Wish List

Sunday 17th May, 2020.

I have a wish list. I have no doubt that I would like the world to conform to it. I would like the Covid 19 pandemic to go away. I would like wars to cease, for prisoners to be set free. I would like the climate to stabilise, for all people to be fed, for peace to reign among persons and between nations, for there to be mutual trust and respect in the world and for harmony and co operation to be the norm. I would like pain and suffering to dissolve and for love to reign. I do not want people to become zombies or unthinking conformists and I want them to be the variety they are and unique as individuals. I want the malicious genes and the selfish attitudes to be inactive. I want freedom for all, freedom of choice and movement not an enforced army. I do not want genetic engineering nor authoritarian, dictatorial regimes enforcing behavioural patterns. 

This morning I read and researched some of the news items. Some horrendous headlines as ever including ' a child in India disappears every twelve minutes '. I read of 'war' between teaching unions and the government. Do the media always print the ghastly news or is that just the impression one gets? I thought how wonderful the world is and could be so I mused on what I would include on my wish list. Does depressing news make for depression? Yet I know I must learn of these things as identity in spirit if not in fact is important to me. I do not want to be alone and it is a comfort to think there are many who care even if I do not know them personally. It is a comfort to know there are people who fight for justice, for good causes, for marginalised, powerless, exiled peoples. I try to care for the victims and those suffering. 

There is no magic wand and I do not think my wish list is possible as it seems to include opposites! There is simply what there is. Man has ever determined to control all around him, to make it conform to his needs and wants. Land use and excavation even exploitation for his own ends, control of the animal kingdoms, of others ( often depicting the others as savages, sub humans, enemies, uncivilised and such like) and controlling health, wealth and happiness. 

I recall a beloved friend telling me whilst I was in turmoil and going through trying times that the only thing to expect is the unexpected! Most of us want a safe slot machine bureaucratic type of life. I pay and get what I pay for. I turn on the tap and water comes, the switch and the light goes on, pick up the telephone and it is answered, ring a doctor and help arrives with relief...all organised and routine so that I can live the life I want to live. But it is not like that for most....I have insufficient money, the illness is not easily banished, my other half dies or leaves me, my children suffer, I lose my job, the rent is doubled...the unexpected and unwanted happens.

Is Harari's comment possible: ' The field of artificial intelligence is seeking to create a new intelligence based solely on the binary script of computers.....When humans try to regain control of the rebellious script, it responds by attempting to wipe out the human race'. Science fiction or prophetic? 

What or who controls what or whom? How shall we each live? Are we naive to hope to do our best and live as we see morally right or are we already controlled by others....by laws, advertisements, media, social mores and peer pressures and by global industries and suppliers?  I do not know. I started with a wish list and realised it would not be conducive to a more beautiful world, to freedom, to individual responsibility, to risk and choice. I still wish for evil to be banished but am muddled and unsure of much else. I cannot control my thoughts and hopes nor my health nor sometimes my actions and my tongue....so how to control a world for good. 

As I have before so now again I retreat to the poem of Rumi and adopt his trust: 

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness, 

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all! 

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, 

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

This is now my wish list...to be able to laugh and greet smilingly, to face the facts, although I wonder who sent the guide? That must be open to free belief.