Mood:
chillin'Now Playing: The Planets (Gustav Holst)- Royal Scottish National Orchestra
"Imagine all the people, living life in peace
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one"
(Lennon, John) not;
(Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov)
I had a dream once. I dreamt that one day all people of the earth would live in an harmonious utopia. I don't think this will occur in my lifetime and the way things are now it may not happen in the time of my great-great grandchildren.
You may think this to be a rather negative belief but I think it is the belief of most of the world. Not the hope, but the belief. Most of us tend to gravitate towards being realists and cannot picture a civilised world without war, famine and plague.
This is a list of some of my favourite books/movies:
- Brave New World
- Brave New World Revisited
- Brazil
- Metropolis
- 12 Monkeys
- Dark City
- Logan's Run
- The Matrix
- 1984
- Daybreak
- Watership Down
- Things To Come
- The Time Machine
Do you see a recurring theme?
All tales of dystopia and/or utopian dreams.
The reason I thought of all of this now is due a simple walk I took earlier this evening.
Upon the return walk from the nearby 7/11 convenience store/petrol station, I looked at a solitary house. Solitary because although it is surrounded by buildings it stands completely alone, almost out of fear. It's yard is fully fenced and although it stands within two metres of the actual structure of the house, each and every window is barred. I thought to myself "If walls, doors, fences and locks are to keep people in rather than keep people out, then the people inside that home must be downright evil. Either that or paranoid". Then I started thinking about what it would take to create a complete utopian society. Here are some points I came up with:
1- People would need to learn to trust other people. I don't mean the lackadaisical and incredulous trust we give everyday to others. I am talking about the absolute, unwavering trust that child gives his/her parents.
Actually, that's about it. TRUST.
With absolute trust in others of our species, we could overcome all our differences.
With trust there would be no need for anyone to close themselves off behind ridiculous security systems and unsightly fences.
Was it Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed who said, "Love others as you love yourself" and "Do unto others as you would have done unto you". It doesn't matter one iota who said these words, it does matter that both sayings stem directly from trust. Trusting ourselves. There is the key ladies and gentlemen, trusting ourselves. Only then we can say "Trust others as you trust yourself" and "Trust others as you yourself should be trusted". Love is all very well and good but without trust it can barely register a warm fuzzy feeling.
We do display a certain amount of trust in our day to day lives of course. We trust the bus driver to follow safe driving procedure. We trust that the bank teller has entered the account number correctly. We trust that when our children tell us they have eaten ALL their lunch, that they have in fact eaten ALL of it. We try and trust that our political leaders are doing at least a half-arsed job of running things. We trust that nobody has a reason for detonating a nuclear device too close to our home. We assume the trust that local law enforcement is there to protect us from those we can't trust. Sometimes, trust is broken and can take time to heal. It happens in our world today and no one is free from that occurence. Wouldn't it be nice.
Wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a world where there was mutual trust between all people and all nations. I speak of positive trust, not negative.
When George W. Bush was first up for election, I recall sitting on a lounge at my then girlfriends' grandparents house watching the Fox coverage of the Republican and Democratic parties' love-fest rally. I told her what I thought would happen if George Wanker Bush got elected. It wasn't good. I knew then, as did millions more around the world, that he would be just like daddy. A war-mongering psychopath. Turns out we were right, but it doesn't feel good in a trivia-night-winning "I was right, I was right" sort of way. It really bites because I wish I had been wrong. But, I trusted that G.W.B would lead the US in the way he has i.e. in a dystopian spiral towards tyranny. In Bush I trusted, and he has certainly delivered well beyond my expectations. I had hoped to be wrong but I have been justified in what I said that night and on many other occasions.Negative trust is detrimental and does no one any favours, but it is quite unavoidable when we look around at the world today.
Trust is broken, betrayed, shattered and denied on a daily basis in all corners of the globe but I consider it to be the strongest instigator towards a better world.
If we can trust ourselves, the rest will follow.