This World is Possible

 The "Playing for Change" foundation is an organization that recreates songs using artists from all over the world playing together to make the song beautiful. And the most interesting thing about it is these artists do not get together and play in the same place. Each artists is filmed and recorded in their own place, Country and city or town, one piece at a time.

The logistics, the arranging of the music, all the work needed to make all of this come together, and the professionalism of all involved, is totally mind boggling.

And, in my opinion, it takes a lot of Love.

I just watched, and listened to, a Playing for Change video doing a wonderful version of "It's a Wonderful World" by the late Great Satchmo. AKA Louis Armstrong.

And the most wonderful thing, in my opinion, was they had most of the singing done by 3 different children's choirs on three different continents.

And as I was watching and listening to this I got teary eyed. Because I began to get a glimpse of the world that we could have if we raised our children to sing with each other, to be with each other in joy, to celebrate the differences instead of fear them.

And I truly believe that this world is possible.

And, in order to achieve this world we, the "adults" in the world, are going to need to give up some things.

We must give up Being Judgmental with each other. And we are judgmental with each other  all the time. Now Making a Judgment and Being Judgmental are two different horses. If I make a judgment about what you do in your life and choosing whether or not I want to include you in my life is perfectly harmless. Everyone does that. Being Judgmental is when I diminish you to myself and others after making that judgment, usually with self righteous and better than vibes. That diminishes your humanity and shortly becomes about how you must change or cease to exist. We must give up Being Judgmental.

We must give up Prejudice. AKA Pre Judging. We must stop deciding who you are as a Human Being based on outside circumstances is wrong. Things like, the color of our skin, who we love, how we love, how we dress, what we listen to, where we worship, or not worship, how we identify. We must stop Pre Judging each other.

We must give up the Right to be Angry. When we are angry we make stupid choices, especially when that anger is being fed by other outlets that agree with what we are angry about. And we must especially guard against Self Righteous Anger. Anger that we think is justified by the actions and behaviors of people and things outside ourselves. Allow ourselves to see what and how things happened, form a judgment about whether or not we have been done wrong, and do not allow anger to cloud this judgment. Also anger that we have been directed to by others. Especially now. Our political system is being swallowed up and destroyed by a very loud section of our population who have been convinced to be angry at powerless people and to blame them for the shortcomings that they are facing in their lives. And once people can be convinced to be angry at, and blame, a certain class of people they can be manipulated into performing horrific deeds. Look to our own history with the Native Population, our Black Brothers and Sisters, our Asian Brothers and Sisters, for evidence. Or Germany in the 1920's, 30's, and 40's. We MUST give up our Right to be Angry.

We must give up our Right to Blame. We blame things Outside Ourselves, People, Places, Things, and Situations. We must begin looking inside of ourselves for the solutions that we need. And I do not mean that we must pass by what has happened and who did what. I mean that once we recognize what has happened and what needs to be fixed then we must not fix blame, we must fix that within us that made it possible. We must give up our Right to Blame.

We must give up that Our Way is the Only way. Our way can be the only way for us. And we DO NOT have the right to tell anyone else that Our Way is the Only Way for them. We must give up that Our Way is the Only Way.

We must give up Being Right. When we are being right then there is no way forward to learn and grow. And when we are being right that means that others are wrong. We must give up Being Right.

We must give up Making Others Wrong. When we make others wrong there is no coming back from that. They will always be wrong to us. And until we give that up we cannot undo this. We must give up Making Others Wrong.

We must give up Looking Outside of Ourselves in order to Fix Internal Problems. When we are looking for others to fix us we can never be fixed. When we are damaged, and it is almost always outside forces that do this damage, we must look internally to fix what we need to fix. We must give up Looking Outside of Ourselves in order to Fix Internal Problems.

We must Take Responsibility for Our Entire Lives. Good, Bad, or Indifferent. We must be responsible for ourselves. And that does not mean being responsible for what outside forces did to us. It does mean being responsible for our reaction/response to what happened.  Because until I am responsible I cannot fix anything. As long as it is "Your Fault" I can only stay stuck in place. We must Take Responsibility for Our Entire Lives.

We MUST Become the Human Community. We are too interwoven in this world to stay in our separate little tribes. We must escape our Tribalism slash Nationalism and Become the Human Family, the Human Community. I do not see us as being able to survive as the Human Race if we do not become Greater than we are now. We MUST Become the Human Community.

And we must Bring Up the Following Generations with all of this in mind. Because all of the above is not inherently a part of the Human Animal. It is taught. It must be learned. So we can bring up the following generations to be accepting, inward looking and outward facing, to celebrate our differences and recognize that our diversity really is our strength.

I Truly Believe that this world is possible. And this is the world that I want to live in. And I believe that this word is the only world that we, Humanity, can Survive and Thrive in.

This World is Possible.

Will YOU help make it a Reality?