The Way I See It

Today I sat quietly thinking.  My mind filled with images and words about the condition of the world today.  Reading about them in papers; hearing about them on the News.  I had discussions with my closest friend and members of my family about them.  I listened to all the points of view about the war in the Middle East; the North Korean concerns; the conditions in Africa;  the crime in our American cities.  Each person of my generation seemed to be of the same opinions and all were at a loss for any solutions.  As for me, well I have always thought of myself as an individualist and yet, a staunch supporter of justice for all.  I’ve intense feelings of fairness and often cannot rest my mind when something occurs that I feel is unjust. At times these thoughts swirl inside my mind needing an escape.  The best way I have found to expel them is to write poetry or better said, what I believe to be poetry.  So for the rest of this week I will choose some of my poems and share them with you on this blog.  With my sanguine attitude I will begin by sharing my thoughts on humanity, since that at the moment seems to be the predominant force inside my cerebrum.

Through emotional intellect we sometimes see what we ordinarily overlook.  We all experience humanity in our everyday existence, only we think we are different. The language of words, in whatever form they possess, spoken, unspoken and written connect us all.  ~ Kathy Napoli

Come share my words that I hope will inspire you.

Is Humanity a Myth?

To know one another through human familiarity or frailty 

Opens the path to peace 

Deliberating all differences as a form of communication

Paints the road with compassion

comprehension,  and patience

Asking questions and learning about one another

opens minds and ends all illusions

Existing together as one human race

Begins a euphoric condition

Resulting in peace throughout each one’s space

Illuminating humanity as life not myth

We merge as the same race – all sharing a similar body

Hoping all senses and intellect intact 

Will grant us the comfort to be able to be.

Knowing only what we have learned

Learn to love and you will love

Learn to hate and you will hate

Learn to conquer and you will conquer

Never giving peace its chance

Is killing the human race

Seeking peace is the salvation

Within the human race

~Kathy Napoli

I and others like me have tried to comprehend the political, religious and pragmatic sides of wars and abuse, crime and depravity, but aren’t things that a sane mind can grasp. These atrocities in life seem to repeat throughout history, no lessons being learned, no sensible reasoning for disrupting peace, and no regard for the human species in general. It is a sad world we exist in today, perhaps sadder than ever before since the emergence of formidable technology.  Everything is transparent for all eyes to see, so how can we not at least try to make a difference? Here in NY some people held an “Occupy Wall Street” protest against the corporate world, people from many walks of life and places around the world heard their cries.  I would love to see bloggers and others who use words to make a difference, perhaps begin an “Occupy Cyberspace” with messages of humanity.  That would be totally cool in this ever-changing speeding technological world where we exist.  Oh well, wishful thinking again on my part to right injustices.

It has dawned on me many times that perhaps to understand the ugliness in the world we need to look at it closer and identify it before we can begin to change it. Or perhaps we do see it and have no control over its spreading.  In either case, my thoughts are below.

Ugliness

    Today the media shows it everyday.  It is in print, it is on television and radio every hour on the hour.  It is in everyone’s home, on everyone’s lips and in everyone’s mind. It is impossible to hide and no one can completely turn away.  It is provocative and alluring. It is history in the making.  It is war.  It is inhumanity. 

  Human nature tries to turn from ugliness.  It masks itself with excuses.  No one wants to admit that ugliness has a right to live side by side with beauty because it is too hard to accept.  The reasons for it cannot be truthfully known for it is only the truth of those who must create it.  Blame has no place in ugliness just as it was born it will die.  Yet, to endure it is to be in the pit with the beast. 

    Beauty is simple.  There are no complications. It just exists as it was created and pleasured for– as it is accepted.  Ugliness does not share this epiphany.  It must reveal itself over and over again for it to be looked upon.  Its hideous, deplorable methods are drawn toward the center of each human being’s existence.  With the absence of ugliness – the world would not know the value and joy of beauty. 

   If we had the power to strike down all that was ugly, could we survive?  As a race of human beings we must embrace ugliness so that true beauty can surface. Realistically, all ugliness is not evil, yet evil is the ultimate ugliness we know.  Our existence is based on the powers of good and evil, we have not evolved to a level of wisdom wise enough to decipher the real difference.  So we must determine with limited ability the realism we exist by and that is acceptance of all things that are beautiful and ugly without truly knowing if it is good or evil.  

  War is ugly and war may be evil, yet without war those who embrace evil will create all that is ugly within the world.  Peace is the ultimate beauty, yet peace can only be fully achieved by eliminating all that is ugly and yet, all that is ugly is not evil.  To accept both beauty and ugliness and not equate it with good and evil is to reach a level that human beings have yet to achieve.  Peace must be seen as ugly and accepted as beauty for the human race to realize its destiny  

~ Kathy Napoli

And that is The Way I See It here in Brooklyn,

K

I have to laugh or cry in today’s world of information. I never was so involved with my own political side until my disability forced me into early retirement eight years ago. Watching a lot of television, reading a lot of books and articles and engaging in social media taught me more about the state of our world than I ever really wanted to know.

Through all of it the free exchange of ideas seems to have turned into a domestic battle field of who is right and who is wrong. True objectivity has vanished from existence. It occurred to me today that everyone journalists, commentators, reporters, producers, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. every single person expresses their facts, thoughts, ideas, opinions, conversations, et al, with one single foundational beginning….experience. Myself included. The way we think, the way we write, the way we study, the way we research, the way we hold a simple conversation all of it comes from what we were taught to do from what we were exposed to in life. That is experience.

Therefore, what we think about the political climate today is greatly influenced by our experiences. It is difficult to be objective in the face of adversity to our own thought process. We all want to convince the other person that they are wrong and we are right.  How truly unfair that is in terms of human nature. Most professionals, in particular teachers and journalists believe facts are facts.  How they arrive at that conclusion is by being influenced by their own experiences to take a cited article or author at absolute faith.  To be convinced it is actual reality because it is backed by statistics and formal data.  It gets pushed under the rug when those very same facts that were taught for generations as truths are all of a sudden disproven because some other entity has decided that all the facts that were known to be true when taught were all conspiracy theories to brainwash all children to believe in them. I ask you does that make any more sense than the idea that we now must believe in the “new” facts because someone changed the “old” ones based on their experiences when they did the same research that was previously done?  All of a sudden did new information come to light?  If it did it was based on the experience of the current person or people now presenting the “new” facts.  How you might ask does a fact now change because someone said it is now a different fact? The way people interpret those very facts are the way they will be presented to the world. So in logic are they actually “facts” because someone wrote them down eons ago? Or are they “facts interpreted by people with experiences that influenced their rational for labeling them facts?

Yes, I know deep thought stuff. However deep thought seems to be the only tool left to us that can form any type of common sense out into the open. To base our facts upon theory or hypothetical illusions is nonsense. To take to heart every fact that ever was and yet has been changed through the ages is also nonsense. However, gathering whatever information is out there deciphering it, dissecting it and filtering it through our common sense and experiences is where we will find our truths to live by. Where our own innate understanding will rise to our intellectual capability and allow us to follow a path that in the end will be our “facts”, tempered by our instincts, and emboldened by our experiences, only then will we believe half of what we read and all of what we see. Only then will facts actually become facts because we will have lived them.

And that is how I See It here in Jackson!

K