Do you see the world and everything in it as a collection of designed items that are interconnected elements of one huge, complex system that has an expiry date? If you do, and you have good reason to, you will have a very different thinking process than the individual who regards the universe and earth and its contents as a mysterious “given” that somehow “happened”.
If you read about the experiences and thinking of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace during the middle 1800s, they were mentally and physically active men and I get the impression that they were really nice guys, well liked by others. But their thinking on survival of the fittest and natural selection** and evolution** was shorted out logic, perhaps helped along by unseen powers. It is so hard to understand how such childish views could grab these experienced men and also be so attractive to so many others! They were kingpins, it would appear, in the “somehow happened” camp.
The first viewpoint is something an individual can relate to and analyse. You are a creative being. You know how to plan things and make things and you know that anything that you make, has a mind – yours - and a motive behind it. Obviously your own productive efforts are not a nebulous mystery that you can’t understand. If questioned on your creations, you can answer “wherefore and why” type questions.
Those who hold the “somehow happened” view may make a stab at “wherefore” questions but the “why”, to them, is an irrelevant question. To them, there is no “why”. But that is their problem. If they chose to live in dreamland – let them go for it!
But for those with some common sense and eyes that can actually see, let’s think about the endless line-up of “why” questions and marvel.
Why do humans start so small and go through the unbelievably complex process of physical growth and aging? Why are life spans so consistent? Why is there the generational / parent / child mechanism? How does the marvel of genetic transfer work? Why is there the complicated male / female mechanism? Why isn’t reproduction more along the lines of an auto assembly line that starts the machine in final form – no complexities of changing tire sizes and metal skins as the machine grows! Why do we age and die? Why not simply be born, live, and then run indefinitely, run out of fuel and stop, or perhaps explode like fireworks when a timer indicates the final moment has arrived? Why don’t we come with easily replaceable parts? Why don’t some people start old and grow younger like the Benjamin Button character? Such a situation is as reasonable as the amazing process that always happens with such consistency. We take so many amazing things for granted simply because they are so consistent. The wild deviation from blank nothingness loses its shocking impact due to the stable familiarity of the seeming miraculous situation we wallow in.
Anyone who has designed anything knows that an intelligent designer has incredible leeway for creativity. And the complexity and consistent reliability of the creation that we are part of tells us that The Designer has incredible capacities.
(An important side note; if you are bombarded with examples of designs where you know that all came from a single personality, you have an opportunity to get an effective read on the designer’s mind. Is he intelligent? Is he a complex planner? Is he logical? Does he have a sense of humor? Is he artistic? Does he have deep pockets and lots of resources? Where does he seem to be headed with his creations? Are his projects evolving over time and if so, what meaning can be linked to the changes? Can you relate to him and admire his style? Does his mind work in ways similar to your own? If so, what about it?)
So, consider, if indeed we live in the Big School, let’s look at the educational implications of some of the designed and stable features of our exciting world.
Both Sides of the Fence – Walk in Everyone’s Shoes.
Human growth is a remarkable educational experience. You get to view life as an ignorant little baby, as a child, as an adolescent, as a young adult, as a mature adult, as a senior adult, and as an aged adult. As you get really old you move a bit back towards childhood as your physical capacities erode. And your memory keeps track of the flow of experiences and links all the stages together. That “hard drive” feature is huge at integrating the lessons of your marvelous journey! It is the vital element that creates "You"!
(A side point on your hard drive and memory; how much of memory is meat based and how much is linked to what ever it is that makes a human mind so far above very similar animal brains? The Bible talks about the “spirit in man” that isn’t conscious apart from your remarkable meat based brain. But there is evidence of remarkable memory capacity associated with all of us. Witness how a smell or a face or a scene will bring back detailed memories of the past that seem so tiny and inconsequential that it is hard to imagine how they could have been retained – yet they were. Is there more “hard drive” umph and more “you” built into your “life package” than most realize?)
Not only do you experience life in all these forms alongside others of all ages, but you are called on to teach your children and other young people. Who learns more from teaching? The student or the teacher? And the roles change as the student grows and becomes the teacher.
We see life as a novice, a professional, and a retiree and we get to watch those in different levels of the school process. The lesson sinks in that it is easy to be a know-it-all when you are young but that age brings you to your senses. The carry over lesson is that, no matter how old you are, you are still an infant compared to The Designer. Reality based humility is really valuable at prevention of dumb ass mental flights of fantasy!
The deck is continually cleared to make room for more students and the clearing process instills a lesson on everyone’s mind as it occurs. Funerals are a great time for a review and a “kick in the pants”. As Tom Lehrer wrote in one of his songs “When you attend a funeral, it is sad to think that sooneral, later, those you love will do the same for you”.
Everyone gets a chance to “do it” on the front line. The experienced players are moved out of the game and each new generation inherits the mantle of action and the chance to win or lose on their own merit.
Having the grades in the school mixed and learning at different levels at the same time and in the same class room is a fabulous educational tactic.
This arrangement isn’t accidental. It is planned and designed. Why? Because we are learning to Live and to fit into a social system that doesn’t self destruct. And the School Designer is a brilliant, long term thinker and planner! He has eternity in His pocket and an altruistic plan in His mind!
Stimulation Features
In a way, we are living in a scenario game – sort of a fake reality. Physical existence is temporary as any scientist can tell you. The universe is running down. Our world will be around for a long time, but it does have an expiry date. And the Bible accurately predicted that humanity would achieve the ability to self destruct long ahead of the earth running out of time. Impressive foresight that gives The Book credibility. How could any human visualize 100% effective universal self destruction even a couple of hundred years ago let alone several thousand years back?
And what this means is that the amazing essential spark that each of us has and that we call Life, had better involve something better than atoms and oxygen and flesh and bones and a meat based computer, or we, in the long run, are nothing.
So consider the features of School Life that fire us up and snag our minds and actions and drive us to tackle our school assignments. While we have physical life, the experience is pretty exciting and stimulating!
Emotion blends with learning. Think of the fire that the sex factor puts into the game. How much action would you see if sex and challenge and excitement and fear and competition were all neutralized. In a way, the games of life are little different than a football game or a golf game or a car race. Chasing the opposite sex, making a marriage work, raising children, running a business, researching and experimenting, sight seeing and travelling, exploring the unknown, struggling to set records, even fighting a war – all are exciting and educational activities that are easy to really get into.
Relative to the universe, we can be seen as irrelevant microscopic specks, but we get to experience dramatic Life Stories on a human scale. Everything that we do is “Life” and despite some people getting cold feet and opting for suicide, the huge consensus is that Life is Exciting and gripping and, so long as things are going well, something to feverishly cling to.
Cycles
Consider the reality of cycles and their effect.
- national power and greatness cycles
-
Business / economic cycles
Business / economic cycles-weather cycles
weather cycles-sun spot cycles
sun spot cycles-lunar cycles
lunar cycles-biologic cycles
biologic cycles-personal mood cycles
personal mood cycles-spring, summer, fall, winter
spring, summer, fall, winter-simple cycles like sunshine and rain or day and night
simple cycles like sunshine and rain or day and nightWhy do cycles occur? They wouldn’t have to. Again, a designed feature. Why? Think of how multiple interacting cycles stir things up for everyone. The Creation is a dynamic environment that is in a constant state of impressive basic stability but with a sprinkling of overlying instability. The sun always rises and we don’t run out of oxygen and the laws of physics are unbelievably reliable. But like a ride on a high quality mechanical bull, you have to be ready for the unpredictable unexpected. The necessary moves of the moment or day are always somewhat unpredictable. There is a solid base for Life but the pot is constantly being stirred. Think how this situation teaches lessons about others, ourselves, and about dynamic living and interacting. When you or when someone else is suddenly stressed, wow, a spotlight is shone on what is inside each mind. Test time! When do we ever get a chance to bog down and go with a totally uniform (and boring) flow?
Time and Chance Circumstances
There is nothing like a shot of adrenaline to sharpen the mind and fire up our energy level. Fear and lethargy do not seem to be connected. We see bad things happen to others and we are put on edge for our own safety.
Most disasters have a cause that is connected to human failing, but because each life is so interwoven with every other life, and because our environment is so complex and men do not know all there is to know – problems and mistakes happen. There is good reason to keep learning and to be prepared and to strive for wise preventative action! And that goes for society as a whole as well as for each individual.
Generally, as acknowledged earlier, the system we live in is amazingly stable. Lightning strikes and meteorite bombardments are not things that we have to worry about, moment by moment. And achievable wisdom is really effective at keeping life safe. But we all have to place our bets on the wheel of life and nothing is totally certain. The adrenaline stimulating fringe, clings to the massive and stable foot path.
-Health issues
Health issues-Accidents
Accidents-Programmed instability to keep people on their toes – weather, earthquakes, volcanoes, disease epidemics
Programmed instability to keep people on their toes – weather, earthquakes, volcanoes, disease epidemics-Social system interdependence time and chance. One player can lose the game for the team.
Social system interdependence time and chance. One player can lose the game for the team.-The impact of lack of perfection and blunders and breaking the rules.
The impact of lack of perfection and blunders and breaking the rules.-The impact of perfection and wise action and recognizing rules and applying them.
The impact of perfection and wise action and recognizing rules and applying them.Leadership
The topic of leadership is huge when you are considering “Life”. The very core of our exciting existence revolves around being free to do as we wish rather than being a programmed or controlled machine. But every Living Being is really a part of a huge system. No one is alone, thankfully! But as soon as you have more than one personality in an environment, the issue of leadership and “getting along” comes into play. And the Big School is a hotbed of lessons on Leadership. Leadership happens on all levels – we are all leaders and followers at various levels. Again, I feel that the situation we confront is highly organized and designed with a long range goal in mind. There is a “why” and understanding of the “why” is closely connected to the personality and goals of the Designer. Get to know the Designer and the “why” answers come within reach.
As human affairs unfold during every generation, examples of good and bad leadership, on all levels, bombard each one of us. And we see the impact of peer influence and various levels of herd thinking. We confront situations where we enthusiastically support leadership efforts and also where we disagree with leadership as well as with herd pressure. Often we strive to take actions that we feel are necessary, if not popular. Not necessarily an easy road but sometimes such is essential for those who recognize the failings of an entrenched herd approach. And there are plenty of such errors.
The Bible indicates that there is major influence occurring at all times from invisible spiritual forces, again, a carefully thought out feature of our School environment. Satan and associates are indicated to be a major player on Planet Earth and observation certainly supports that revelation. The levels of large scale, premeditated, coordinated brutality and idiotic or destructive action truly seem to be beyond the capacity of a simple human mind - a mind that surely feels some connection to the mortals he is surrounded by. Listen to the rantings of some dictators or religious or political leaders and ask yourself if these individuals are normal men. If they seem unusually empowered and hell bent, or simply batty, ask how this process works.
At the same time, the Designer Party is clearly also active. The predictions of an approximate time line for the human project could not possibly be so accurate without controlling manipulation throughout human history. The development of weapons of mass destruction, the formation of an integrated world economy and data base, the existence of the USA and the UK and the nations of western Europe and Russia and China and Iran and the State of Israel are all current facts that no mortal could have foreseen and written about 2000 years ago. Even the survival of and worldwide distribution of the Bible, in every imaginable language, is a remarkable occurrence, made even more amazing by the fact that so few people seem to have much appreciation of what is actually written in the totally available Book!
When the Big School wraps up, it’s graduates (everyone) will have had a very effective exposure to the many facets and subtleties of leadership. They will have seen the good and the bad and they likely will have exercised the good and the bad. Leadership is a huge facet of the Big School curriculum! And it is a course that is provided in dramatic form for all to “enjoy”!
Cause and Effect Situations
Many of the points I am making are overlap or perhaps even repeat comments. Cause and effect experiences though are real and extremely important in any education process. Good and bad outcomes ultimately are not luck. Success and failure may have a short term “time and chance” factor to them but not in the long run. And life in the School teaches that fact.
War and peace, financial winning or losing, prosperity vs poverty, and improving or worsening relations between individuals involve principles and laws that can be, and must be, learned.
As I was writing this section, I just finished cutting hay on a property which I then baled. My actions in relation to the wishes of the property owner can be seen as following rules and maintaining good relations with the individuals involved. Kick the landlord and my haying option will disappear. As I circle the field of cut hay with my baler, I am following dozens of rules and principles that mean that the day will go successfully and the windrows of hay will end up in compact round bales that can be loaded on a trailer, transported, and put into a stack for winter use. The complexity of the entire haying process is quite detailed. Fail to consider equipment lubrication and adjustment and details like putting twine properly into the baler and the results are not good. Go too fast or fail to follow the spiral path of the windrows and again – bad results. Life can be seen as being highly dependent on knowing and following a lot of rules, laws, principles – whatever names you want to use.
But once you take care of those basic rules, there is huge leeway for creativity and, in a way, an opportunity for creating new rules. Say I come up with a new hay cutting pattern that gives better results. Then there are new rules in effect for running the baler. Say I design and build a new feature for the hay/conditioner machine. Likely there will again be new rules that another operator would need to learn and follow. Break the rules and good results may not be produced.
And I would contend that just about anything you lay your hand to whether it is eating breakfast or doing your day job or getting along with your neighbour – there is a remarkable similarity of approach. Take care of the basic laws and then consider the huge field of creativity that makes life even more positive and exciting.
I have had workers who did not understand the laws involved in running a hay/conditioner or baler, or else they were simply foolish. I have seen major damage occur and the haying process come to a standstill until the broken equipment could be repaired. I have had workers who had ideas on how to do a job that made my thinking look backward and their creativity was a huge boost to doing the job and in educating me.
Cause and effect events are with us constantly and are an example of how simply running up hours at “living” is automatically educational.
Motivators and Super Chargers
Really, this heading is very similar to the earlier coverage of stimulation features. But the miracle of physical “life” has so many facets that make it a type of creative art form – a living, dynamic, entity perhaps slightly comparable to a beautiful sunset or a towering storm clouds mixed with lightning blasts and a rainbow. To create a man or a woman out of physical matter and empower them with all their integrated characteristics is one impressive artistic expression!
And think of the way emotional fixes and stimulants fire up human action and interaction. Religious and sexual fervor are huge energy triggers. The highly sexual Bible book “Song of Solomon” is given the dramatic title of “Song of Songs”. Why the creative split of humanity into the two sexes with the complex system dependence between the two halves of the whole? Think of the emotions and energy and action linked to this designed division. And think of the euphoria as well as the friction and trouble that is associate with this high energy facet of our world!
Debates over “God” and just what He is and what He thinks is also a huge motivator. Think of the stimulation that topic causes. Good reason for it, sort of, but it is possible that a lot of the lessons being learned will not be appreciated for most, in their first kick at “living”.
An amusing reality in my mind is how, in our relatively secular age, if you recorded a typical casual group talking, especially if alcohol is involved, and then played the recording to some type of alien analyst, what would they think? If they had a slight familiarity with human terms, I would bet that they might feel the group was made up of theologians and sex education instructors. Filter out the references to God and to sexual intercourse and perhaps a quarter of the banter would disappear! In an age where there is minimal appreciation of a Master Designer and the significance of His handiwork, it is sort of remarkable that there is such terminology focus. If God is non-existent, this fictitious character sure gets lots of degrading coverage! Strange. If He doesn't exist, why refer to Him? If He does exist, wow - badmouthing your Boss seems a bit foolish.
There is little doubt in my mind that all sorts of really important analogies are piggy backed on top of themes that are central to humanity and the two sex system and marriage as well as sexual connection itself have got to have huge symbolic content. No designer is going to put such effort into such a pervasive feature and tally it up to whim. A big topic for another time!
How do emotions work? You even see what looks like emotional activity in animals. Design and programming is involved. In humans, how much emotion can be attributed to physical design and programming and how much is linked closely to the remarkable factors that provide us with the capacities that transcend the animals that are so similar to us as far as observable physical structure goes? I am not sure on that question but it is obvious that humans are impacted by powerful emotional triggers that really get us into “Living”! And emotions can be stifled or developed for better or worse. They are there and they can be a tool that can enhance or degrade Life. But they are there. And they do supercharge the things we do!
Love of many types, patriotism, loyalty, desire for independence, striving for power, the will to survive, appreciation and respect emotions, honor issues – emotional vitamin pills fire up Living. And human artistic expressions are not only linked to emotions but can have a dramatic interpersonal impact so that we motivate each other.
Emotions are real and are part of the scenario game that we are involved in and likely have a close connection to elements that transcend our physical structure and temporary physical existence. I don’t make any claim to being an expert in the “whys” of these details but the topic sure does interest me. There is a gold mine of understanding in this facet of life, I am sure.
Slow Motion Analysis
Here is an educational tool of the Big School that is an overlooked marvel. The secular crowd miss it because they attribute too much to a “no-designer dreamland of happen-chance” and the religious party misses it because they oversimplify life and ignore the huge history of the physical creation and universe. And they also ignore the nuts and bolts, simple realities and necessities of the challenge of achieving practical “sustainable life with freedom”.
I saw a National Geographic production on volcanoes where a commentator was illustrating how you can view the earth as being alive – churning around on its interior and occasionally showing evidence of that high level of activity. But most of the time, there is little evidence of this turmoil. He used an example of two insects sitting on a large tree and one asks the other if the tree could be alive. The first insect expresses doubt in that he has lived on the tree all his life and has never seen if move.
I have expressed the thought elsewhere that you aren’t going to be able to answer “why” questions about a designed item or system unless you know something about the Designer. And to understand God’s designs, I think it is vital that you put some effort into thinking like God – in certain ways, not hard to do. God doesn’t think in terms of hours or days or human lifetimes as far as overall plans go, so let’s think like God and switch onto the hundreds, thousands, and millions of years thought band.
There is good reason to believe that the difficulties that built up with Satan, a free and living personality, developed, bit by bit, over a very long period of time. The Bible indicates that he had a great start. Obviously mistakes were made and it would seem that the gradual build-up of problems was dealt with on the part of Satan’s creator with extreme patience. Freedom was total, to a point. But eventually things came to a head and a battle was on and an example of failure was set. The smart ass kid thought he knew more than The Old Man!
In the case of the human project, Adam and Eve likely got off to an okay start but the scenario had a built in disaster line. Satan was given major control even though he was fitted with a type of leash. Humanity was off and learning but as the capacity of the human social system developed it was, for the most part, infiltrated by Satan induced glitches.
So here we are in 2020 and there are all sorts of situations that we do not understand and many aspects of human life seem rather hopeless. Some obvious problems defy solution not because we can’t understand what needs to be done but often because action seems paralyzed even in the face of being fairly confident on what needs doing.
Perhaps it is almost like the advice on how to avoid going bald. Select your parents carefully! - - - Sorry. Too late!
For example look at the friction between rival nations and rival religions and rival races. To get an effective meeting of representatives from all facets of human society and to come up with a unified plan of action to confront the world’s problems is obviously hopeless. In theory, given our all being on the same boat and all humans, it should be possible. But the difficulties in many cases go back millennia. The situation has existed for far longer than any human life time. To really understand the dynamics of the human exercise you need to have lived for thousands of years.
How many problems, be they social or health related or genetic, go back many lifetimes? I think a lot do. Genetic alteration and transfer is remarkable and seems a bit unfair unless the slow motion video concept is accurate. If the concept is accurate, then the situation looks brilliant!
We live in a complex system and that system has laws, rules, principles, and mechanisms that need to be understood and followed. I think some of the rules are sort of artificial and connected to the designed scenario we are living in. Other rules are absolute and vital to the interaction of living beings in any situation. For example lying is a violation of interpersonal affairs under any condition. Not eating certain foods because they clash with your human system may be a rule that will at some point not be of relevance, even if it is important while you are alive now.
But the big lesson that is under way is that blunders and rule breaking or sin or whatever you want to call it, has a cumulative effect. If you want to achieve sustainable life, you have got to learn to follow principle and you need to learn that there are certain rules that you simply do not break - ever. And there are many rules that you can break without significant evidence of impact – at least not in the short run. But in the long run, there will be trouble and likely one slip leads to other slips and the effect is cumulative. And once the cracks show up, often there is no repair system available. The freedom gift has failed.
Read about human history. The record of the build-up of blunders is fairly well illustrated by the internet. In future, God will likely have the means to put on a dramatic historic documentary that will be an eye opener to a humanity that has progressed from a charmed opportunity to obliterating itself should the Designer not use the safety net of intervention at the last minute.
Do you want to understand how a bullet breaks a drinking glass or a speeding car distorts when it slams into a cement wall? Use a high speed camera and then view the scene in slow motion. Well, the Big School has the feature of providing us with the story illustrated in slow motion right before our eyes. And we get to live the pain of the blunders of the past and get to feel the importance of sticking to principle and not messing things up for our children and others in future generations.
Genetics are a marvel at carrying all sorts of evidence of past positive and negative actions ahead to the current generation. Family trees are remarkable in that family traits will carry over generations. How do those traits, good or bad, get established initially? Nations rise and fall and the process usually takes generations but in hindsight, you can analyse the mistakes that gradually ate into the success of the national system. You can also often analyse why the national unit built up to its position of power. And such a study usually steers you into fascinating details of the designed scenario game that we are living out. Historical evidence is one way the slow motion video of the human game can be viewed. We can view it now. In future we may get a much more impressive showing from the Master Designer’s viewpoint, untainted by a gaggle of two bit historians and analysts.
Linked into the slow motion coverage of human history is the grey world of “there but for fortune go you or I”. Any one of us could have pulled a different card and that fact creates a real bond between all the players in the Big Game. You are what you are and where you are – now the simple challenge is to make the most of your Life Passport and to be thankful that you got to attend the Big School.
You are part of the Great Slow Motion Video. Enjoy being a star and see if you can provide a positive and inspiring ending for your part in the Big Production! You are alive and free. Go for it while you have stage time!
Whenever you see a person who is an outstanding winner or someone who is an outstanding loser, usually they have a history that likely crosses generations. And that historic story usually goes a long way to explain the present performance. And even if the situation seems beyond the control of the individual, in the long run, the School is illustrating an eternal principle. The individual and all his class mates will eventually benefit from the lesson.
Facet and Layer Realities
Any activity, good or bad, has facets and some are always good. To simply “live” requires you to make moves that have educational value.
It appears to be a reality of life that no one has all the cards and no one is left without any cards. Similarly it seems that no matter what you lay your hand to, something positive is learned, even if the basic activity you go at appears to be highly negative. Doing nothing would be the worst choice, but few go that route. There are too many survival and motivation pressures for that route to hold anyone for long!
Now it is likely wise to have some discretion on activity but a conscienceless mercenary or hooker or corrupt used car salesman or thief all confront challenges in their chosen field and many seeming losers, at some point in their lives, get things together and glean residual value from their experiences to date.
Many religionists would tend to write off certain segments of human society but I think it is a marvel of the Big School system that it is so difficult to flunk out. The ingenious design forces everyone to learn many basic points and also to help others to learn, in many ways, due to personal failure on some fronts while learning positive lessons on other fronts. Rahab the harlot, is a Biblical character who clearly got certain facets in place and appears to have ended up a winner.
We learn from different experiences. Here is an off the cuff list that strike me as being like tiny spotlights on our being. We all go through ups and downs and life experiences. It is part of the School System. How does each contrast impact your mind and body and help you to understand and evaluate your deepest characteristics?
Light and dark – day and night
Tired and energized
Sleepy vs alert
Sad or happy
Depressed/hopeless or optimistic
Wealthy or poor – rich or poor
Healthy or sick
Comfort vs pain
Summer vs winter
Hot or cold
Dry and warm and wet and cold
Windy or calm
Sunny or cloudy
Sunny or raining
Clear and calm or sunny vs snowing and windy
Forest vs ocean / forest vs mountain view
Old vs young
Sexy vs stoic
Accepted vs rejected
Respected vs despised
Drunk vs sober
Winning vs losing - winner/loser
Oppressor / Oppressed
Proud or humble
Loving and appreciative vs hateful and vengeful
Ascending or descending
Confident vs perplexed
Slave vs free / servant or master
Blessed vs cursed
Know it all vs mature confidence and wisdom
Dependent vs independent
Learning vs teaching
Ignorant vs knowledgeable
Stability vs instability
Predictable vs unpredictable
Spectator vs involvement
Idolized vs despised
Hero vs villain
Linked to a winning movement vs linked to a losing movement
Dreaming vs doing
Positive vs negative progress
Growing vs decaying
Building vs destroying
War vs peace
Aggressive vs passive
Vital Lessons on System Appreciation
We exist in a huge “system”. And each of us “is a system”. And all the system facets we come in contact with are made up of sub-systems right down to the molecular level. Any mentally controlled action you take has an effect on multiple systems outside yourself. That is a reality of Life. It is complex and exciting and linked to good and bad outcomes – success and failure!
And systems involve flows and inputs and outputs and feedback effects. Consider friendships. You do something for another person, good or bad, and you are going to get a reaction. The reaction you get will very likely trigger some type of further action on your part. The end result may be an increasingly solid and positive connection or an increasingly negative connection. But the flow levels and effects and feedback mechanisms are always there.
Say you cheat another person and that person has already been cheated several times by others, that very day. The mental state of that person may well trigger him to be nasty to the next person he has dealings with. I have heard the observation that an economy will operate reasonably well if more than half the population is honest but there is a tipping point as financial morality declines to a point where trust generally collapses and an economy seizes up. And flow and trust and productive interaction is vital for any system to operate satisfactorily. On the way downhill, increasing activity in the legal world is likely a symptom that moral values are collapsing. Everyone seemingly needs a legal body guard, and at a cost.
In 2020 there is evidence that the world economic system may be going into a period of distrust and antagonistic interaction that may make somewhat earlier times look quite rosy. The roaring 20s collapsed into the great depression, perhaps in a similar manner.
Marriages are complex systems. The Paul Stooky song with the line “woman draws her life from man and gives it back again” is a beautiful phrasing of the vital flows that must exist for a marriage to flourish. Anyone should appreciate that we are dealing with a multi-facet, designed system. When the system seizes up and the positive flows are frozen, the marriage unit system is in trouble. The “circle of love” is a very accurate depiction of a dynamic system! Unless there is wise, two way team work and attention to detail and principles, there will be less than an ideal result. The playboy / feminist polarization is not good news for the system.
There is good reason to appreciate that national strength is closely linked to family and marriage strength. Blow the family system apart and the positive and vital generational flow is stifled. The society degenerates into a mass of rogue individuals who lack vital interpersonal skills that are needed to keep the social system effective.
The existence of the two sexes is obviously a designed fact made even more interesting by the Biblical revelation that the spiritual world that humans are heading towards does not have the sexual split. So why the current feature in the current scenario game? And why the current sexual pressures and sexual laws that are so clearly stressed in the Bible? And why the difficulties and problems that mankind has with regard to this imposed setup?
I do wonder if the two sex / marriage arrangement is closely connected to learning about the complexities of systems. Obviously we are free to really make a mess of the situation as well as to really excel at putting wonderful partnerships together. And I do wonder if the situation is a high level training tool for learning about the vital nature of interpersonal system skills. I will touch on this fascinating topic in my upcoming “Maestro of Life” chapter.
System skills and appreciation can relate to totally physical systems as well as to interpersonal systems and there is a remarkable analogy similarity between the two areas.
As covered elsewhere on this website, the reality of true and effective evolution (not evolution**) in all areas, is closely linked to the interaction of free and creative minds. Uninhibited and positive flows between personalities is the heart flow of evolution. And evolution from an infant state to a highly developed and educated state is largely what Life is about.
The ultimate goal of Sustainable Life for a huge number of free personalities is very much a system issue. How do multiple free personalities get along? They share a basic attitude that flows from God the Father and from His Son, two separate and free personalities, who are unified by the same spirit – the same spirit each human must tap in order to be One with God. The “God is One” statement has nothing to do with some weird trinity concept that relegates humans to one department and a weird god to another department. Everyone who attains eternal life / sustainable life becomes as much “one with God” as their Elder Brother is - part of a flawless system that flows and builds and endures because of following vital laws that underlie harmonious, altruistic, and free creativity!
It is not far off to state that System Skills and System Unity is what the game is all about.
Appreciation of the value of system Moral, Knowledge, and Physical Capital
Anyone who has started a business be it a farm, a manufacturing plant, or some type of sales or service operation, knows that the longer you are at the project, the easier it becomes because of the knowledge, contacts, established clients, equipment, economic reserves and flows that are gradually built up. You build up capital. Having “something” to work with is a major contrast from having “nothing” to work with.
And individuals as well as nations and even the world, build up all sorts of capital. Really, most important, is the build-up of moral capital. A nation stacked with individuals who have solidly developed and established moral character is going to be a powerful system. The more citizens who know the correct moves and consistently apply the correct moves, the more effectively the nation will operate. John says he will deliver X on August 18 and he does. Frank is able to commit to Anne based on John’s promise. And so on. And it is a good situation.
When you experience situations involving high and low capital levels, you learn lessons for the future. Solid, effective, built up capital is important. Life is growth! Life is making the future bigger than the past!
Appreciation that all Laws are not created equal.
We exist in an environment of laws. All matter and all personalities are connected by principles and rules and laws. Laws are like the software that lets the hardware connect and function smoothly. Everyone needs to agree to the rule to drive on the left or the right side of the road in order for the traffic to flow!
But laws pertaining to physical matter are a bit different than laws pertaining to personalities. And given that the game is really about living personalities, who must exist and get along in order to work with all the physical gear we have been provided with, laws that impact personality interaction can be seen as being more important than laws of physics or chemistry, even if there are various interconnections.
I think that is the reason that moral laws are so central to the Bible. Get the moral situation worked out and then you have the core machine in operation to “do things” productively with all the purely physical hardware that we get to work with! I am sure a clear understanding of the Theory of Relativity is positive but that alone is not going to provide the power to get along with your fellow man nor with your God. And ultimately, when the current physical world crumbles, character and knowledge in the interpersonal sphere is what is going to provide the basis for Sustainable Life. If lives are eternal, there is lots of time to “do things” with the furniture of the environment we find ourselves in!
Charles Kettering was speaking at a college graduation and asked the president of the college a question. Kettering had taken electrical engineering at the college and became a mechanical engineer. I believe one of his associates had taken one type of engineering at the same college but became a chemical engineer. Kettering said he had a young friend who wanted advice on what course he should take, given the deviations taken by Kettering and his associate. The college president responded “a degree from this college lets you do anything”! My guess is that the Big School can offer that claim but with much greater meaning!
Here are some closing thoughts on the Big School System.
What is the best way to learn? By doing. By living and learning with your back to the wall, perhaps thinking you are winning but then finding out that you lost - - and then, surprise/surprise – getting a second run under more fair conditions! By experiencing guided “doing” such that you “do” a broad variety of things, are motivated, and are challenged. Having a teacher or school principal who knows the way is of incredible importance. And we have all of the above in play, for our good!
Who isn’t excited about anything? And note how the things that excite you change with age and with circumstances. I lived for motorcycles and snowmobiles and sports cars and skiing and women and exciting work positions and various production tools and various agricultural projects. Music, hiking, cycling, photography, exploring – everyone has interests be it stamp collecting or intellectual pursuits or business ventures.
Are emotions artificial? Are they physically based copies of eternal realities? Are they facets of Life and freedom?
Where do emotions and music fit into the mix? What are emotions? How is music and poetry associated with emotion? What is the connection between human emotion and Eternal Life? Do emotions show up in animals? Is animal behavior basic and real or is it a robotic simulation of spirit level emotion?
How does the system handle the issue of knowledge level variation? What of a savage in a primitive society who can’t read or write? What about an 1800 student vs a 2000 student – the 2000 student having so much more knowledge to work with? What about the educational opportunity of the poor vs the rich?
Is the backwards state of third world countries and primitive tribes part of the “slow motion video” mechanism? How did they get to their current state? Likely, if we could run the time film through quickly, we would see a gradual movement away from an informed and civilized state to an ignorant and compromised life style. The low level style would be genetically incorporated and now we have societies that find it very difficult to adapt to the “developed” norm. But then you have to ask “is the developed norm, in all facets, really superior?” Many back water social groups have certain characteristics that are admirable. The Big School is a remarkable environment!
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Welcome to the Class of 2020! Classes are underway. It will be an exciting year. We are on the Cutting Edge of Time!
