The Ability of Humanity
As I stood in complete awe of the Space Shuttle, a sense of wonder and amazement crept through me. I remembered my history...
I was not amazed by the machine itself, although it is a grand machine, but more by the sheer audacity to build it and all of humanity's other great creations. From the Pyramids of the South American rain forests and Giza, to Stonehenge, the Great Wall, the Parthenon, the Great Cathedrals, the Enormous Skyscrapers all over the Earth...to the fast moving star that is the International Space Station; Humanity has always strove to create something bigger, better, more awe inspiring than itself.
It is this desire to look for or create something more, something better, which drives us. Whether for personal or communal gain, this is what drives us. Yet, we must realize that this is also part of the problem, this drive to do better, to be better. Although fighting for a little personal gain is good, it is communal gain which we must strive for. Let us discuss two issues dealing with this.
1.) We are naturally selfish. The body will fight for the basic necessities in order to live.
2.) What is our community? How do we define it?
To address the first issue we must assess what everyone needs and desires. What does a human need to survive? There are the physical things of course (air, water, food, and shelter) which are probably the foundations of why we build our communities, the idea that together we are stronger and are more likely to survive. Unfortunately, our current society does not provide these things to all people and thus these people are forced to do “whatever it takes” just to survive. To make matters worse this attitude often leads us to War, and along with war comes famine, disease, and death. All across our history we find these four terms locked together: War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death, the 4 Horsemen.
This is where communities begin to take part, although they can be used for good or evil, they begin at least as good, as a guard against the 4 Horsemen. They also form for other reasons.
One such reason is that we are all at once alone and together. We are each individual in our thoughts, ideas, and dreams. However, we are together in that we share our dreams with each other and those that have similar dreams will often join together in communities to see their dreams fulfilled. As long as we are vigilant, these dreams stay in the light and bring good things to this Earth.
But how exactly do we define a community? So far in humanity's history we have seen the community as the family, the tribe, the village, the town, the city, the church, the race, and the nation; each with its own purposes and form of organization. Yet these forms of community, while bringing together many people, also divide people into groups away from each other. They divide human from human and when one community comes to the belief that they are better than another they may very well bring about the 4 Horsemen once again.
Is it the communities fault? Only in that the community did not realize that it was too small. The only way to obtain a community which does not think itself better than another one is to create a community that believes it is incomplete, lacking, unless it includes and accepts everyone for who they are and does not try to change them. This type of community would be continually expanding and enriching itself. This is what a real community is, a gathering of everyone, to share the experience that is Life.
Defining community in this way allows us to address the original goals of building a community for survival while also providing a stronger barrier against war, pestilence, famine, and death.
Building such a society would have great benefits. Without the four threats humanity could focus more of our resources towards education, research, and better living for all. It would allow us to reach our full potential and stretch our abilities as far as we can dream!
Addressing The Possibility: If people get past their initial reaction to this, and accept that this is truly possible (as I truly believe), then it becomes possible. Convincing people to do this is the hardest part, but if we look at what we have accomplished in our past we see that we are capable of great things and a community as discussed would just be our latest creation, building upon all the past generations. We CAN build a better world!