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Faith, Hope, Love: Love is the Greatest – Coping with Hard Times

Image of a hole in a hedge shaped like a heart and opening a view through the foliage.
Image by biancamentil from Pixabay

“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.​​​​​​​”
(St. Paul, 1st letter to the Corinthians, 13,  bible translation: New King James version)

Why Love?

As a Christian or generally religious person you might argue that faith and hope should be first?

I’ve been through many hard times. I still consider myself lucky, compared.
Especially these days!

​​​​​​​Yet, I had lots of opportunity to find out about what really helps. There may be your loved ones sick. You may have lost your job and be wondering why – and what to do now. You may have lost a love – and be wondering, if there will be anyone else, ever.

Many of my readers will be able to come up with more examples, and perhaps worse ones, too.
Times when hope or faith seem to be shallow compared to the pain you suffer, the losses you experience, material and immaterial, or the hopelessness you face when catastrophe strikes.

I’ve found out about some fundamentals that are true and can help to make the burden a little lighter I’ve found.

There’s the Christian adage of neighbourly love. Because, as regards yourself and others, it’s perhaps the most wonderful truth:

“Love thy neighbour as you love thyself.”

It puts it all in a nutshell:

We cannot really like or love others if we do not like ourselves too. But, how much? There’s the egotism we find, not to say egocentric point of view in quite a number of people.

And here comes the measurement in one simple sentence, phrase even:

“…as you love thyself.”

That’s what you can start practicing. It helps to take care of ourselves in ‘sickness and in health’.
And it provides the healthy amount of attention and care to pay to others.

Love, it’s at the core, again: It’s not so ancient, the idea.

And the most interesting fact that is known now, is this: After WW II many babies were orphaned. Taken to hospitals and children’s homes to be taken care of.
They were kept warm, clothed, sheltered and well-fed and nursed, when sick.
And still many of them died.

It turned out that they did not get the love and loving attention that you see in a family, usually.

They died from lack of love.

Adults sometimes lose all hope – of love and life. And they can feel so desperate that the try taking their own lives.
That’s a sad thing to know about.

That’s why love, self-esteem and kindness/friendship are crucial in human life.

The last yet not at all least remedy we know is laughter:

Laughter?

Yes indeed. It not only is fun and exhilarating.

It’s been proven that it strengthens the immune system.

It relaxes you, thereby enabling the blood to flow easier. It triggers the so-called endorphins in your body to be created – and they in turn make for joy and relaxation. And the red and white corpuscles that way become strengthened. Which is important because the white ones ‘fight’ things such as inflammation, the red ones carry oxygen.

Take it one day at a time. Even one hour at a time.

And look out for love and for laughter.

 

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Cruelty and Violence, the ‘dreadful Sisters’ — Remedy: Real Values: Other than Unlimited Wealth

Image of a father teaching his children by reading books with them - and 2nd image of an open book with two pages shaped into a heart
(Images licensed via Adobe CC, my graphics)

The founding myth of a society such as the US-American one is simple and as follows: Work hard or even harder to get rich — that way proving to all and God that you are favourable to God. Since the rich are God’s favourites.

That value is probably the most damaging and destroying one ever to be posed throughout the history of mankind:
All is fair — that is any means to that end: becoming rich — is good and even fair in God’s eyes.

Religion in general is one way of posing understandable values and rules for a society to live by.
It also fulfils the human need for transcendence, so the philosopher Fromm tells us.

When we are lucky, those rules are not just about limiting everything to a bare minimum — but about the real health and joy human life has to offer:

Combining heart, soul and body in ways that make you smile, like yourself — and thus enable you to like others (more).

And interact with a sense of community so the welfare of all is at the back of people’s minds.

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Revealing Meddlesomeness of a Government: The US, the Right Wing Populists and Germany’s Constitutional Rights

Photo of European and German flag in front of German parliament, Berlin, Germany
European and German flag in front of German parliament, Berlin, Germany (licensed image via Adobe CC)

The present government in the USA does impress observers with a fundamental lack of: Prudence, or sense of community, or indeed the actual knowledge of right and wrong in an ethical sense!
Just looking at their own statements and recent actions.

They actually dare to meddle in internal, German affairs on an international level!

Would be ridiculous too, if not sad, really.
Revealing: Sign of decadence and the actual interest in extreme right-wing (far-right) contacts….

The AfD, the political party concerned, has been proven to be extreme-right-wing, as well es populist, umpteen times, over and over again. They are not only a danger to democracy but additionally they frequently make inhuman statements into the bargain!

When and if a jurisdictional  body states openly, and starts discussing publicly, to forbid a political party in Germany, that is no trivial matter!
That, my ‘friends’, is serious!

I’d like to put it this way in the direction of the US government and its representatives:

Be very aware of your behaviour and statements, internal as well as international US affairs — you might be taken on your word and made responsible for it — in courts of law.
Soon — or in the future.

Note: On the latest news concerning Germany’s ‘Verfassungsschutz’ (internal intelligence agency) declaring the AfD to be a far-right political party.

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It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature — or: Listening in — or: the (Non)-Smart Home — or: Never Assume

Woman in kitchen holding mobile phone looking at devices with drawn blue highlighted connectors towards her phone
(Image licensed via Adobe CC)

In this world of digital devices and internet connections, faster every day, basically, the so-called IoT, the Internet of Things, for some time now has made a sad appearance and fashion of sorts: The devices connecting to the internet through integrated hardware, such as your Smart-TV, your ‘smart mobile’ — or simply the Smart Home devices such as Siri or Alexa, listen in…

Indeed, it’s a fact: If not switched off deliberately, such devices will record and transfer spoken words, in many cases. Just like that…

What is particularly interesting, is the ‘eavesdroppers’ paradise: People who for the sake of curiosity — or simply to gather information — listen and start assuming…

I have seen it time and again: People observe or hear certain words or situations – and start assuming… Based on a few facts — and a lot of ‘reasoning’, which in fact is just your basic assumption.

These assumptions can be wrong. A nice example is the clip below from the movie “Desk Set”, with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. It makes it clear too, how easily we can be wrong when trying to interpret.

I always think, should you overhear somebody in anger, swearing, letting off steam, as it were — and would assume general views of that person, you might come to sadly wrong conclusions…

I’d like to create more awareness of these things: It’s sooo easy to be mistaken. And can lead to such sad results, depending on the situations…

In other words: Never assume.

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A Great Soul, a True Visionary and Fine Human Being Dies: Pope Francis — Rest in Peace

Image of Pope Francis in Prato
Pope Francis in Prato — Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons, date: 10th November 2015

Pope Francis was a thinker and a man of the people. The ‘pope of the hearts’ he has been called. A great soul has died today, after a long period of ill health and sickness.

When he became pope I felt for the first time for many years that there was still hope for the Catholic church. I was raised a Catholic and since have widened my ideas.
But the actual basis to my mind, the gospel and thus the idea of neighbourly love are some of the most fundamental truths and ideas to carry us through life, and indeed hard times that you can find.

Pope Francis knew this — and lived by it more than many of his predecessors, the respective pope of the Catholic church in the course of the past one hundred years.

Billions of people live by this creed, Christianity and Catholic confirmation. The Vatican statistics of 2024 state that across the globe the number of Catholics actually increased.

Whatever your respective confirmation or creed may be, Pope Francis deserves a special attention and mention as well as high respect for his achievements.

He “brought the church back to Earth” — the well-deserved tributes paid him are perhaps comprised this way best.

Rest in peace — requiescat in pace — a great soul, human being, and true visionary.

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A Fool’s Stage: USA — ‘What Bitter Tears and Hollow Laughter…’

Drawing of a clown's mask
(Image by NoPixelZone from Pixabay)

Power and money — not necessarily in this order — are at the heart of any US politics under a president such as the present one. It’s almost funny to see and hear and read about journalists actually wondering about his sanity…

Sane or not? Does it matter, really?

He is — together with all those other greedy, low-life scum that are his followers and supporters — in power. In office. He will stay there as long as no one will stand up and fight his office, his holding it, by legal means.

The impeachment already had been imminent. Several actions in courts of law against him for fraud, bribery and molestation had been on their way. He is a criminal, already convicted too. And then a supreme court ruling — lo and behold, how could that happen…? — rendered them void.

The US-American society and nation’s future as a democracy are in severe danger. This may even cause a civil war.

But, no this sadly limited brain of a greedy dictator is not above doing it: He bullies and threatens all and sundry into subservience. So far it’s a relieve to also hear about Harvard University standing its ground: They will not be bullied into scientific obedience and dependency.

The US academic system is dependent on private as well as government funds. That makes it vulnerable. But in such times also hardened against withdrawal of government funds. Because there are other donors, yet.

What a sorry excuse for a man the Republican heap of drooling and greedy entities of existence — that you could hardly call human — have made their figurehead — any human action or reaction long since being deadened by heaps of money they cannot have enough of.

It’s a shame.

The ‘fool’ in former times was a figure at courts like a clown; meant to remind a king or potentate of his limitations as a human being. At the same time ‘fool’ is also the term for a figure that is ridiculous and hollow where proper thinking is concerned.

Someone like the present president has little to no formal education of a wise kind. Raised in a military school that calls itself academy and coming from a family whose main value was to be rich — and famous — what can you expect?

Actually, I would expect someone with his connections and background to be aware enough to better himself. Insane and downright sick people should be taken pity on — not exception.

But he is not to be pitied. It’s his own, ‘sane’ doing.

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‘No Dice’: It’s a Machine – Natural vs Artificial Intelligence

Image of a robot hand and a human hand touching their index fingers
(Image licensed via Adobe CC)

Machines do not feel. They do not have emotions. They do not digest food.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.” (Genesis 1, King James version)

I quote the bible’s text on the creation of the earth. A creative act, described by humans.
It’s a mystical text and beautiful in its rhythm and simplicity. I heard it often when still growing up and visiting Roman catholic church regularly.

I was raised not only on Christianity, but on enlightenment too, and the idea that humans should be social for a very obvious reason: They are social beings.

That’s one thing differentiating humans from machines:
Humans are social.
They also have emotions, feelings – often passionate ones.

Machines do not feel.

The most striking difference between humans and machines is the fact that the thoughts and ideas a human can have are without limit, literally.

Machines, called ‘artificial intelligence’ still are machines, calculating.
They use algorithms and routines of combined algorithms built on statistical probability. They use huge amounts of data and calculate fast, because of the hardware involved – and the power supply.

That speed makes them in some ways superior to humans in the matter of speed – but: Nothing else.

They cannot use unknown, new data, if no human does provide it. They cannot combine things other than the ways programmed into their algorithms.

What can provide an impression of an actual person talking is the fact that language is used to create ‘answers’ after a fashion. But that is all.
Language follows patterns, just as algorithms do.
Such as: “How are you?” – “Fine.”

Machines can combine the data and the patterns in likely manners, based on their algorithms’ routines, that is the programming. Not in actual new ways that humans can or could.

If ever anyone tries to sell you the idea that ‘artificial intelligence’ is more than a machine, remember: They are selling it…

😉

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The Apple and the Pear: Words – and Colours – Life’s Varieties

Image of fresh apples and pears looking almost the same
Original image by wirestock on Freepik, resized

“Dark yellow? Orange?” Words matter. Images in the mind are directly connected with them. That makes them so powerful. And so difficult to control:

Because that’s what can happen: People talk apparently about the same thing but it is only partly the same – as in ‘dark yellow’ or ‘orange’. You cannot always know what others understand of your words, your speech, or your message.

Equally difficult can be to really know what others might mean, even though you seem to be using the same words. Why that happens? Because we all grow up and make experiences in certain cultures and surroundings.

That way the associations, the images, that crop up in our individual minds can be different – even if slightly.

At times they can make understanding each other challenging, at least.

Of course, there’s the situation that people are well-meaning but make more of their own skills or their expertise than is actually true. And others even expect it from them.  In interviews for job applications, for example.

When you then meet the exception from the rule, it can make it even more challenging and also interesting: To expect someone to be ‘telling tall tales’ and then find out that they hadn’t…

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Sons or Daughters… Rudyard Kipling: “If: A Father’s Advice to His Son”

Photo of a vertically shaped red rock before a blue sky
Image free license freepik.com

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Holds true for daughters too…

Rudyard Kipling is not only author of ‘The Jungle Books’, that story of the ‘man cub’ Mowgli that is known across generations of children. He also was a memorable poet and writer, who wrote poems that are to the point and rhythm, as it were…as well as prose that is full of imagery and imagination.

His political views are rather doubtful and informed by the times he grew up in, but otherwise: Highly recommended. 🙃

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“The Silent Majority” – The 100-People-Rule

Image of many figures like pieces in the blue dark, one of them in red and highlighted standing out.
(Image licensed freepik.com)

In former times it seemed to be a matter of course to talk about the ‘silent majority’. And it also seemed to be debatable: Did it exist?

These days we know: It does!

The statistics you get from business departments such as support, online and offline, confirm:

For any person letting a company, an organization, or platform know about their issues or problems or worries, there are around 100 silent ones who do not speak up. Some are too lazy. Some are too busy. Some are just too self-conscious, don’t dare to draw attention to themselves.

Whatever the reasons may be: I also know from actual experience how often people in everyday life underestimate the universal facts of human life:

Emotions, feelings, worries and also joy so often are felt very similarly. Yet, very often also people don’t know about that and therefore feel disconnected.

Sharing helps: Experience, emotions, and thoughts. And my blog is one place where I like to share for exactly that reason. To help and to spread perhaps a (little) light of understanding.

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