At present, we are bombarded on a daily basis virtually with a tremendous amount of information, just tremendous. Now, most of the information, as you and I both know is either manipulated, half truths, or just plain lies, period. But if we don’t know some history which many of us seemingly do not know, we live in the moment and the moment is a terrifying place to be in because I’m scared. I’m afraid The end of the world is upon us. So if you ask a class of young people how social media, for example, has impacted their world, they would say tremendously.
And how do you feel? Mostly, anxious. I feel in a state of anxiousness, fear, if you will. And the question then becomes, how does one overcome this anxiousness, this fear, this state of the world that we perceive. Very important, I believe, to stand back and realize that the vast majority of us have never confronted physical violence.
We’ve never been shot, we’ve never been stabbed, and we certainly have never been blown up. So our experience can only be positive unless we filter our reality through the news media. And I think we all realize that the news media, once again, is designed to scare people and to sell newspapers. It is just not true. So to overcome this anxiousness, I think it is very important to learn a little history, to step a little bit into the past.
Recently, I was reading an article on the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, and apparently, there was a Russian submarine that was somewhat isolated. It had lost communication with Moscow. It didn’t know what was going on, and they decided to launch a nuclear missile against the Americans. The only caveat was that everyone that was in a command situation on the submarine had to agree, and there was one man who did not agree. One lieutenant did not agree.
Therefore, we did not stumble into nuclear war. Now, what does that one man teach us? He teaches us, I believe, that independent thought, critical thinking, if you will, can save the day. But we have to practice it continuously and we must learn some history. And if we think of 1962, some 80 or so years ago, we begin to realize that we haven’t changed very much.
We’re still frail human beings that must go forward and learn. So what am I gonna do? Firstly, my anxiousness. I’m going to realize that who creates my anxiousness? Of course, I do.
Because if I’m not here, I’m not anxious because I don’t exist. Therefore, what do I do? Usually, a series of exercises, but most importantly, one must train the brain to realize that it is an extremely positive life for the most part. And, yes, sometimes things can happen that are very bad, but they mostly don’t. And this was reinforced the other day to me.
I was reading something about the stoics, and the stoics apparently claimed that one must always think the worst could happen in a given circumstance. And, you know, I’m not that kind of person. I usually think of the best. I’m positive. So, it’s getting a little bit late.
I want to go to a gym. So I get on my scooter and I’m not a fast driver at all, but I’m going along kind of preoccupied, And at one particular street, a truck slowed down and then immediately turned right in front of me. The truck literally was a heartbeat away from hitting me, or rather I was a heartbeat away from hitting the truck, and it would have been an extremely unpleasant beginning to the day. Right? So the negative reality could have happened.
But for the most part, it doesn’t, does it? So when I think of the news once again, I must realize that a lot of this is filtered through a lens that I don’t occupy, a lens of pain. Overcome this once again, I realized my first caveat that I give myself this state of anxiousness. And secondly, I’m going to learn something about how human beings have interacted before. And once I learned this, I realized that we’re playing a game once again in history.
We’re living through history. And if I want to change the world, I believe the way I change the world is to change me. And when I change me, if I’m less anxious or if somebody makes a negative comment about some war somewhere and I have some historical background, I can explain to people the context of the war. So I’m just not stumbling along in a state of ignorance. And then, slowly but surely, we will come to a time, I believe, that we can change the world.
Just very quickly, the salt march in India in 1930. And this was a march led by Gandhi, Gandhi g as he’s called, sir Gandhi. It’s an honorific Gandhi g. Going to march to the sea to collect salt and the salt, therefore, I’m gonna sprinkle on my chapatis and I’m not gonna pay any tax. And the British government, of course, went crazy and they arrested Gandhi, etcetera, etcetera.
But his action, the action of one man and some followers, of course, proved that if you approach something from a nonviolent way, you can change the world, Sadia So coming back to our news, the violence, the anger, the frustration that exists many times that we see this on the news, but it’s not the way we’re going to change anything. We’re going to change by becoming peaceful inside of ourselves, controlling our anxiety, learning something about our past so we can bring it forward to the present, and then realize that though life may be fickle, of course, it is, for the most part, an extremely pleasant and beautiful life. And you know what they say. You know what they say. If I’m going to get past my anxiety, I’m going to have to realize that critical thinking is necessary in my life and critical thinking is great. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.