Many scientists believe that finding life outside the solar system is within reach. Consider the NASA article at the end of this post.

But by way of a thought experiment, let us imagine that, say, 2000 to 4000 years ago, extra-terrestrial life forms contacted humans here on earth. What they found disappointed them. Man was murdering, pillaging, and treating women like animals. In addition, they were sacrificing their babies to their gods whilst having orgies. Children prepubescent were used as sex objects and sold and married to old men.

Mankind had a deep desire to become friends with these extra-terrestrials, but these “intelligent beings” from who knows where had conditions. They instructed humans to be kind to one another, to have self-sacrificing love, to do nothing wrong with their companions. To love their children. To stop lying and carrying out deception. To avoid greed, envy, and materialistic endeavours. To loan without interest. To redistribute the land every fifty years and bring about an equalisation were everyone would be amply cared for and there would be no inflation.

And then they finally said, if you do these things, you will be happy.

November 30, 2023

Imagine these supernatural entities by their supernatural powers, turned their attention to the earth in this year of 2023. Would they find that man had cleaned up their act, so to speak?

Consider, our fellow humans in developing countries are dying for want of food, antibiotics, and other medical basics. Children by the thousands are going blind for lack of cataract surgery.

Millions roam the earth for want of a place to lay their head and we store them away in old prisons and ships to please the voters. Millions of children have never met their fathers. Absent fathers are growing as the next generation succumb to the narcissistic zeitgeist. While half the world revel in shameful wealth, the other half suffer.

 The list goes on and on in addition to the things that those extra-terrestrials required all those centuries ago. And they sigh, hoping that man would become human.

You have probably concluded by now that this is not a thought experiment, but a reality.

Ecclesiastes 3:17

 I said to myself, “God will judge both the righteous man and the wicked man,” for a time for every matter and for every deed is there.

2 Chronicles 16:9

For the eyes of the Lord move over all the earth so that He may give strength to those whose whole heart is given to Him

Finding Life Beyond Earth is Within Reach - NASA

Some centuries ago, a certain healer was walking from Samaria to Galilee. Stopping by a village, he met 10 lepers (a death sentence back in the day). The healer instructed them to go on a short journey.

When they carried out the healer’s request, they were cured of their leprosy. One of them returned and prostrated himself before the man with the healing powers and demonstrated appropriate gratitude.

The healer asked, “Were there not ten of you? Then where are the other nine?” Where indeed.

I guess we all have in that part of our memory that we archive as experiences from hell, encounters that we have filed as "ungrateful people."

It may be things we have done for others and they never returned to thank us. On the other hand, there is the happiness we experienced when someone returned to show their appreciation. Showing gratitude is one of these qualities that's not necessary in life, but doing so, embeds a memory in the recipient's mind that will never be forgotten. It brings and happiness, completeness.

I was talking to a stranger while hill walking. He was complaining about how stressful his job was and how it was impinging on his health.

“Can’t you find a less stressful job?” I asked.

“Too many bills, “he replied.

He also mentioned a recent trip to Disneyland that cost him and his family £6000 in all.

“What makes you happy?” this stranger asked me.

What I’m doing now; walking in nature, stopping with my lunchbox in some isolated place and communicating with the Divine. Being grateful that I can be here. Grateful I have the health to do so. Grateful that I will return home tired, but feeling I have accomplished something.

He looked at me as if I’d lost my marbles.

Conspicuous consumerism is as old as the Silk Road itself. The idea of purchasing of goods or services for the sole purpose of displaying one’s wealth is losing ground as minimalism gains power in the West. Happiness is not achieved through materialism. We only need to look at the West to see that depression, and other emotional and mental illnesses caused by debt and reaching out beyond our means, is robbing society of happiness. Happiness comes from the simple things in life that cost nothing.

© 2023 Writer's Notebook: On Being Human

Some of my cosiest childhood memories for me is being tucked up in bed and my dad reading me stories. Peter Pan, Pinocchio. Oliver Twist. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrope and many more.

I often think, not occasionally, but almost daily, regarding the little children who must go to bed without the story because of absent fathers. This is no fault of the mother. Being a single parent is a challenging task.

When I was in my late teens, I became fascinated by another group of missing fathers. I read a book about HMY Iolaire. This was a vessel that was returning to the Island of Lewis on Scotland’s west coast on January 1, 1919.

On board were no ordinary group of passengers, but 283 men who were returning from WW1. As they anticipated returning to their families after much deprivation and discomfort of the war, they no doubt looked forward to catching up on the lost years of absence.

The waters were hostile that day and the captain struggled to negotiate a safe passage. Suddenly, the ship struck rocks and 201 of the 283 men perished.

When the bodies were recovered, in their pockets were toys. Yes, toys. Toys for their children whom they had dearly missed. Gifts that would re-establish the lost years with their relationship with their little ones.

In an ideal world, there would be no absent fathers. Many, if not most, are absent by choice. Some by circumstances beyond their control. And my sympathy goes out to the latter.

 Imagine the scenario, a charity organisation that organised fathers with loving family lives to volunteer to pop round to the homes of children of missing fathers and read them bedtime stories. But in today’s world with many child predators, the idea seems absurd.  On the plus side, I’m happy that literacy is high in the West and many children learn to read for themselves. And I’m sure many single mothers take time to read to them despite the challenges.

Image by Barrett Ward (Unsplash)

That day, the street blushed with a force-ripe sun, but modern life made me wonder, how do I escape from humans?  —Jim McCrory

 How to raise a child

Her hair is dyed silver, euphemistically speaking. Fattish in tight pants that accentuate the unseemly parts and stress the stitching. The child in the pram has a Gregg’s sausage roll partially submerged in her mouth with the wrapper blowing down the street. The mother swipes her mobile phone to listen to the next track on her playlist.

The Indians are coming.

It's spring. The daisies are out the sun gently fills the air with a comfortable temperature. The High Street is busy with a conspicuous glee and the busker man in cowboy hat and boots spoils the mood with endless melancholy songs sung with a Nashville accent. Someone in the flats above hits him on the head with an egg. Perfect shot. He moves his kit up street and he begins disputing for performing space with the Peruvian Indians who have arrived with their pan pipes and charangoes.

 Protect the beer and fags at all costs.

The two men stand outside the pub with their half-empty or half full beer glasses; it depends on your viewpoint. They’re exhaling large clouds of cigarette spoke on passers-by with masks on. One seems too old for slim jeans and the grandad looks absurd with his saltire tattoo on his neck. They complain about the cost of living, the price of cigarettes and a pint. ‘The wife will need to go and get another job.’ The younger-old man says with a smirk.

Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do our hearts and minds think on terms of eternity? Why are we still young inside even when we get old?

A wise man once wrote that God has “set eternity in our hearts.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

I find this a very pleasing concept. Think of our brains, we have the capacity to take information into it indefinitely. We grow to love other humans. When out time comes, we never want to leave this planet. We desire to take knowledge in constantly. Is it all for nothing? Or is there something, somewhere in the unseen we do not know of? Many argue that we are bound in a material world, but the lived experience tells a different story.

I often wonder if the Chinese man I spoke about yesterday, found the answer.

My daughter's Swedish pen-pall invited herself over for a holiday in the eighties. The following year. her family reciprocated the hospitality and my son and I spent the year learning Swedish from Linguaphile cassettes and watching a Bergman film (The Best Intentions: Den goda viljan) and a Swedish copy of Dances With Wolves (Danser Med Vargar). Like Ann Pratchett's experience, I had pulled out Swedish phrases that were dark, or downright strange and to the amusement of the encountered Swedes.

I miss Sweden now.

I was reading Richard Selzer's essay, The Knife whilst waiting on an X-ray yesterday. He had just performed an operation. Here is how he concludes the essay in a masterful manner. 

At last, a little thread is passed into the wound and tied. The monstrous booming fury is stilled by a tiny thread. The tempest is silenced. The operation id over. On the table, the knife lies spent on its side. The bloody meal smear-dried upon its flanks. The knife rests.