Square. I barely took in my surroundings as I stumbled along; the adrenaline and unbridled joy of the event still had their hold on me. I mumbled familiar lyrics to myself, navigating slowly towards the Square.

The first thing I recall noticing was the crowd—significant even for Times Square. The hour was quite late after all—likely well into the early morning of May 2nd, 2011. I paid little mind however, and continued on my way until I heard the chanting.

“USA, USA, USA!”

An ominous feeling took hold immediately. As it turned out, that feeling would take a long while to subside. Turning down an alley and passing out into the main square, I was met by an impenetrable wall of people chanting and singing. There were American flags as far as the eye could see. I stood with my jaw agape trying to sort out what was going on, when an errant crowd-surfer nearly took my head off.

‘Nice try,’ I thought—having spent the past few days stalking the Insane Clown Posse along their east coast tour, it would take more than a lone crowd-surfer to take me down. Still…none of this sat quite right with me.

Glancing eagerly about, I saw people climbing telephone poles to either hang flags or to improve their view. Men on benches read from bibles, and women held their children up to the open air. High-fives were exchanged, friends embraced, and a general feeling of unrestrainable patriotic glee pervaded the scene.

“What’s going on?” I recall asking a stranger.

“Obama’s dead!” he answered over his shoulder.

This news came as an even greater shock. Certainly, I recalled the controversy surrounding his presidency, but the festivities taking place around me seemed well overboard—or downright seditious—if based around a recently deceased president.

Still, the next person I asked gave me the same answer. And the next. It wasn’t until I approached a fourth stranger that I caught a glimpse of a familiar face on the giant Times Square screens. Dark skin in white wrappings, a long black beard—no one alive during the past ten years would mistake that face…and suddenly everything fell into place. Osama Bin Laden, not Barak Obama, had been killed.

Now the joy made a bit more sense, for a moment.

I turned around in awe, taking in the scene with a touch of morbid curiosity and a resounding knowledge that I was, at that very moment, witnessing history.

Everything continued as it had been. The songs were sung, the crowd-surfers surfed, and the flags were waved. For me though, the strange scene quickly lost its charm. Listening to the vitriol and barbaric revelling of the partiers, I couldn’t help but sympathize. Many were likely locals, who had been personally affected by the tragedy of 9/11. I was not.

It didn’t take long for me to decide against staying. Dancing for death had never been my forte—even when the death was so well-earned.

I dropped my soaked clothing at the hotel, changed quickly, and headed out for a quiet pint. Even that was hard to find. Most bars were filled with the overflow from the party in Times Square, and escaping the patriotic revelry seemed nigh impossible. After a tenacious search however, I found a tiny little corner of nowhere, ordered something dark, and sat in silence to reflect on the moment.

Beside me—and quite possibly the only other patron of the joint—sat a weathered old man. He stared morosely into his beer, his eyes never moving up.

I don’t remember how I started talking to him—although my interest in strangers is naturally increased when away from home—but eventually I asked him for his thoughts on the scene outside. He said he didn’t have many, and none worth sharing.

He was an old Marine, he explained. He’d no doubt seen plenty of death in his day. Perhaps he’d danced the same dance that raged now outside many times before—for victories far more personal. Or perhaps not. Just now, he wanted no part of it.

We sat for several hours—most of them in silence. He’d ask me now and then about my home, and what I did. What I believed. What I didn’t. He seldom answered the questions I turned back upon him.

When I finally left, I remember having no clue what I was feeling. Sure, I was fine with the death of a known killer and terrorist, but I didn’t feel any safer. I had no illusion that the world would be a better place now. More bombs would be dropped, and new leaders would rise on both sides—all intently seeking further death and destruction.

The people who fought the hardest for peace appeared to benefit from it the least, while those who hadn’t worked at all for it danced as only those who’ve never known loss or toil can. The people who proclaimed most fervently the superiority of their nations seemed to be the ones who’d never left its borders.

I suppose there are a lot of things like that in life. It’s easy to be enthusiastic when we are young and foolish and know no better. For the wise and weathered—for the warriors who have seen the cycle come back upon itself time and time again, there are no songs of joy or dirges of sorrow. There’s just another day, with nothing more to say.

Every year, I feel more like that old marine.

-Brad OH Inc.

Libertarians are Starry-Eyed Idealists

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purelyspeculationFreedom is often lauded as the most integral value of any developed nation. In fact, the notion of the ‘free world’ does much to inform us of the fundamental value that we place on personal liberty, and well it should. Freedom is among the key human rights, but it must be pointed out that at times, people get a little bit carried away with their interpretation of what exactly ‘freedom’ entails.

One need not wade too far into the depths of social-media to find the rants and raves of disenfranchised citizens so bitter about a parking ticket, or a sales-tax, or perhaps a pesky ‘no-loitering’ sign, that they’re ready to hoist the black flags and hop aboard the good ship ‘Anarchy’.

‘Freedom’, they will argue, is the birthright of man—the inalienable and righteous destiny of all people brave enough to seek it! But there are sorry few building their own boats to follow this urge, and fewer still running off to the lonely mountains to live a ‘free’ life. I suppose it’s an easy thing to moan about the comfortable confines of society as you daydream about weening yourself off its teat, but it does beg the question of what exactly true ‘freedom’ is, and if it can exist at all.

I would argue that perfect freedom is an illusion—a starry-eyed dream more befitting whatever afterlife you prefer than the life you live. In fact, I believe that power and control are unavoidable, and there is no conceivable ‘system of naught’ sufficient to maintain the vacuous void left if all authority is stripped away.

Perfect freedom would mean no laws, no control, no taxes—but it would accordingly mean no safety, no opportunity, and no infrastructure. In our article ‘On the Concept of Society’ (Link) we discussed how a society is the product of all its members, past and present. That remains entirely true. Society has never been about freedom—if anything that is the antithesis of society. In truth, ‘society’ is meant to be a foundation of cooperation among its citizens.

In the societal sense then, total freedom—much like anarchy—is a myth. It may perhaps exist for a single person, but once a second person enters the picture, the illusion will die. Power hierarchies will be formed, and one’s wishes will ultimately infringe upon the freedom of the other. We are not free to kill for the very reason that we do not wish to be freely killed. The same applies to property rights, safety issues, and so on. While loitering laws may perhaps be a hard concept to defend (Black Flags ahoy!), the need for a significant proportion of civil laws can be most easily discerned by asking oneself not ‘do I wish to follow this’ but ‘do I wish for others to follow this’.

Those who support total anarchy then, are either misunderstanding the basic tenets of life, suffering from a sadomasochistic urge to regress back to the days of pre-tribal man, or simply mad.

Libertarians, on the other hand, may accept some laws, while rejecting the notion of many others. This rejection most often applies to rules around the free-market. However, as we have already established that a power-void cannot remain unfilled, we should have little trouble applying this observation to the marketplace as well.

If you wander into the woods, claim them as your own, and insist on living a lawless life, it may prove less glamourous than you imagine—especially when the next lawless rogue shows up to strangle you in your sleep and make off with your supplies. So much for freedom!

The marketplace is little different. Without control, corporations are wont to seize public goods and resources, create monopolies, underpay workers, and wreak general havoc however they please. People will starve, or toil like slaves—yet this will be defended and redefined as the justly exercised freedom of those very corporations. In truth, this notion of marketplace-freedom is no better than economic anarchy—and its supposed virtue quickly diminishes as the strongest take control and run our system like a tyrannical oligarchy. Meanwhile, the citizens cheer blindly about the merits of freedom.

To claim to be an anarchist or full-on libertarian is naïve, and the ultimate result is little different from the sort of systemic madness we have now. Freedom has been given out too freely—sadly, only to the corporations at the head of the markets, and rarely to the citizens. The powerful will always feed upon the less powerful, and this is a demonstrable loss of freedom for the latter.

In order to have liberty for ourselves, there must at the very least be laws restricting others from infringing on that liberty. Anything less would be Mad Max-style anarchy. Control is needed, and must be imposed justly. As discussed in our article ‘On the Fear of Big Government’ (Link), the ultimate purpose of government is to ensure that the power which inevitably arises is a fair and just one.

This must not be taken to mean that I believe the current governments of the world are doing much to uphold these standards—indeed there is a great need for improvement on nearly all fronts. Simply put however, the raging masses squalling for ‘total liberty’—or its ugly cousin ‘anarchy’—are naïve at best. The line between liberty and domination is a difficult one to draw. If drawn too close to total freedom, a void arises, and we end up dominated. It’s circular in a sense, and requires an insightful and informed balance. This is the purpose of society and the governments which it employs, and we must pay heed to avoid being so brash as to throw the baby of equal opportunity out with the bathwater of social order.

-Brad OH Inc.

Upon the Bones of Better Men

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cropped-cropped-blogbanner13.jpgThe philosopher Bertrand Russell once claimed that “the fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

What a hack! What fanciful platitudes! Tell me Bert, do ‘nice guys finish last’ too? Do the good die young? Let me tell you something Bert, sorrowful homilies are good for one thing and one thing only—cheering up losers by convincing them that their failure is the unjust result of their righteousness rather than the logical result of their ineptitude.

What’s worse however, is that so many people seem to believe this naïve nonsense. Well, have no fear—you’re friends at Brad OH Inc. are here to set the record straight!

The truth is, these notions of ‘stupid or wise’, or ‘good and bad’ are entirely misled at the best, and revisionist at the worst. Victory is for the bold—the lions willing to do anything to take it, and leave the rest to lick their wounds and talk about how life just isn’t fair.

It’s pathetic.

The claim that one is held back by their morality is utterly absurd. It’s not that only brutes act decisively, leaving the considerate in the dust. That’s just switching labels to console lack of ability. If we look at the world pragmatically—and we should, always—we can see that it is no bestial or heinous act to seize upon your desires—hell, it’s what being a corporation is all about!

No, the problem is that the hindsight of the meek is 20/20, while their foresight is more mole-like than Machiavellian. It’s true in business, in love, in politics, and in the picking of low-hanging fruit. Don’t believe us? Well, let’s look at some of the key culprits here.

‘Nice guys finish last’. It’s the motto of every single loser too scared to say hello or slap an ass when the opportunity presents itself. For these pencil-necked geeks, it’s easier to sit back and lament that their ‘kindness’ is the reason they are left behind, rather than their own pathetic fear of rejection.

We see the same lame-duck whining in business as well. ‘We can’t compete with big businesses’, says the mealy-mouthed dweeb as he finally shuts the doors on his dusty little shop and files his EI claims. Well you know who can compete with big businesses chump? Bigger businesses! So maybe instead of blaming cruel fate for your failure, you should take a long look in the mirror.

Politics? Social interactions? Without fail you hear the same miserable whining about how decency gets you nowhere—that idealism is treated like an insult and dreamers are called naïve. But that’s not quite it, is it?

There’s nothing wrong with dreaming, but if you don’t eventually wake up, marshal your underpaid employees, petition politicians to change laws in your favour, and make off with millions, you have no one to blame for it but yourself. Wuss.

To break it down; morality is an excuse, not a handicap. At Brad OH Inc., we stand as a shining example of action, pragmatism, and success. Where others have cried about the opportunities they never had, we’ve used our inherent societal privilege to better ourselves. So for you hopeless waifs still waiting for someone to hold your sorry hand and lead you to happiness, let me share a bit of healthy advice. Holding strictly to honesty and kindness is the surest route to failure in business, politics, and interpersonal relationships alike. They’re for chumps, and punks who would rather stew comfortably in their failure than bully their way to true happiness. Success in almost every aspect of life is predicated on cunning decisiveness and a brutal willingness to sell out your fellows when the opportunity presents itself. The towers of the powerful are built upon the bones of better men. So make your choice, and take your place. If you’re smart, we’ll see you here at the top.

Your Dear Friends and Personal Advisors,

-Brad OH Inc.

When You Arrive

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Under the Green Desk Lamp…

Green Desklamp

When you arrive,

My back will straighten,

My eyes will shine,

And pace will hasten.

When you arrive,

I’ll live once more,

Not for myself,

But to adore.

When you arrive,

I’ll build my home,

Which cannot stand,

For self alone.

When you arrive,

I’ll hear anew,

The sounds and songs,

That I once knew.

When you arrive,

I’ll play and laugh,

And drink deeply,

Of all I have.

When you arrive,

My fears will die,

When you arrive,

Then so shall I.

-Brad OH Inc.

The Heights Flags Dare Not Fly

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purelyspeculationAside from writing, a significant portion of my week is comprised of driving to and from schools. As a result, I’ve recently made a disturbing observation. It seems to me there is seldom a day which goes by that the school flags are not set at half-mast.

I’ve noticed it far too often to chalk it all up to an observer or expectation-bias, and ever since noting the strange trend, the evidence has only mounted. Truthfully, I can quite accurately make the call as I head out in the morning—I can go through my entire day, and I won’t see a single flag flying at its full height.

For a while, I would try to play recent newsfeeds through my mind, sifting through the long lists of tragedies to try and pinpoint the precise reason why the flags might be lowered. Another bombing in a far off country? A videotaped execution becoming a number one hit on YouTube? Missing indigenous women? A recent school shooting? It’s hard to keep track—and that’s likely one of the most cold-hearted thoughts that’s ever crossed my mind.

Sadly, the fact is there can hardly be a day that goes by when it would be appropriate to fly the flag high. Tragedy is abounding at every turn, and we need never look too far to find some reason to keep the flag at half-mast, and our hearts shrouded in mourning. Indeed, even the briefest purview of recent events will surely be enough to convince any feeling human that to hoist the flags to their full height would be an act of callous audacity.

It made me wonder; has it always been like this? It seems that no matter how far back we look, the world has been mired in a constant string of atrocities and calamity. Are they more common now? Is our instant access to world-wide media making the situation seem more dire than it is, or could we truly be approaching the so-called ‘brink’?

For years uncounted, people have felt that society is falling apart and the world as we know it is coming to an end. Plato famously criticized the youth of his day (~340BC) by lamenting that “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” It remains a familiar feeling to this day. Every generation grows to worry about the future, and fear that the youth set to inherit this fragile little ship of ours will not be up to the task. Doomsday prophecies, threats of revolution or decay, and predictions of cataclysmic environmental disasters have maintained a place beside weather and work as some of the most ubiquitous topics for daily conversation.

But if the flags these days are any indicator, such anxieties don’t seem far off the mark. Our environment grows worse by the day, and those working to save it are embattled from all sides by those who seek only profit. So too with human rights, fights for equality, and pleas for representation. Gun violence runs rampant—challenged for the crown of ubiquity only by poverty and the failing light of hope in the hearts of the needy. Explosions rock the world hourly, cold-blooded death-cults call for our heads, and here in the ‘free-world’ the echoes of long-forgotten jack-booted feet and beer-hall bravado once again eke their way into our political conscience.

Those naïve few who proclaimed that the age of racism and hatred were behind us now hang their heads in shame, and once again the shadow of ignorance spreads across the map of our future. Standing as we are on the brink of such chaos, sky-lining against the half-lowered flags, one can’t help but wonder how close we are to that brink, and what it would take to finally shove us over?

Will it be like the most recent financial crisis? One panicked businessman making a knee-jerk move over night? A chain-reaction of self-serving backroom deals that sell the rest of us down the river? Will it come like daggers in the night, or will it come, as the old adage goes, wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross? Will there be martial law? Riots in the streets? Baffled TV-reporters mumbling through static-filled screens? Smoke and strife, or stony silence?

That I cannot say. It may be all, or more likely none. It may well go unnoticed, as it has for so long already. One small change, then another, all wrapped in the propaganda and misinterpretation so definitive of our times. But none of that concerns me. The road ahead is already laid, and I look not to how its course runs, but rather to who will travel it.

Again, my thoughts turn to Plato, and the defiant children he so sorely lamented. They are still around, and indeed it is them who we should be watching most intently. But perhaps that’s another issue entirely, and one we’ll cover in greater depth next week.

-Brad OH Inc.

A Shameless Plea for Virtue

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Under the Green Desk Lamp…

Green Desklamp

I work and hone and search and seek,

To find those things which I would keep,

Within my heart for times ahead,

When I make good the things I’ve said,

I’ve heard the call to love and grace,

But still I train to take my place,

For charm and fun I have my knack,

But my true calling I still lack,

Good Captain help me set my sails,

And teach where my own lessons failed,

To raise with wisdom, strength and heart,

To tend the light that now grows dark,

For what is strength and decency,

When shorn from faith and purity,

For pride and lust and greed and wrath,

All tempt me from my given path,

And when lost deep in the forest,

One path seems as good as the rest,

But still to make it right I know,

There are yet saplings that must grow,

And bring to blossom charity,

And set within me clarity,

That I may hold to what is right,

And cower not at fall of night,

So at the closing of the day,

This one and final thing I pray,

Of vices I have had my fill,

And wait with baited breath until,

Good lady take me by the hand,

And guide me to that Promised Land.

-Brad OH Inc.

The Bushido of Bogney

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Under the Green Desk Lamp…

Green DesklampBushido: (武士道) literally meaning “the way of the warrior”, is a Japanese word for the way of the samurai life, loosely analogous to the concept of chivalry in Europe. (Source)

Bogney: A tiny dog, wise for his years.

BogsToday, we combine the old and the new for a fresh new perspective on life through the eyes of our classy canine friend. This is the daily living of a small dog. This is the extrapolated wisdom of the ages…This is the Bushido of Bogney.

Lesson #1:

In seeking to train Bogney to do his tricks, he will often show less and less attention to details as the acts are repeated over many weeks. If I do not pay heed to this, his tricks will grow sloppy, and he will do the bare minimum version of his tricks so that he may get his treat. If, however, I draw the line and deny him his treat for such a lazy attempt, the next time he tries his tricks he will perform them flawlessly. This teaches us about the importance of having high expectations, and how to strive tirelessly towards perfecting a craft.

Lesson #2:

Walking Bogney on his leash, two dogs came running at us from behind a bush. Bogney panicked, and looking to me for help, began to run away from the dogs—in circles around me. He thought that to put me between him and his assailants would be safest, yet by wrapping my legs he made me less able to help him. If he’d only surrendered to my protection, he would have been far better off. We can learn much about faith and trust from this observation.

Lesson #3:

When Bogney is around people, he behaves with directness, confidence, and with complete comfort in himself. His tiny brain may recognize there are some differences between us and him, but with no other option he feels a part of all things. When other dogs approach, the illusion is shattered, and seeing the reality of his separateness, he panics. Many people feel this same panic when others interrupt their inner reflections. Within our own minds, there is a great division between the real world and our perceptions. This is easily broken.

After imparting these gems of knowledge, we regret to inform our readers that Bogney became distracted by a sunbeam, and promptly fell asleep in it, effectively ending our insights into life and time. However he is a tenacious little dog, and we can be certain that following a quick nap and inglorious plea for a treat, he will soon be back to share more timeless wisdom with us.

-Brad OH Inc.

‘Edgar’s Worst Sunday’ Update #2

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cropped-cropped-blogbanner13.jpgNot so very long ago, we let you know that the beta-reads for our upcoming novel, ‘Edgar’s Worst Sunday’, had come to an end, and the revisions had begun! Well, we’re now proud to share that said revisions are wrapping up, and all that now stands between you and picking up a copy at your local retailer is the small task of finding a suitable publisher!

At that time, we celebrated by sharing Chapter One of ‘Edgar’s Worst Sunday’ (Link), so we here at Brad OH Inc. thought it only fitting to share Chapter 2 with you today. We certainly hope you enjoy it!

Edgar's Worst Sunday Official CoverIn life, Edgar Vincent had always maintained one great passion—himself. A semi-successful composer, his rock star lifestyle suited him well, and his narcissistic outlook had always ensured he was a man with few regrets. Callous comments, thoughtless promiscuity, binge drinking, and excess sufficient to shame Caligula were standard Saturday night fare.

Sundays for Edgar had always been a painful haze of sickness and regret.

But when Edgar finds himself in the cloudy planes of the afterlife on one particularly bleak Sunday morning, he must put aside his ever-present hangover and try to figure out how he ever got to this point…and where he’s meant to be going now. But as Edgar traverses the spiritual realm, he comes to find that facing his death is hardly as difficult as facing himself.

However, heaven also presents Edgar with an unending smorgasbord of hedonistic entertainment, so he’s in no particular hurry to change his self-serving ways. After all, considering he’s already dead, what more could he possibly stand to lose?

 Edgar’s Worst Sunday

A Novel by Brad OH Inc.

-Chapter 2: The Local Bar-

[Text Redacted due to Contractual Obligations]

 -Brad OH Inc.

Everything is Everything

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Under the Green Desk Lamp…

Green Desklamp

Yeah, it’s a Bruce Springsteen lyric (Link), but that’s not what this article is about. Well, I guess if ‘everything is everything’, then it must perforce be at least partially about that, but really, now you’re just being pedantic, and should be ashamed of yourself for such childish behaviour. Still, it’s a line you hear often enough—usually eliciting a stoic nod or an enlightened shrug, and little true thought is every really put into it. So, what do we mean when we say ‘everything is everything’? Well, just that in a way, yet not quite….

Certainly, everything is connected. From societal values, to child-rearing theories, to tax levels, to individual self-esteem, to war, to faith…one thing affects another in an unending and unwieldly domino effect. With clear vision and an open mind, it is all but impossible not to see the interconnected nature of all things. We’re not trying to go full ‘Butterfly Effect’ here, because we all know that butterflies affect nothing but children, but it must certainly be acknowledged that to have a serious and insightful discussion about any one topic, we must necessarily call upon and consider infinitesimal other issues.

Let’s start with an example. A popular issue these days is gun control. The argument in its shortest form is whether allowing easy access to guns creates a safer or a less safe society. Proponents of easy access to firearms, when not ranting about the constitution, focus on the old adage that ‘if you make guns illegal, only criminals will have guns.’ Well, that’s a tautological truth to be sure, but does it get to the heart of the issue?

Opponents of easy firearm access take a different route—claiming rather that by increasing access to guns, we allow for a more violent and reactive culture. That, combined with the ease of access, leads to greater gun violence.

Both sides have some relevant points, but to focus on the limited standards of these political movements alone is to miss the nuance and depth of the issue—and this is the case with most anything that is debated towards a specific, pragmatic end while lacking due reverence to the holistic ‘big picture’.

This article is not about gun-control per say, but rather the ways which we currently discuss the hot-button issues of our times. By keeping on the blinders and considering major topics within the narrow confines currently prescribed to them, it is easy to entirely miss how our decisions affect the world around us—and conversely—how they are affected by the very same.

In our recent article ‘The Key to Improving Our Collective Future’ (Link), we discussed why we consider education to be among the key factors in improving the world for all its sorry inhabitants. This notion remains a prescient topic in our current considerations. We’ve now established how everything is affected by everything else, but perhaps the single most impactful factor of any era is the reigning attitude of its people.

Humanity is a malleable lot—able to adapt not only physically over the long term, but also mentally, emotionally, and intellectually in the much shorter term. This is why our decisions must be more universally informed. From education, to taxes, poverty, war, governance, media and more—it is all connected, all around the world. The way we fashion our society is the way we raise our people. So what do we want humanity to be in the long run, and what is sustainable for us? Greed and envy and violence? Likely not, but this is what our present society breeds.

To have a culture predicated on the pervasive tenets of fear and greed, and then act appalled when its citizens turn feral and succumb to vice is disingenuous. People are the product of their environments, and we must arrange for a society which fosters the sort of people and values we claim to hold dear. Everything is everything, after all, and it’s imperative we take this idea wholly to heart.

It is a broad picture to consider, and certainly no easy solution will present itself. It is therefore beholden upon us to engage in open dialogue—and not just among our own familiar peer-groups. We must consider the worldwide implications of our values, and reflect honestly on how the standards we set, and the systems we create, work to shape the masses of humanity around us. It is, like it or not, entirely on us to make these decisions, for fate is an unreliable guide, and apathy the surest source of misdirection.

The considerations are vast, but not insurmountable if our will is harnessed in common cause. From improving our economic and fiscal balance (Link), to fully accounting for the vast potential of our nature (Link), we must give due consideration to what sort of culture we truly want to be, and then explore the most effective holistic steps to achieving it.

For in the end, the goal of a society must be finding and realizing the best way to raise the human animal in its masses. How we are raised is what we become, after all. What must humans be to thrive and to live in harmony with the planet? It’s a lot to weigh, but tell me what sort of people you wish to be surrounded by, and I will tell you what sort of world we must devise.

-Brad OH Inc.