Neo-Dark Ages

At one time, perspectives on leadership were different than they are today. There are legends and myths that speak of leaders in a light that outshines modern leaders, like the sun outshines a candle flame.  Myths and legends may be embellished stories, but they relate a social perspective just like the hero in a movie relates social values and perspectives of the movies culture and era.

Modern leaders aren’t respected, loved and admired for their wisdom, empathy and philanthropy.  Or, how they think of the future generations after them and how to progress civilization.  Modern leadership is all about power over profit, like the dark ages.

Changes in society take longer than a lifetime to happen and in a lifetime, an individual can be a part of that change even though they will never see that change.  Slavery in America only ended 160 years ago, or 4-5 generations ago.  Separate but equal, segregation laws, only ended 70 years ago, or 1-2 generations ago.  So it took, 230 years, or 5-6 generations, for slavery to actually, sort of end, and we are still working on fixing the social damage from such terrible decisions.

To rise out of these neo-dark ages, leadership and societies perspective on leadership will have to adjust from the serf, lord, royalty mentality that considers its population as a commodity for use as collateral and cannon fodder to increase profits.  To leadership that sees us all working together for a common goal, of progressing civilization.  Leaders that only think of profit work for Wall Street more than they work for the country and the modern day CEO, is yesterdays Lord/Nobel/Baron/Plantation owner that doesn’t care about the people under them because they are more like cattle than people and more profit is how they measure progress.

The missing element in the modern leader compared to the mythical leader is, philosophy.  There’s a shadow of actual philosophy in business philosophy, but business philosophy can’t be used for social philosophy because it is counter to social progress, in that, in business profit is more important than the earth or its’ people and truly philosophical, such a perspective is detrimental to society.

Good leadership is making it better for the following generations, like carving a city out of the wilderness.  Leaders today seem to have forgotten that all of this was once wilderness and people built a world that enabled business to prosper, business didn’t build a world that enabled people to prosper.

Reflexes

To make something reflexive behavior takes practice, right?  Fighters train and practice so that they react to a situation without even thinking about it first.  People adjust from clumsiness, on their first day of work, to professionalism through daily repetition.

But, we also train our mental and emotional reflexes.  Sometimes, without even being aware that we are.  When we train our mental and emotional reflexes to react negatively, we react to a situation negatively, without thinking about it first.  And when we train our metal and emotional reflexes to react positively, then that’s how we react.

The samurai, of Japan, trained diligently to be excellent fighters.  But, they also meditated and practiced art, like painting and poetry, to make sure that their war training didn’t turn them into savages and beasts.  The Pope gave medieval knights their code of chivalry, in order to create a system where the strong protect the weak.  How we train our reflexes is how we maintain, or lose our humanity.

Working to give

Isn’t progress making more people better off?  A widening wealth gap means we are doing something wrong.  Entrusting the richest of us to govern is a problem when the richest of us only work for money.  It creates a society in which progress is appropriated with gaining wealth.

Instead of working for goals like improving individually and socially, the goal for society is to get money.  Not just money for pleasure, but money to survive.  To pay bills is all most have been working for, while a minority insanely chase wealth.  Like, chasing a carrot on a stick and going in circles instead of progressing forward.

Change isn’t going to happen until we adjust our way of thinking from respecting greed and fearing bills, to respecting everything else and scorning selfishness.  The world, each other, animals, blind justice, the next generation, the oldest generation and actual progress that improves our standard of living, deserve respect more than misers do.

It takes time for change to happen and using force has becoming increasingly less effective.  It isn’t new laws, war, or more hand outs that create change, it’s all about hearts and minds. Blowing things up, or beating people up sets hearts and minds against the aggressor.

We keep hearing the promise of change and giving our hearts and minds to liars who don’t want anything to change.  Change won’t happen until we change the way we think from working to get, to working to give.

The best leaders have been the most righteous and incorruptible of us.

We, as a people, are able to guide and direct our future, in almost any direction that we choose, by choosing who are leaders are.  It takes all of our experiences to be able to understand which direction to proceed in.  By sharing our individual experiences with each other we can determine the best path to take.  Everything in the universe has a reason to exist, why would it be different for any of us?  The universe is like a symphony and each note is a part of a whole.  A conductor, or a leader, is just a crazy person waving a stick around with out the composer, the musicians and the audience.

The best leaders have been the most righteous and incorruptible of us.  Even though many righteous leaders have been leaders during eras of poverty and slavery, a truly righteous person treats every one well.  Even slaves and poor people.  They are able to direct us towards a future, rather than destroy our future.

Sometimes how you look at something depends on how you see things.

Sometimes how you look at something depends on how you see things.

The blue sky is the same sky as the night sky and you can only see when it’s dark.

When there is to much light all you can see is blue, like wool over the eyes, it hides the truth.

It’s only on the dark side of the planet that you can see there is so much more to the universe.

Like lifting the wool from over the eyes reveals that, they who tell you people need to suffer and be persecuted for them to protect you and your standard of living, are the ones we need to protect ourselves from.  How can we make the world better with hate?

How will history see the 21st Century

It’s time to change direction because it’s more and more difficult for people to make ends meet, or to even get a decent education and still, fault is placed on the people trying to survive that did what they were told to do and found out that it doesn’t work, rather than blaming the people peddling lies of equality and fairness.  People are told to work hard to make ends meet and make progress.  But, many people work their fingers to the bone and still can’t make ends meet.  They try to educate themselves to escape poverty and go from no money to owing money, drowning in debt for an insubstantial education.  Then, they are labeled as incompetent for falling into depression, drug addiction, homelessness and crime.

Many of the sheltered and privileged have the misconception that opportunity equals competence and they believe that it’s because of the incompetence of the less fortunate, that the poor don’t have the capability to do anything other than manual labor.  But, often it’s the unrecognized and unappreciated competence that leads to depression, drug addiction, homelessness and crime.  But, depression, drug addiction, homelessness and crime are not unique to the less fortunate.  The problems in society and lack of education also effect the sheltered and privileged, who also tend to fall into depression, drug addiction, homelessness and crime if their sheltered life is shattered, or if they are ignorant and bored.  There is also a great deal of competence recognized in all people, no matter their class.  So, opportunity can’t be confused with competence.

A high percentage of the population is vulnerable to falling into depression, drug addiction, homelessness and crime, because people with no actual competence, only opportunity, are in charge and even people who believed they were competent and secure, are realizing that they aren’t as secure as they thought and that they’er lacking in competence.  Leaders should be looking out for citizens like, parents look out for children.  Or, the relationship is dysfunctional.

Aren’t we all stronger together when we make the effort to become more competent and progress, rather than competing against each other and retarding progress along with competence?  To move forward, we have to inspire one another, not chastise and degrade one another.

Fear and Control

In general, there are two cultures in the world.  One is a culture of fear and control and the other is a culture of peace and unity.  Those that believe in fear and control utilize fear tactics in order to maintain control.  They do all they can to convince the population that with out their control, the population is in danger of being overrun and dominated by fear and control.

So, much of the population succumbs to living in fear and being controlled by the powerful.  In that, they sacrifice all of their personal hopes and dreams and drown their feelings with antidepressants to pursue the hopes and dreams of those in control while they settle for less, instead of demanding more.

A fearless society is better than a fearful society because, instead of demeaning the potential of the population, a fearless society is empowering and inspiring to the population.  When the population of any society is fearless, it’s feared by other societies more than a population that is seen as beaten down and oppressed by its leaders.

Your neighbors have the same problems that you do

Each of us deals with the same problems and if you think your neighbor is to blame, you’re probably not looking at the big picture.  Because your neighbors have the same problems that you do.  Once, people in power made it a priority to improve the standard of living for everyone and leave behind temples, churches, colosseums, amphitheaters, roads and all sorts of infrastructure improvements because using wealth for the benefit of all, is how to be remembered well.  Not only by family and friends, but even by people that never meet and only know the benefactor by their philanthropy and reputation.  Even the religious centers of the world had the ability, and perceived responsibility, to support the community with direction as well as finical help and guidance, providing a sanctuary for those in need.

Tyranny, has been a plague on civilization for so long that people have been aware, those who  tyrannize a population will be hated and despised for thousands of years, if they are not killed by revolt.  People in power don’t fund public improvements, when they want to maintain their power over others and have the perception that public improvements will erode their power.

Rather than than improving the standard of living for all, to be remembered well, they hoard wealth to maintain position and end up despised by people that don’t know them, because of their greed, and despised by their friends and family who can’t wait to get what they have.

When wealth is hoarded, instead of used to improve our standard of living, society decays along with its infrastructure.  The decay of society follows the decay of the standard of living and a society that feels as though their living standard will not ever improve, does not take care, or care about the infrastructure, or even their home.  But, when society sees the world around them improving, beautiful new architecture and religious centers sparkling with gold, instead of a dull gold paint that represents what things should be like, people begin to care and take care of their homes and the whole world.

fingerprints

In life there are many ways to perceive what it is to make progress.  One part of that progress which is often overlooked is personal development.  Everyone has more to learn because learning is like climbing a mountain that has no peak.  There are many plateaus to rest on the way, but stopping at one and thinking it’s the peak is like, finishing kindergarten and thinking you have an education.

While paths converge, your path is your own path.  People are just as unique as their fingerprints.  From the very beginning, till the very end, there won’t be another person with the same fingerprints as you, or the same path as you and the path that you blaze, paves the road for others to follow along and find their own path up.

Reflections

I guess it’s been so long since things were good, people are too young to remember now.  We used to have some really great times, even though we didn’t have a lot, we still got down.  We had such good times, others would wonder how it was possible to be so happy with so little.  I spent time in the hood, on the streets, locked up, in the suburbs, at warehouse parties, roof top pool parties overlooking the ocean and bumped elbows with superstars and bigshots, I even cooked for some of them.  But, I’ve never had as great of a time as I had in the hood, outside of the hood.

People often think that the hood is full of angry gangster wanna be’s but those aren’t the majority.  Most of the people in the hood are good hard working people and on a Friday night when the work is done, they get to get loose and have a good time.

People in the hood aren’t the only ones that have a good time, everyone likes to party sometimes.  But, good times are different with different people and they are great with real people because, real people know that even being used and abused they are good people that love and care very much about their friends, family, little animals and the whole world.  They live the best they can and will never let anyone convince them they aren’t worth respecting as a human being.

People, that only pretend to be human, wonder how people can be so happy with so little, because when they have good times, they are only reaping their fruits off those that they use and abuse.  They aren’t as happy because they know that they are not good people that love and care for their friends, families, little animals and the whole world.