The origins of my belief.

Why is it that we should not excessively lie? Why should we be kind to other people? Why should we care about people more than things? Why should we judge people on their inside and not their outside?

Why should be be decent human being?

In current day society, emphasis is place primarly on how to find MY happiness and find MY perfect mate. It is on how many friends do I have and how can I be the center of the party. It is on how can I make myself feel good about my life and what i am doing with it.

Life today is self-centered. That is why americans are so fat, because it tastes good to me. That is why indians are poisoning themselves with whitening cream, to make themsleves "prettier". It is why brazilian kids are killing each other, to prove how hard they are. It is the reason white 50 year old women are getting botox and tummy tucks, to look young.

Society has lost a lesson. The smartest person alive rolls around in a wheelchair and speaks through a machine. The most important man of the last 50 years what a short black man, no taller than me. The most important song of the last 50 years (or two) where sang by a group of singers singing for free. Society has lost the lesson of the benefit of giving. Not only money, but time.

To me, that is as much religion as putting on a tie and singing hymns every sunday. Religion is taking an extra second to hold the door open for a lady with kids. It is taking a few minutes to spend time with a child who needs it. It is giving without expecting anything back, not even a smile. It is having 2 minutes to talk to an old person who may not have a chance to speak to another person today. It is complimenting someone who never hears it. It is fighting for your own rights because you know in turn, you are fighting for others rights as well.

You shouldnt have to brag about what religion you are, it should show through ones actions. Stingy people arent spiritural. How can you be when the earth and nature and people are so giving to us? It may seem strange to say that, but if you want to see how giving people are, spend some time around kids. They are the most generous of people. They care about how you are. They ask how your day is. They are willing to share. They give away smiles for free.

Somewhere after 16 and before 25, we learn these rules of separating ourselves from people. Of how to find a group of people like ourselves. How to define ourselves as individuals and not as part of the collection of humanity. I cringe when i buy things from China because i know the work system there is not necessarly one of free will. Id rather pay more for the option of fairly made goods. Yet in todays world, the competition is being eaten alive like a dead carcus.

Humans have clearly chosen the wrong patch. The path of collection wealth, goods, toys, ipods, videogames, baseball cards, cars, houses, yacths, jetskis and luxury suites. We havent chosen the path of clean water, clean air, good roads, mass transit, welfare for all, healthcare for all, or education for all. People think that money and a gun can protect you and your kids from a world and society that is falling apart. It cant. Ask Brad Pitt what its like to go grab a carton of milk? If society continues in the direction it is going, that will be the experience of anyone with enough money to buy any milk at all. Beggars, desperate people dying for a piece of your fortune, or worse yet, the food you bought.

In america, people have this nasty attitude that "If you havent found success, you arent working hard enough" but in todays america you should change "working" with "stolen". Stealing means that you didnt produce anything, you just took what belonged to someone else. We can use fancy words for what happens on wall street and insurance jargon or government bailouts or taxes, but all remains the same, in the end, nothing was produced and money changed hands. You can get rich that way, but if you steal wealth from 10 families that really needed the wealth, then not only have 10 poor families been created, but there are 10 more men ready to do what every it takes...

...to feed their family. To bad we cant throw a man that steals 100 million in jail the same way we do a man who steals 500 dollars.

This world, these countries that we are living in now, are not societies. There are but an ipod clogged, mtv splattered, people magazine decorated survival of the greediest. A new social dawinism in which the less you care, the easier it is for you to do what ever is necessary to make your first million.

Too bad our kids get to grow up and learn from us.