staffs
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Staffs
Posts: 3,295
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Post by staffs on Apr 22, 2005 19:27:33 GMT
I have posted this on thoughts for the day but wonder what responses it will generate here for discussion ??
Paradox of our times
Today, we have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time;we have more degrees, but less common sense, more knowledge, but less judgment:
We have more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness;
We spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too often and play too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too little and lie too often.
We’ve learned how to make a living but not a life; we’ve added years to our life, not life to years.
We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways but narrower viewpoints.
We spend more, but have less; we buy more but enjoy it less.
We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the neighbor; we’ve conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve split the atom, but not our prejudice;
We write more, but learn less; plan more but accomplish less,
We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait; we have higher income but lower morals,
We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies, but have less communication,
We are long on quantity but short on quality.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men and short character, steep profits and shallow relationships ; more leisure and less fun ; more kinds of food but less nutrition ; two incomes but more divorce ; fancier houses but broken homes.
The proposal is: That as of today you do not keep anything for a special occasion, because every day that you live is a special occasion.
Search for knowledge, read more, sit on your front porch and admire the view without paying attention to your needs.
Spend more time with your family and friends, eat your favorite foods and visit the places you love.
Life is a chain of movement and enjoyment, not only about survival.
Use your crystal goblets, do not save your best perfume, and use it every time you feel you want to.
Remove from your vocabulary phrases like “one of these days “and “someday”.
Let’s write that letter we thought of writing “one of these days”; let’s tell our families and friends how much we love them. Do not delay anything that adds laughter and joy to your life.
Every day, every hour, and every minute is special; and you don’t know if it will be your last.
If you are too busy to take the time to send this message to someone you care, and tell yourself you will send it “one of these days”, Just think………….”one of these days “you may not be here to send it.
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Post by a on Apr 22, 2005 19:36:00 GMT
Today, we have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time;we have more degrees, but less common sense, more knowledge, but less judgment: We certainly have advanced far but progessed little. Ummm let me think - imbalance, curable by the restoration of Maat. that imbalance again. Maat, balance, harmony, or to almost quote from The Hiram Key (seeing as its successor is currently popular) Freemasonry. Oh and all of the other items on the list - ditto.
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Post by Hubert (N. Z.) on Apr 22, 2005 23:52:50 GMT
Great sentiments, Staffs - let's support all our fellow Brn. in THEIR pursuit of that pathway, whatever THEY choose!
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Post by taylorsman on Apr 25, 2005 10:21:19 GMT
On a more mundane level, but touching on the time available for participation in activities such as Freemasonry. One of the problems as I see it is the adverse tilting of the "Work-Life" balance away from the Employee and towards the Employer. We are Cash rich in many cases but time poor and thus are unable to enjoy the fruits of our labour as perhaps our parents could albeit they had a more restricted scope.
In the 1950s and 60s when I was a lad an ordinary employee, unless he was ambitious, was left in peace by his employers. He worked his 40 hours or so, often just Monday to Friday and the rest of his time as his own to spend in leisure activities, with his family or just taking it easy. If wanted then Overtime was available on a voluntary basis for those wanting to boost their earnings. Only those in Managerial positions or aspiring to such were under any pressure over and above their contractual paid hours. Now, thanks to economic pressures and the snake oil sold by over-qualified " Business Gurus" the ordinary man at his desk or bench is hassled by "Performance Reviews", "Appraisals", "Assessments" and other intereference, even if he merely wishes to perform the job for which he is paid and has no higher ambitions in that area. Some employees are subject to moral blackmail to stay on after their paid hours and of course the threat of being on the Redundancy List is there for those who don't. I am sure that much of the stress related illnessess and family breakdowns that we face these days are caused by this imbalance.
I am fortunate in that I simply will not work overtime unless there is a real emergency and I am almost begged to do so. My Saturdays are sacrosanct as far as I am concerned. Others are not so fortunate and are lucky to have a standard weekend off once in a while.
I feel that whilst we are materially better off we have lost the plot and as such, even with more, we are poorer than our parents and grandparents in the Quality of Life.
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Post by a on Apr 25, 2005 10:27:20 GMT
Taylorsman
Now here is an area that we do agree on.
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Post by taylorsman on Apr 25, 2005 10:40:15 GMT
Yes, but I think you would dislike my solutions to the problem.
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Post by a on Apr 25, 2005 10:48:21 GMT
Well at least we are at the table agreeing on the core element.
How would you deal with it, if you were in a position to do so?
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Post by taylorsman on Apr 25, 2005 11:58:51 GMT
By force of Law, with fines and even prison for those who breach laid down mimimum leisure time for employees or who harrass then unduly in their work-time or interfere in their non work life.
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Post by a on Apr 25, 2005 12:08:44 GMT
Taylorsman
I agree rules and laws need to be obeyed. They are after all there for a reason.
I would also aim for the same results. Though as you suspected my apporach would be a little different. I would certainly tighten up the law and follow it through with enforcement. But I would also have an eye on the International implications, (after all many jobs can now be done anywhere in the world) so I would (where possible) work with other governments and major corporations on this issue for the mutual benefit. I would also try to get people to open their hearts.
So it would be a top down and a bottom up approach, combined.
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ruffashlar
Member
Lodge Milncroft No. 1515 (GLoS), Govanhill Royal Arch Chapter 523 (S.G.R.A.C.S.)
Posts: 2,184
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Post by ruffashlar on Apr 25, 2005 17:32:28 GMT
I agree there must be rules and laws, but who is to make them? Communities should be empowered to make the laws which are relevant to their own ease of governance. The only laws immutable are the freedom of the individual, and the responsibility to others which guarantees that freedom.
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Post by hollandr on Apr 26, 2005 2:44:28 GMT
I agree there must be rules and laws, but who is to make them? Communities should be empowered to make the laws which are relevant to their own ease of governance. The only laws immutable are the freedom of the individual, and the responsibility to others which guarantees that freedom. This seems a somewhat related to the concept of freedom of thought (and therefore speech) that I recall was widespread in my university days long ago. That seems predicated on the mind being the highest part of a human, therefore freedom in that highest part must be the goal. Well perhaps there are things beyond the mind and is freedom really the issue at those levels? For myself I suspect that the only right that a human has is to dignity. All the other so-called rights turn out to social convention. But how is it that a human being has a right to dignity?? Cheers Russell
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ruffashlar
Member
Lodge Milncroft No. 1515 (GLoS), Govanhill Royal Arch Chapter 523 (S.G.R.A.C.S.)
Posts: 2,184
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Post by ruffashlar on Apr 26, 2005 6:58:33 GMT
It is said that when Caradoc was sent to Rome in chains, he at once impressed Julius Caesar by the dignity which he retained despite his abject condition. He accordingly restored him to freedom, probably because Romans always admired courage and were heartened to see what they considered their own virtue (virtus, courage; from vir, a man) being displayed in others. But also because, while one has one's dignity, one is still essentially a free man.
Freedom is dignity, and dignity freedom.
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Post by taylorsman on Apr 26, 2005 7:38:19 GMT
Ruff this is very true. One of the aims of Torture in countries where this is commonly used is to remove the Human Dignity of the victim, every bit as much as to extract any useful military or security information that person may have which is the usual reason given . This de-humanisation can be seen in many examples , the forced shaving off of all the hair- especially in women, allocating and tatooing a number rather than a name, removal of the victim's own clothing and forcing them to wear ridiculous garb such as stripey pyjamas or dayglow orange babygrows. After the failed July Plot against Hitler in 1944 one of the accused, a General, was forced to wear civilian clothing which was too large for him when he appeared in Court and this devalued him visually . We did the same at the Nurnberg show trials of the leading Nazis after the war. When one of the Kray Twins was attending his brother's funeral the Prison Service handcuffed him to the tallest "screw" they could find to make him look small . Even very recently in the USA, a soldier found guilty of some offence by a Court Martial was shown being escorted to Military Prison shackled and manacled although there was virtually no chance that he could escape from custody with all the armed soldiers around.
We are invested with but a thin veneer of civilisation and it is all too easy for it to be stripped away revealing the animal beneath, be that the victim or the perpetrator.
De-humanising the victims also makes it easier to perpetrate further attrocities on them as shown in the Death Camps under the Nazis or the Gulags under Stalin.
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Post by bevan on Apr 26, 2005 13:03:18 GMT
Freedom is dignity, and dignity freedom. I agree. The Dalai Lamai believes that freedom from suffering is key to a peaceful life. I think the reason we find it hard to find peace these days is because our freedom to determine our own destiny to a large extent has been eroded. Unless you live in a self-sustaining, self-contained ecovillage somewhere then you are pretty much suffering the fate of the majority of the industrialised world. Mortgages, car payments, debts etc. all erode our sense of peace as we are pulled further down our globalising, competitive economic path. Corporations talk about work/life balance schemes and valueing the environment. However, money talks whilst B***S*** walks! The global economic system only understands growth, not balance. It is unsustainable and only going to get worse until some form of great depression hits and we all wake up to the inequalities. In the meantime it is grab what you can while you can for some sense of peace in terms of keeping up with it all. Personally I'm trying to lose my reliance on material things and am slowly finding my life to be more and more fulfilling and peaceful. I'm also trying to do more physical (as oppsed to desk) work and am finding that very helpful. Any one know a promising ecovillage looking for people in the South of England?
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Post by a on Apr 26, 2005 13:31:02 GMT
Bevan
I am seriously impressed by your analysis.
For what little my opinion is worth.
I think however that economic depression may be too optimistic. I think that Mother Nature will rebalance, and indeed is already beginning to from what I can see, and that could well be a whole lot more devastating. But I guess we will have to wait and see what happens.
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Post by bevan on Apr 26, 2005 15:09:38 GMT
Stewart, I'm not a great believer in the link between economics and the environment as that link was broken right from the start. Although some countries are starting to price what used to be accepted as the "free good" of the environment, I think our global economy will have to come to terms with itself long before Mother Nature needs to do any serious rebalancing. Nature is much better at adapting to her situation than we are. I think being optimistic about Mother Nature and pessimistic about Human Nature is a more realistic approach to take, realising of course that human nature can sometimes affect mother nature and vice-versa...
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Post by a on Apr 26, 2005 15:49:13 GMT
I think our global economy will have to come to terms with itself long before Mother Nature needs to do any serious rebalancing. There is a lot of scientific evidence which suggest that Mother Nature has already started. But you don't need to go to science, just look out of your window. Agreed completely.
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