The Bigger Picture

I really want to know what it must be like to be one of those big old sequoia trees that have lived for a few hundred or even a thousand years. I wonder what it must've been like to keep on living when everything else around you dies and new life is made. How do trees experience the world even? Have you thought of that? Do they sense the world around them in any way? And if so, how? They help filter the air, and they do get effected by the pollution. Do they ever "feel" the way we humans feel or anything remotely close to it? Do they have conscience, or some level of awareness of their surroundings? I bet if they did they'd be wondering what are those short sticks that can move around? And are they the ones responsible for such a huge increase in air pollution?
I don't know though if I'd really want to be around for as long as some of those trees have or can live. It seems to me like this world is moving faster and faster toward total self destruction - with our full help of course. It's actually painful and extremely difficult to watch this happen, and to see humans and animals alike suffer. I have to admit that I feel extremely guilty every time these ads run on TV about helping those in need in some third world country that's either been torn apart by wars or by the hunger and sickness that's been caused by greed for what ever it is that one can be greedy about - money, power, status. I feel extremely uncomfortable and very self conscious sitting there in my living room and watching these ads instead of running outside to yell at the bullies who are causing all these troubles. If only it was that simple!
I was thinking about all this the other day and I started thinking about something that I've actually thought about many times before. There may be others out there who also think this idea may be a possibility. I think when we are born we come to this world with a certain wisdom that slowly diminishes over time if our parents don't nurture and encourage it with their own actions and decisions that they make. The problem though is that when we're an infant our brain hasn't developed enough  to process our thoughts, and we just can't express it or form those thoughts in any communicable way. I really don't think babies are blank slates. I think even babies may have some form of awareness of some very fundamental things about coexistence. I know this probably sounds totally crazy, but I actually do remember when I was in my mom's womb. I actually could remember this much clearer when I was much younger, but I can still recall the feeling that I think may be the memory of me as a fetus. I know that there will be those who might read this and say: "All the more reasons why abortion should be banned if this really is possible!" To those I'd have to say, with all due respect it's not so easy and clean cut as you may think it is for the mother who has to make that difficult decision. But that's really a totally different topic than what I wanted to talk about here right now. My point here is: how come it is so obvious for very young children (or most of them) that in an argument or fight it's best to walk away, yet this concept becomes so difficult to implement for grown-ups, especially in a larger scale? I understand that most of today's conflicts are about money - and power. But we're also grown-ups now at this point, and we're supposed to know better, right? Didn't our parents teach us when we came home crying from a fight or argument at school or in the playground that the right thing to do is to forgive and walk away from a conflict? I know my parents did. My mom and dad used to always tell us that it's best to walk away if we see someone is trying to cause trouble. And to speak up if someone is taking someone else's belongings without permission. I know I've read the same questions asked by other writers in other magazines, books, or online. So if these are such obvious things to do then how come as adults we then justify cheating, stealing, bullying, and even waging wars against others and totally be ok with it? We even get others to back us up when what really should happen is for those others telling the instigators to back off. We knew as children that things were not worth fighting over. So what changed? Isn't money only paper that we humans have put value on? And how does money compare to a human life? How much money would one human life be worth? And would that human life value fluctuate in different regions of the world? What would be the standardizing tool to equate a human life to something like money? And why don't world leaders instead of fighting over resources instead say: Ok we know that this world has this set size that won't ever expand. Let's calculate a healthy capacity for resources for each country and also calculate the size of the population that these set of resources can support. After that, let's all agree on ground rules for each nation and agree to abide by them to maintain the population. Then the next step would be to think of options such as contraceptives to help the people follow and abide by those rules. Then the step after that would be to come up with a way to make the options affordable for all regardless of who they are and what they do for a living. Then when all this is planned out each country can focus on its finances and how to make living expenses balanced and reasonable for the vast majority of the population, if not all. As a result of the balanced economics, finances could be reasonably distributed to education and literacy would rise worldwide, affordable healthcare could be provided to all, crime and poverty would decrease, and there would even be the possibility for intellectual growth, and who knows how far mankind could reach out in time and space. This may sound a little utopian, but I really don't think it's impossible. If we only could teach more awareness and how to look out for one another, more rigorously than ever before, and also to emphasize how the future of this world depend on it. I think if we strived to achieve a more balanced world with farer distribution of its resources among all we'd be able to have more harmony and peace in this world. After all, isn't that what we all want? There's a word in Swedish called Medmänsklighet, which if translated straight would mean With Humanity. We need to teach more of that to our children as well as learn to practice it more ourselves. I think this issue also leads to the next topic that I've been thinking a lot about; and that is selfishness.
I have had big doubts and serious questions about the existence of God, as I'm sure many, many others have or have in their lifetime. Well, I should say, one big reason I do believe there must be a Higher Power out there is because of the existence of this vast Universe. But what I have a harder time with is how we can believe that even if God exists that he necessarily is there to answer prayers? I am going to say though that when I was battling for my own life with cancer, I too did pray for my wellness and even begged and reasoned to be heard. Here's where my doubt rises though. As small and tiny as we are, pretty much like a speck of dust in this whole Universe, how do we assume that our specific prayers will be heard in all the noise that must be out there? We are equivalent to the size of an electron or maybe even less in the full picture, and there surely are other forms of life out there way beyond our reach and imagination. Yet WE expect God to hear OUR pleas for help and mercy from what ever evil that is plaguing us. And how is that some of us have their prayers "heard" and some of us don't? There have been by far way too many evil people and leaders in the history of this world some of which have suffered from serious illnesses and recovered despite the odds and despite all the cruelty and evil that they have inflicted on others during their lifetime. So how is it that God came to their aid or heard their prayers? And what about the prayers of those being tortured and slaughtered by or at the command of that same individual? How come they're almost never heard? Or the innocent starving children in some African country who don't know anything other than starvation?  Stars collide and are born and destroyed along with whatever else that existed on or inside of them. Stars that consist of billions and millions of other planets and other possible life forms. I'm not trying to make people feel insignificant, but to believe that we are so important or big that God hears us over SO many other things and creatures out there is rather self centered and arrogant from my point of view. And by the way, who said selflessness isn't productive or serves us well? By being and teaching selflessness we then create an environment where others around us learn to practice the same, and this therefore will lead to a society who looks after one another rather than each individual being on their own. Actually, this collective lookout of one another can go an even longer way. It may very likely reduce or even eliminate hunger and poverty, shelterlessness, loneliness and even decrease mental and physical illnesses among the masses. I know there are those who may read this and think I'm naive or live in a fantasy world. To them I say we ourselves are the decisive power behind those possibilities. For instance, only when we decide to learn about a certain family or town in some remote and troubled part of the world, and really get to know their day by day struggles and living crisis, and at the same time look at the bigger picture to see and understand what really got them in that disposition, and then to reflect back at our own life and try to imagine what we would've done if we had been in their shoes, and what we would've hoped other people from other parts of the world would do to help us and to relieve our pain, it's only then that we can begin to make the changes necessary. This of course would require a lot of self assessment and self questioning, which I believe can be taught at a very young age. If we religiously began to teach compassion to our kids from a very early age, then maybe many more people would learn to practice empathy. Maybe, maybe not. But at this point in time I'd say any attempt to improve the living conditions for ALL mankind is better than how we are doing at the moment. I do believe, like so many others, that the growing social gaps within and between countries is the biggest problem that we face. If we just learn, like the kids that we used to be, to share, to tolerate, to practice more acceptance, be more understanding, and feel more for one another I think we would be able to eliminate many, many of our large scale world community problems as well as smaller scale neighborhood and town issues. We all need to be more accepting and begin each day with an open mind and willingness to cooperate. We also need to do away with the mentality of enemy and friend, and instead ask ourselves and dig deeper to see what the underlining reasons for the behavior of certain groups of people are. This of course requires a bigger knowledge of history and geography and so much more. What if we are at a point in time where we would have to reevaluate what and how we educate our kids - both at home and in school. Maybe some of the curriculums at school have become outdated and certain subjects need to be updated and upgraded so that it'll be more interactive and educational. Maybe instead of setting money making as a priority we need to instead be asking ourselves what kind of world do we want our kids and future generations to live in whether or not we as individuals ever pursue a family life of our own. We must realize this is so much bigger than just us now. And that the future of mankind could litterally depend on us. I guess the big secret is how to engage people and how to energize them to be willing to analyze one another's views and be willing to take action in the direction needed to make the necessary changes required. And I guess this is what many leaders in time have and are trying to do. But I don't think this would necessarily require A leader. I think we can accomplish this by sitting at a round table and each give our own input on how and what needs to be changed. Take and build on each other's ideas and move forward. We need to realize that this is so big that it will have to be a work in progress, and therefore we must be brave enough to call out a mistake and have enough faith in one another that speaking up does not lead to prosecutions and punishments. It is almost like keeping guard at night and resisting sleep to keep wild animals at bay. In order to be successful in doing that we may need to rely on each other to keep us awake and alert. This is like collectively carrying a huge basin filled to the top with water and having to move in such synchrony with one another so that not a drop of the water is spilled.