A horrible communicable disease, the lack of a good communicable disease & the disease of being old, page 1

Honor is a gift a man gives himself someone once said, and we did not inherit this earth from our ancestors...we are borrowing it from our children. This world is sick right now, and the cure is going to come with some reckoning I think. It scares me to be paying attention to it all while the world thinks that the American people are a party to the crimes. I tell you that we do not agree, no sir we do not, at least the ones who look deeper than the 6 oclock news for our information.

Credit for the quote ~ Coopdog

This quote from another thread got me thinking, after I had already made a reply, another poster: ThinkingHuman, asked for more clarity beyond my first response. So instead of derailing off topic in political; here it is presented in philosophy on it's own...of where our society is; and where it seems to be headed, and where it has been, and why we can't seem to let go. I have come to believe it's a communicable disease; one that passes from the mouth to the ears...

We are stealing for our kids. For example; wars past and present...yet some still feel the hate caused by war, for a reason. The reason is people choose to pick up and carry ignorance hate and pain forward like a tradition, even if war has never directly effected an individual, as in never was in that war with a gun and uniform fighting...instead of just dropping it and leaving it in the past. When we carry needless pain and hurt forward...we are robbing our kids future, by lumping all of this adversity right in their hands and on their shoulders. For example; Both of my grandfathers fought in WW2. I have motorcycle hobby, building and riding...many people in that hobby hate Japanese bikes...why? Pearl Harbor. Were any of these 20-60 somethings even in or at Pearl Harbor? Nope, yet they still tow the hate, pain and baggage from it.

Children could grow up without hate, resentment and the other nonsense that made the world so damaged, if we could let it all go. But I am really starting think; it's a communicable disease...a father heard stories from his father, passes it to his family...and it just continues to perpetuate, even though no direct experience of pain is involved in the passing from generation to generation, except maybe the death of a loved one...this pain is held onto as if it was one's own experience, instead of closing the book on the story. This has perplexed me for quite awhile...I just don't understand why it takes multiple generations to lay something down and forgive and forget. Since we don't; it ends up as an ancestral baggage...we keep handing down with each generation more and more baggage added to our kids...how many suitcases of problems are being passed to the children being born today by dragging this pain and hate forward?

Dragging all of this baggage around, that is being constantly compounded; we become less civilized and eventually snap...like a soda bottle that shaken too much blows the top off. This causes people to show our more instinctual and primitive violent natures; and indulge this self nature instead of repressing it. This made me wonder if people were always uncivilized in the past; but just had a better grip on repressing that side of themselves; keeping it out of the public eye. As social norms have changed; so has this self restraint that keeps things in public peaceful.

The conundrum is repression and suppression of the self; creates all sorts of mental problems, we create poor coping mechanisms that gives rise to problems else where. So it seems the trade off is either; to be personally ill by suppressing the self, or a society that appears ill; because less and less people are suppressing themselves in public, because social norms have broken down, by not being taught.

When I was in school; we were taught how to stand in line. Keep quiet, no cutting your go to the back of the line , arms at the sides, and the person in front of you no closer than and arms length away, when the person ahead of you moves up so do you maintaining that distance...I suppose I was taught that because it was a social norm to be orderly and respect peoples personal space in public. Very few places I have had to stand in line perform the orderly fashion I was taught.

People cut line, jump in and out of line, talk to each other, are on cell phones, and disregard others personal space, by bumping into you standing too close etc. even the act of someone bumping into you becomes your fault, because people can't abide by the social norm of personal space. If you hold the door, rarely will any one will catch it or say thanks. Instead now, end up holding the door for 5 or more people, because you were just being polite and they won't reciprocate in kind, the other half of that politeness exchange. By doing something that seems to be common sense, or something that goes without saying. This also seems to be the failure of a communicable disease that; needs to infect but doesn't, from lack of mouth to needful ears.

Maybe in reality; I have just contracted old people disease. It's only a matter of time after all...before people get infected with that.

edit on 22-1-2013 by BigBrotherDarkness because: title fix