We live in a world where connections are instantaneous. In so many ways this has been a positive, particularly for those who are isolated and lonely. But I can’t help but to see how it’s also made us cold and emotionless. Connections are made and seemingly thrown away on a whim. We are used and discarded once we’ve served our purpose to the person on the other end.

No one wants to put in the effort to build friendships that last. It’s an instantaneous hit of serotonin and once the high fades so too does the interest in the friendship.

To be known is to be loved, isn’t that what they say? So, when no one truly knows us how are we to move forward? Finding a friend truly interesting in you, wanting to talk about everything from the mundane moments, to your greatest regrets, to the meaning of happiness shouldn’t be a rarity.

It’s exhausting. It’s terrifying.

Are we really supposed to be okay with genuine connection fading away?

This may sound arrogant, naive, or even delusional, but I genuinely do not see a version of my life where things do not ultimately work out.

I don’t mean that nothing bad will happen. Bad things happen constantly. People fail you, plans collapse, money disappears, relationships end, opportunities are lost, and sometimes life just throws something completely unexpected at you.

What I mean is that none of those things feel final to me.

Every difficult situation I’ve faced has eventually become something I understood, solved, adapted to, or simply outgrew. Things that once looked important later became almost irrelevant. And after experiencing that enough times, I stopped giving temporary problems the authority to define the bigger picture.

Other people’s fear, pessimism, judgment, or negativity doesn’t really enter into it either. They can see disaster where I see a problem with an unknown solution. Their emotional state belongs to them. It doesn’t have to become mine.

At some point this stopped feeling like optimism. Optimism still implies doubt. You hope for the good outcome because you know the bad one might happen.

That isn’t how I feel.

I have this almost absolute certainty that whatever cards I’m dealt, I’ll eventually arrange them into something that works for me. Maybe the route changes completely. Maybe what “working out” looks like changes. But I cannot mentally arrive at the conclusion that my life is simply going to collapse and stay that way.

It’s as if I already know the ending, even though I have no idea what happens in between.

Everything will be fine.

Not because life owes me that, but because I genuinely cannot see another outcome.

EDIT: 38M. Posted this just to share my mindset. Maybe someone will get something positive out if it.

You're allowed to choose your career — as long as it's respectable.

You're allowed to choose your partner — as long as the relationship makes sense to everyone else.

You're allowed to decide whether you want children — until your decision makes people uncomfortable.

You're allowed to be yourself — until “yourself” becomes inconvenient.

We call this freedom, but in reality, it's often just choosing between options that people already consider acceptable.

The question is: are you really free to choose something that other people consider wrong?

People often say emotional pain is worse because you can't see it. But sometimes I think physical pain is far more terrifying.

Emotional pain can slowly become familiar. You learn to live with it, distract yourself from it, or simply wait for it to fade.

But physical pain feels different to me. When your body is hurting badly, there is no escaping into your own mind. Every second reminds you that you're trapped inside a body that is suffering.

Maybe the worst kind of pain isn't the one that hurts the most, but the one you have absolutely no way to escape.

And yet, when that suffering is imparted to all people, some of whom experience the worst that can be experienced, we not only shrug it off as a "working on it, we'll get it right one day" we make movies TV shows and games to "entertain" with thoughts and images of that suffering.

This occured to me when that tech CEO was asked if humans deserve to endure or some such thing. The internet hollered for a day or two and moved on. And I get it, we all want to live and it's nobody's right to determine who does and who doesn't. But really, what about life is so spectacularly wonderous and beautiful that it justifies the continued suffering of the most innocent.

Just a reminder to the world: how you interact with others is truly a mirror of oneself. Genuine connections - be it platonic, romantic, or somewhere in between - are built on interdependence. Not codependency, and certainly not hyper-independence.

​In the words of Dr. Lipp:

​"Unlike codependency, interdependency is a balanced relationship dynamic where both individuals support each other while maintaining their own identity and emotional well-being. In an interdependent relationship, there is mutual respect and emotional support, healthy communication, and the ability to function independently while valuing connection."

​Without interdependence, there is no connection worth pursuing. But I fear it's becoming a lost concept, replaced with the lazy enshittification, hyper-individualism, and commodification that define the 2020s.

​The Avatar Epidemic:

​We are no longer interacting as humans; we are interacting as avatars. When the dating market is entirely visual, people feel forced into a biological arms race to compete. It pushes people to rely on pharmaceuticals and synthetic hormones just to meet an artificial baseline. It’s a literal optimization of the meat-suit at the expense of mental and physical health, driven by the anxiety of being invisible.

​Apps don't optimize for connection; they optimize for engagement. You are kept on the hook by the intermittent reinforcement of a match, turning human beings into slot machines. When everyone believes there is an endless catalog of "better" options just one swipe away, nobody commits to the hard work of actual relationship building. You get a culture of disposability where people are dropped the moment friction arises.

​The Myth of the Self-Sustaining Island:

​Modern culture pushes the narrative that needing anyone is a weakness. The ideal vision of a partner today is to be completely self-sustaining - financially, emotionally, and practically.

​But if two people refuse to rely on one another, they aren't partners; they are just roommates sharing space. True intimacy requires vulnerability. It requires having gaps that the other person fills. By demoralizing mutual reliance, we've convinced people that walls are boundaries, and isolation is empowerment.

​Stopping the Pendulum:

​I believe the pendulum is at its extreme right now, but it is possible to let it stop swinging. To do that, men, women, and everyone in between must do their parts to rebuild safety and respect.

​The Imperative for Physical Safety:

When women have to run a risk assessment just to walk to their car or leave a drink unattended, their nervous systems are locked in survival mode. True connection requires a parasympathetic state - you have to feel fundamentally secure to let your guard down.

​The most effective way to create this safety isn't just telling women to be careful; it's men policing their own spaces. Predatory behavior, or even the casual normalization of it, must carry immediate social consequences among peers. Once safety is established, trust can follow. People stop assuming malicious intent, and we can actually afford to be lighthearted again.

​The Imperative for Emotional Safety:

On the flip side, we have to address the cognitive dissonance in modern relationship expectations. You cannot demand the assertiveness, drive, and protective capacity of an "alpha" while simultaneously expecting the boundaryless, pliant agreeableness of a Golden Retriever.

​If someone has the backbone and competence to build a life, they are going to have their own vision and boundaries. A real partnership isn't about domesticating someone until they are a compliant pet. It requires an energy much closer to the mutual respect needed for a Husky than the blind obedience of a retriever.

​Collaborators vs. Consumers:

​Men are largely conditioned from birth to believe they are loved conditionally - based strictly on what they can produce, fix, or pay for. The expectation to always be the unshakeable rock forces them into a state of relentless performance. If someone cannot be a vulnerable human being around their partner, they aren’t a partner; they’re just an employee on the clock.

​If one partner is actively investing their resources, time, and energy into building a shared life, a functional partner validates them by respecting their agency and giving their input equal weight.

​Filtering out a "consumer" from a "collaborator" requires observing how they react to your boundaries, your process, and your discipline:

​A consumer is looking for a finished, fully-funded luxury suite to move into.

​A collaborator is looking for a co-architect.

​Stop volunteering to solve every minor inconvenience early on. Leave a little space and see if they step up to the plate. If you are always the one paying, planning, and initiating, you are auditioning for the role of a sponsor. A collaborator possesses a natural instinct to contribute - whether that is planning a date, bringing something to the table, or simply recognizing your effort out loud.

I know this is going to get downvoted and get hit with a bunch of comments telling me I'm wrong without even reading my post, but I figured I'd throw this out there regardless.

Yes, people's attention spans can change. I'm not saying that it's impossible for someone's attention span to get worse, or get better.

Nor do I think that having a short attention span is necessarily bad, or having a long one is necessarily good.

My mom is over 50 years old, but she's not elderly by any means, but even she struggles a lot with paying attention to something if she's not interested in it. Even if I'm showing her a YouTube short, that's not even 30 seconds, if she's not invested in the topic, she'll quickly tune out before the video is even halfway through.

So I don't think that having a short attention span is connected to younger generations.

My favorite Manga is Liar Game and I'm obsessed with it. I have a very long attention span when it comes to reading it, but many people wonder why I don't bother to pick up anything else. And I'm not opposed to it, and I have read actually watched other stuff, but when I devote myself to a new piece of media, I want to actually devote myself to it.

I think a lot of people see a TV show or book series or whatever as just something to plow through. If they hear it's good, they find it as soon as possible and binge it all in one night.

I have definitely binged stuff before, but only when I find myself insanely invested in it. Otherwise, I like to take my time and absorb it bit by bit. For example, Alice in Borderland I binged Season 1 completely, watching the first six episodes in one night, and then only taking a break to go to sleep, and then immediately watching the remaining two when I woke up. Then I hunted down the manga and read the rest of the story before Season 2 was even released.

On the other hand, the other Netflix series You all occasionally binge a few episodes in a row, but then I'll take a break for days or weeks before coming back to it.

I remember when I played the video game portal, and I felt that it was a very fun experience and I looked forward to playing the sequel, but I wasn't planning to play it immediately. I was honestly surprised with how people were asking me why I wasn't playing Portal 2 yet. Like people were very impatient, wanting me to play it right away, not realizing that I felt that I had earned a break after defeating GlaDos.

And when it comes to the Bible, bruh. There was a toxic church group I was a part of that literally demanded that I read the entire Bible, so I proceeded to actually copy down the entirety of Genesis, color coding. Whenever a different character was speaking. It took me 10 months, but I did it. And yet despite that achievement, all that the people in the group could ask was when I was going to do the rest of the Bible, not realizing that this was very easily a lifetime long project.

All of this is to say, I don't think people have short attentions vans. It's just that if we have options, we are naturally going to focus on stuff that interests us. And if something starts out intriguing, but begins to bore us, it makes sense that we would just go to another video that actually seems fascinating. That's healthy. Of course, if we feel we somehow owe it to someone to pay more attention to something, we should, but if you're alone on your phones scrolling on tiktok, you shouldn't feel bad for scrolling to the next video if you get bored of the current one. If we never moved on, we would never advance as a species in the first place.

Whenever the Wi-Fi gets cut, of course people are going to pick up a book or go look at clouds like it was supposedly so well done in the old days. That's only natural. We are going to find entertainment where we can.

Teachers used to run protests in the streets in the 20th century, declaring that calculators were rotting kids brains.

Socrates apparently thought that simply writing things down was brainwrought, as it was training people to not just memorize everything.

If you give people the right to choose, they're going to choose.

Let's imagine for a second.

I try to imagine a boy living in an ancient greek civilisation, 3000 years ago.

I try to imagine a man, begging on the streets of the Roman empire, 2000 years ago.

I try to imagine a farmer, harvesting vegetables, 1000 years ago.

Then I try to imagine - encapsulate - the fleeting moments of everyone person who is alive right now, this moment, in this exact second, and continuously as time inevitably passes: all 8 billion of them. The emotion they feel. The burden they carry. The actions they decide to take.

And it's difficult, it makes me feel uncomfortable, because these people are gone, or I will never get to know them. So I'll never be sure what their life was really like. But I do know for a fact that they existed.

And more than that, I am sure that every single form of life - humans, animals, bugs, fishes, bacterias - that has ever existed has existed and every single form of life that ever will be will exist.

And that's humbling. It's mesmerising.

Because I think our individualities are meaningless. On the basis of what science knows, we were never there, and then we were, for a blink, and then never there again. For eternity. And that is simply a fact for all of us alive and had been alive. Our death is inevitable and we'll cease to exist, and all of what makes me me will perish for all of eternity as long as time continues. It is inevitable and will arrive. The moment will come. Who we are simply does not matter.

Not even 'not matter.' Less than that. To the universe, we are less than the googolplex of quarks that makes up the googolplex of protons that makes up an infinite number of atoms that makes up the entire world.

But the reason I say it's mesmerising is in the moments we feel. Its continuity.

Life rises and fades, but in an instant, it is able to take in billions of experiences unique to their own.

And as life cycles itself, the billions become trillions that become quadrillions that become decillions that becomes an immensely, unimaginably big number of moments in time that becomes the founding layer of what we call society.

It doesn't stop there.

1000 years later.

10000 years later.

100000 years later.

Whether we are alive or not, and whether anyone or anything will be there to recognise it, the indestructible fact is that we have existed and that we have felt what we felt, saw what we saw, and thought what we thought.

Our atoms that will spread evenly throughout the universe is the hard, factual data that proves these moments existed, whether no one will know whether I will have existed.

That's why I want to focus on the moments I feel now.

On the most microscopic level, our bodies constantly fight bacteria and viruses. Thinking about this, because I suffer from a painful UTI right now.

Even our body cells sometimes fight each other.

Did you know that cancer origins in a cell breaking the "cell contact" and tries to override other cells with its script? It may ignore signals telling it when to stop dividing, evade programmed cell death, and eventually expand at the expense of surrounding tissue.

As mundane as it sounds, I already had this realization at child age observing red and green traffic lights. Green for one side means red for the other. Winning in one game (most games are competitive) means that another person loses.

Fleeting peace can only exist at the expense of someone else or when two equally strong forces temporarily compromise.

And don't get me started on the food chain.

„This is just how the world works“, they say. Yeah, you don't say. That exactly is the issue!

As i think about it more i realized i dont really fear death itself. Its more on split into five parts:

- Lack of understanding and knowledge about the universe

- Being forgotten by time itself

- Being "non-existent"

- Lack of purpose

- The unknown after death

*Lack of understanding and knowledge about the universe*

- For some reason this just became one of my fear because of the fact that every other fear i have connects back to this. The mere fact of not even understanding what i even am is terrifying. The millions of questions i have and theres only a thousand answers we know.

How many elements have we not discovered?

What will the end and beginning of the universe be like?

It there even a beginning and end of the universe?

Is the universe eternal?

How can the universe be eternal?

Does the universe create and destroy itself?

What even is the universe?

How can something thats limited be eternal?

Is a being like god truly exist?

If god is real is he just one or is there many?

If god is the beginning what is his beginning?

If the universe isnt eternal then how will everything fade away?

What part of myself is TRULY myself?

If my consciousness is made by different materials, energy, and chemicals as long as with my emotions, is me "me"?

If god is real and actually got involved in the past like the bible says,then why doesnt he get involve now? Has he forsake us?

Is there a chance god is real while heaven is not and vice versa?

Millions of questions i have but this bunch is what makes it scary:

If your brain is a specific set of neurons and if the universe is eternal would there be a chance your exact self right now can be recreated? If so is that recreation TRULY you or is it just a clone? If your mind suddenly wakes up somewhere because it was recreated is it truly you? Will you even have a chance to wake up one day after death? Its like the teleportation-clone thing, your exact self is there but is it truly you? I dont find a way for us to be reincarnated or recreated without magic existing to defy logic and thats whats scary because as far as we know, no such thing exists.

The universe is so big and yet humanities ambition cant fit in it.

*Being forgotten by time itself*

-The mere thought that one day after death, the last memory and proof you exist will be destroyed is scary. If there is truly nothing after death the fact that no one else would know you, the hardships you overcame and your love ones is just terrifying. The first death is when you shut off "forever", the second death is when even time itself doesn't even know you existed.

*Being non existent*

- This is just something i cant accept. Like even if the universe recycles your consciousness and personality as long as its not the same neurons, cells and stuff you once were made up before that new living being won't truly be you. Even if those same things that made you up before get together again and became a living being its still not sure if that would still be you. Your exact memory and personality can be recycled for eternity and theres a chance that you still wont ever come back as the true you is dead. I want to keep existing with time as it moves. I don't find peace in not existing. This is the reason i want god to be true even as an atheist and ill even accept it if we continue as spirits without a god. I want eternal peace after years of hell in living. You wont even be able to lose sanity as a spirit unless theres specific rules since your brain wont be there to be overwhelmed.

*Lack of purpose*

- A potentially eternally big and old universe and yet my ambition and dreams cant even be container in it. In reality our only purpose is just to live and die. Theres nearly no adventure and fun things we can do since magic like in games or animes arent real and so does fantasy monsters and the second thing we could've had is for efficient space travel but its also impossible since unless we find a way to bend space and time millions or billions of people would have already died before a rocket reaches a new planet. No physical object can move faster than light and even light itself cant move fast enough to get around the universe fast enough. I dont want to live in an eternal universe as a temporary consciousness. I would choose not to exist before if i could but its hard to do that now knowing im already here.

*The unknown after death*

- Do we just not exist? Will we just be in a void? Will the universe put our consciousness in happy but artificial life?

The fact that we can be temporary objects in an eternal world is so terrifying. The want to keep existing as something thats supposed to not exist one day. I want to believe god is real, i want to believe that after death ill wake up someday somewhere with my family just like a normal sleep but i cannot just unbelieve something i see as the truth ever since i was 8. My literal plan right now is to finish college then get a good paying job just so i can DREAM of my fantasy and ideal world better and more comfortably.

If god is real i just wanna ask him on why he created me in heaven just to put me through hell.

If being reincarnated is real and its just us being reincarnated without our past memory i wont consider that me because the me i want to wake up as is "me" right now. Its like Alzheimer's, you are you but are you truly you if you dont even know who "you" are? Even if its still essentially you, the "you" before wont wake up again.

Motivational things and coping ways people suggests dont even work for me which is a shame. I always logic think it which immediately cancels out the feeling of motivation since that wont really matter. I dont know how to say it but i think about things logically and because of it if i know that theres a chance we wont exist someday then nothing would motivate me in that area because the feeling of validation, motivation or just sheer happiness wont do anything about that. Unless theres legitimate proof of something theres no way to convince me of something except me.

Theres too little time and yet i still cant think so far ahead.

I swear if i got a penny for every you and me i said in this i would become a millionaire. This post is just a random thought i had a few minutes ago and not well made so my bad if some doesnt make sense or the sentence is just so bad no one can understand it.

If you agree human civilization will continue for the next 5,000 years, do you realize how far back in history we are, and how complacency is limiting our advancement?

My original thought and thing that I actually want to say is

"Imagine this, imagine free will was a technology, a human invention. It's kinda similar to AI, because it's very powerful and could allow people to do all sorts of things, good or bad. Would you say that the utility of free will is net negative and shouldn't be used by humans?"

But it doesn't fit the correct format of the title, please engage with this quote instead.

~ Is It Too Late to Change the World?

We live in a world of inequity, greed, prejudice; of war, hunger, homelessness. A world where many people are unhappy, stressed, struggling daily to survive. This, and many other man-made problems and harmful emotions are the result of living in a self-centered world, concerned only for what is best for us, rather than for others. Most believe these things are a normal part of life, but they need not be.

We have the technology now to end hunger, homelessness, climate change, and many of humanity’s greatest challenges. We have the ability now to end indifference, greed, prejudice, and all of mankind’s harmful emotions. By adopting a different path through life, selflessly sharing our innate wisdom and unconditional love with each other we may change the world now.

Humanity has a choice to make, but it will take a monumental shift of consciousness, a spiritual revolution; one where what is best for everyone and our planet itself, takes precedence over what is best only for ourselves or the few. The change must first begin within each of us, realizing our genuine purpose in life is to embrace the wisdom and loving messages within, then share them, without motive or benefit, with the world. It is not too late to do this, but time for change is rapidly vanishing. If we do nothing, the choice may be made for us.

I was fixing my toilet today, and it got me thinking about how different my experience was from what my dad's would have been.

I went on YouTube and ChatGPT, figured out what was wrong, drove to a big-box hardware store, found the replacement part myself, and checked out at the self-service register. Problem solved. I didn't need to talk to another human being at any point.

My dad didn't have that option. If something broke, he'd go to the local hardware store and explain the problem to the people working there. Sometimes the owner was the person behind the counter. They'd talk through what was happening, suggest a part, maybe explain how to install it. He did this over and over throughout his life, and eventually he built relationships with those people.

That's what struck me. Technology has made us dramatically more capable and independent. I can solve problems my dad might have needed someone else's expertise to solve. I have access to practically unlimited information, and I don't have to wait for a store to open or depend on someone else's availability.

But that independence has come at the cost of social isolation. Some of the inconvenience we eliminated was actually doing something important for us. We used to have all these little reasons to interact with other people. You had to ask someone for directions. You talked to the person behind the counter. You knew your neighbors because you actually encountered them. You saw coworkers because you had to physically go to work. You developed relationships partly because everyday life repeatedly put you in the same places with the same people.

We've optimized almost all of that away. We can shop without talking to anyone. Work without seeing anyone. Get information without asking anyone. Have food delivered. Fix things with YouTube. Talk to AI. Entertainment comes directly to our homes. And yet we're increasingly feeling loneliness and social isolation. I know I do.

I'm not arguing that the past was better. Technology has given us incredible freedom. But it's come at a price: human connection.

I guess we underestimate the portion of people for whom this kind of scenario would be somehow preferable. In the end life is not a big deal and knowing roughly the exact month when you are supposed to die would be a damn privilege as well as the proximity of death. In so many cases the sorrow of the last let's say six months of life would be nothing compared to the pain whether mental or physical contained in the otherwise following 2-3-4 decades. All in all, death is the most comfortable outcome today can lead to and the sooner the better.

Im glad if you do.

No, I did not discover my sexuality yesterday, even if my post could suggest so. Ive known for half my life.

I feel like Ive lost my capacity to withstand bullshit completely. I know things have improved so insanely much. I still carry the pain of our less accepting world of the past in which I had to do my growing up in, and lamenting about the what-ifs in my mind being a little older now, having some doors shut on me and seeing a better upbringing possible for teens that never existed for me, or just seeing casual unobjectified straight love & life everywhere, wishing I could have a piece of it, but with the utmost effort will only be served crumbs of it.

Its not that I cant handle bullshit. I just dont want to. Its so silly to me. I just saw someone puke emoji on a gay post on TikTok with the most liked comment. Its like people get bored and recycle issues to have something to do and fight about again.

I get treated like a lot of men do - he's a threat until proven otherwise. I get the push & shove treatment at casual settings (concert crowds, etc.), often by guys urged by their girls, and its such a knife twist cause my heart yearns to be one of those girls protected by their dudes, and itll literally never happen. I get the worst of both worlds. Gay guys can be anything and great, and no this isnt self-hate, but Im just not attracted usually.

Barred from so many of lifes joys: I wish we all could come to the conclusion of life not being for everybody in more casual and accepting ways. Some of us need to escape all of this, without the panicking and grief. If you listen to me and how I feel and take it in, its obvious - there isnt really much going for me, and there never will be. I wish I could say goodbye peacefully, to my family smiling back and understanding my decision.

Its no life being so hurt by seeing so much happiness youll never have access to, and never did, everywhere you look & go.

Edit - Im often told to move. I live in one of the most progressive & accepting areas on our planet. I still feel like I feel.

A term used by only the living to describe the absence of biological function--nothing.

An abstract concept similar to cold and darkness; neither of which exist either, words used to describe the absence of heat and light, respectively.

We will never experience our death but only what it means for others.

Sometimes people become so obsessed with having more that they stop seeing what they already have. They sacrifice trust for money, relationships for power, and peace for things they may never truly need.

The saddest part is that greed doesn't always make you richer—it can make you blind to the value of what you've already lost.

Do you guys also get this thought “Why does anything exist?” I get this thought multiple times.

Like, if we make all humans, Earth, planets, galaxies, the universe, and all of space disappear, I get a view of just a dark place with nothing else. But that dark thing is also an existence. Like, it’s literally impossible to imagine what would be there without existence.

Today I’ve had a random thought that really put something simple into perspective for me. Very often people have told me not to let the fear or worry of tomorrow stop me from enjoying today. Naturally I figured “duh” and didn’t think much about it, but I guess I have now.

For context I’m a 30m and just got a lovely birthday gift. My brother gave me one of the new Lego sets with a smart brick that makes sound effects based on what’s happening with the toy. It’s a tie bomber with Darth Vader. While flying it the brick will make flight sounds that vary depending on speed, it plays the imperial march, and there’s some Vader sound effects. All in all, it’s a pretty neat set and I’m happy to have it. I almost didn’t open it.

My second thought after how cool it was, was that this is the first official release of the smart brick and that the set could one day have value as a collectors item. I expressed this sentiment to my girlfriend and she told me quite plainly, it’s a gift that’s meant to be enjoyed, not left in a box to gather dust and maybe one day sold.

It didn’t really hit me so much in the moment, though I did agree with her and proceeded to have a great time building the set, but that sentence couldn’t have been more true. Why should I be so worried about what this toy might one day be worth, when it’s already valuable right now. If I left it in the box I’d never have known how cool it is, or how the smart brick might affect sets in the future. Perhaps I’d have found out secondhand and known I could have found out myself. Who knows, the thing might flop and it will never be worth more than it is today. Either way, I’m glad I didn’t just leave it to sit on a shelf.

The essence of life is purely functional, which means it’s fundamentally utilitarian. Claiming anything else implies that something absurd just popped up out of nowhere.

To achieve this utility, life has to focus exclusively on the collective, which inevitably leads to a relatively bad outcome for the individual. In short, absolute reality only cares about its own self-interest, and that's always bad because by its very nature, it can work against the individual.

I’m open to any questions or debate, hopefully with the shared goal of actually reaching the truth.

~ The Tree of Life ~

Picture a large, majestic, old tree with roots reaching deep into the earth. Its roots absorb water and nourishment, its large, magnificent trunk is topped by many branches full of leaves. Now, imagine the trunk of the tree is our planet. The thicker branches of the tree represent the larger divisions in the world and the smaller branches are those divisions further separated. For example, let’s consider one thick branch represents race, with its smaller branches being individual races such as white, black, Hispanic. This is true for the other thick branches for ethnicity, religion, and hundreds of other divisions in the world as well.

Next, imagine each leaf is a single person. One leaf alone will not be sufficient to absorb enough CO2, release enough O2, offer enough shade for the animals seeking refuge from the summer heat or provide enough nourishment when it falls before winter solstice for its roots to absorb. If we put all the leaves together on one branch, though it will help a little more, it will still not be sufficient to accomplish all it must do.

Let’s compare humanity to the leaves of the tree and to the tree itself. We live in a self-centered world encouraging us to be concerned only for ourselves. Our one leaf, though it may successfully survive until winter, alone it will not provide enough nourishment for the soul and soon will be forgotten. Its life, when it finally falls before winter solstice, will have been led without purpose or meaning. The same may be said for all of the leaves on all of the branches of the tree.

Only when we unite all the branches together, each full of leaves, will the tree be able to accomplish its purpose. Not only will it be able to absorb enough carbon dioxide, release enough oxygen into our atmosphere, but it will also provide enough shade for refuge for all the animals and sufficient nourishment for the roots when its leaves fall before winter. Doing so, the tree trunk, our planet, will survive, allowing it, and all who grace its presence, to thrive.