Learn to Love

Learn to Love KokoI had to learn how to love.  I had to work at it—paying attention to what made me feel happy and what didn’t.  There were so many mistakes.  It took 60 years, which seems like a long time, and I think I was lucky in the people I knew along the way.

This is the big question I have: We have an idea that is so nearly beyond doubt, in this case that to learn to love is what makes you happy, but we don’t act on it, we don’t implement it.  Nobody doubts it.  I should say that nobody who understands it doubts it.  And that’s the question.  Why is such an important and basic idea not a fundamental part of human education and culture: how to love.

Obviously, people should begin to learn to love at home.  And then they should learn in church (by “church” I mean, “spiritual activity.”)   But what if for some reason they don’t?  I agree, they should learn at home and in church.  But what if somehow they don’t? I do believe that some people learn abuse and bigotry at home and at church.  Shouldn’t learning to love just be everywhere anyway?  Shouldn’t it be about the most basic thing there is?  Are the people who don’t learn it in family or church just screwed?  That seems like a lot of people.

Recommended: http://gtu.edu/news-events/currents/spring-2011/a-theology-for-koko

Grampa, What Were You Doing When They Killed The Oceans?

Decline on ocean fishing off Key West

We baby-boomers ought to be ashamed.  It is incomprehensible to me that any member of my generation (U.S. baby-boomers, b. 1945-1964) could look at these pictures and not feel that they have failed in one of their most fundamental human responsibilities.  The picture above shows the catch off Key West, FL, in 1958, 1983, and 2007  The picture below shows the habitat of the tiger in 1850, 1950, and 2006.  These pictures make it real to me, more than the statistics, charts, and graphs.  It’s really happening.  Some of the damage was done while the boomers were kids, just because there were so many of them, but most of it was done after they matured and came to power, when those numbers could have been used to prevent further destruction.

Indian Ocean Tiger Habitat

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