VIRUS vs. Antibiotic - Not Profitable?

 

 

VIRUS vs. Antibiotic - Not Profitable?

 

 

Quicksilver Times spends a lot of time identifying and sharing examples of how deep the systemic dysfunction of Western Culture runs.

 

Here is the latest example.

 

Over the past few years we've all heard about how virus' that attack humans are developing immunity to antibiotics.  This dangerous trend has gotten periodic, if peripheral, attention world wide since it is a very real world wide problem.  The key to the issue seems to be our inability to develop new antibiotics fast enough to keep pace with virus' ability to adapt.

 

But, as it turns out, that's not the only problem with finding new usable antibiotics.

 

A recent article in Wired Magazine focused on a new approach to defeating viral attacks by using the virus' own genetic make-up to destroy them.  (Mutants - Feb. 2013, Wired Magazine.)  Interesting and hopeful article.

 

But what's also interesting, and as insidious in  its' own way as the virus' themselves, is that buried deep in the article is a paragraph that should trigger an instant response of disbelief and anger.

 

As the article's author Carl Zimmer explains that the days of unlimited supplies of usable antibiotics are over, he also states -

 

"...Such drugs have become harder to find; and even when they are found, the market for them is far less lucrative than for molecules that combat such high profile killers as Cancer or AIDS.  As a result, the flow through the antibiotics pipeline has slowed to a trickle..."

 

Yes, you read correctly.  The molecules that could succeed in defeating new resistant virus' "ARE FAR LESS LUCRATIVE."

 

The pharmaceutical companies are choosing to produce medicines, not based on saving lives, but on how the much money they will make marketing them.

 

How deep is the Greed Dysfunction entrenched in our culture?  Deepdeepdeep. 

 

Almost as awful as the fact that this is happening, is the reality that it can be stated without anyone raising an outcry.

 

How much will we let those who Carry out our addiction to "More" take from us before we stand up and say "No More!"

 

Understand. They will keep taking until we stop them.

That includes killing us in the name of profit.  You.  Me.  Our children.  No one or nothing is sacred.

 

"What to do. What to do?"

 

The beginning could start with what the Quicksilver Times blog post of the same name suggests.  Might want to read it.  Or reread it and other relevant blog posts.

 

Feels overwhelming.

 

It's not the task of a day or a year.

 

Our task is to make a beginning.  To speak to what is irreparably broken.

 

To define alternatives.

 

To make a first step.

 

It's the responsibility of our generation.

 

How much more will we give them permission to take?"

 

Bulgaria Self-Immolation. How Long Have We Got?

Bulgaria Self-Immolation. How Long Have We Got?

 

In the last month four people have set themselves aflame in Bulgaria. Three of the four are dead.

 

Please hear me.  These folks poured gasoline over themselves and set themselves on fire.  These people were so distraught by the injustice of the systems and circumstances in which they found themselves that, as a final act aimed at drawing attention to what was happening to them, they were willing to give up their lives.

 

Their last act was an immeasurably desperate attempt to make YOU hear.

 

Make YOU Hear.

 

You may write off these episodes as "Just crazy people who didn't know what they were doing," or "Ultimate exhibitionists crying out for attention," or "Some kind of radical extremists caught in some 'cultish' political cabal." But you would be wrong.  They were folks just like YOU who were caught in lives torn apart by forces greedy beyond understanding, and powerful beyond resistance.

 

They call to YOU.

 

YOU.

 

They meant their deaths to speak to YOU.  The flames that scorched their bodies and sucked the oxygen from their lungs, that shattered the rhythm of their hearts; the flames that killed them call out to YOU.

 

There is a message in each deadly fire meant to impact your individual life.

 

Look into the flames.  This is their message to you -

 

I am finished. I can no longer face, nor can I see a way to change what is happening in my life.

 

You may cling to the denial that keeps reassuring you that those who wield the power in your world cannot, or would not impoverish you.

 

They can.  They will.

 

More.

 

Should you stand in their way they will not hesitate to kill you.

 

And your children.

 

And your children's children.

 

I will fight no more.

 

I can't fight anymore.

 

The message to YOU seems without hope.  But who can know their hearts?  Was the striking of each match an act of hope?

 

Not for them.  For YOU.

 

For decades there have been whispers out here.  "We are the People." "We have the power. Together."  "We speak to the world."

 

And in the last decades we have been gifted with practical ways to exert that power.  You are reading this post.  It's real power.  We can, if we choose, come TOGETHER.

 

That's an invincible power.  One that has always existed.  But only as a potential.  Now with the confluence of technology, social and political consciousness, spiritual rather than religious awakening, that power in practically accessible.  In our time.

This time.

 

Will it be difficult?  Of course.  It is as complex as say, well, finding the Higgs boson particle?  No.  Really.  Not as complex.  Could we succeed?  Yes.

 

Are we speaking - 

 

 

 

Yes.

 

But as we have said for decades, we could, for the first time in human history create revolution without

 

 

 

Imagine a revolution without killing.

 

Imagine a revolution of awakening.

 

Imagine evolutionary revolution.

 

Don't imagine, recognize - an Evolution of Consciousness and Conscious Evolution.

 

How to recognize this momentary possibility?

 

While it's not as complex as finding the Higgs boson particle, it does require shedding illusions and denial, and shedding patterns deep, divisive, and destructive.  What illusions, denial, and patterns?

That's what we"ll talk about as we come together -

 

www.quicksilvertimes.blogspot.com - You're reading the 15th , Read the first 14.

 

www.sena.org - Read  Remembered Gifts and New Directions

 

Read - White Man Dancing - Grief, God, and a Unified Theory (when it's published during the summer of 2013.)

 

Do any, or part of any of the above.

 

Respond to this post.  Share.

 

Share YOUR ideas.

 

Make this the next First Step.

 

 

 

There is a crisis that is barely into a state of becoming.  But make no mistake, it is coming.

 

TO YOU.

 

Here's the bottom line.

 

To do this new thing, to create revolution without bloodshed, to move on to the next stage of human development, we must, YOU must, hear and decide.

 

Hear the message of the real Burning Man.  Nothing symbolic.  Nothing iconic.  Wish we could all have been there for just a moment.  You can even keep your eyes closed.  Just breathe in.  Yes.  That's what death smells like.  Eyes open now.  Look into the flames.  It's the New Light, and there's nothing illusionary about it.

 

HOW LONG HAVE We Got?

 

Understand.  If you begin today, there is no guarantee.  Oh, there is a promise . That in the balance you as an individual will discover, experience, and share, you will know transcendence, and peace will be the center of your moment even though in that moment chaos and darkness might drive the memory from you.  But for the world external, if the world and all its' myriad movements are precious to you - and if your are precious how could the world for all its' chaos, beauty, and frailty be less - understand the world and you are tied to time.  The rhythm measures beat by beat.  All is carried and becomes real in the heart of the Shabd.  What can be done this moment cannot be done in the next.

 

Not being caught in times illusion is an essential lesson on our unique, individual path.  The understanding that lesson brings allows us to see how precious the moment is.  Right action in the moment is the expression of our path and direction.

 

Understand.  If we fail to use this moment the possibilities of the moment too will pass.  The opportunity will pass as surely as darkness follows on the whispering shallows of temporal lights' dying.

 

What will it mean?

 

If we fail this moment, will another chance come?  Oh yes.  When?  Not soon.

 

So if we fail this moment what will it mean?

 

Depends.

 

If your seventy-three, maybe not much.

 

Ahh, but if you're three.

 

So, no guarantees.

 

But, for YOU.

 

And for your babies.

 

Do this thing.

 

People are killing themselves to send YOU the message.

 

 

A New Level

 

 

A New Level

Last evening I was drawn into a Facebook discussion. The discussion began after a friend shared my status post concerning how differently the presidents of Central and South America received the news that Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela had died, compared to the United States.

Someone posted that the reason the US Government didn’t like Chavez was because he wouldn’t accept “worthless” US dollars for oil.

Someone else responded to the “worthless” dollar post.

I suggested that while their discussion had merit, the issue of the United States rejection of the Bolivarian Revolution ran deeper than the relative value of the dollar.

My exact post was -

“…It's really deeper than that… The US cannot afford to let us know what is really happening in places like Venezuela because it would show us the way to reject and redesign the dysfunctional system under which we live.”

Both the “dollar” posters completely ignored the issue I was raising and incorporated my response into their much narrower discussion.

I continued to try to get the discussion on to deeper issues -

“…There is value in what you are discussing. But in the final analysis you are looking and discussing symptoms not the underlying problems. What you're trying to do is butterfly an arterial wound.”

I could not get them to step back and look deeper.

The discussion moved me to this final post -

“…Entrenched, worked and hobbled. If everyone you see is limping, everything must be fine. All you need is denial strong enough so you can no longer see those who walk upright, with no limp at all…”

And to this visual -

 

I awoke this morning with Albert Einstein’s words running through my mind- the words that I incorporated into the wonderful picture by Street Art Utopia, that is at the head of this post.

"The problems we currently face can't be solved at the level of thinking that created them."

Nothing Quicksilver Times believes, supports, or does is more relevant than what this sentence tells us.

Before we even begin to look to the fundamental issues which we must address to create real change, we must find A New Level Of Thinking.

A New Level Of Thinking.

In the new book, White Man Dancing - Grief, God, and a Unified Theory, (Which hopefully will be published in the coming weeks.) there is a section that speaks of the teachings of Sri Auribindo, 1870-1950. An Indian Mystic who lived much of his life in Paris, his vision of the future of man, so influenced by his integration into western culture and thought, clearly defined the advent of a “New Man.” Or in the language of today a “New S/He”

He taught that this new “S/He” create, and be created by, an Evolution of Consciousness and a Conscious Evolution.

He told us to watch for the signs.

If we look at what we are moving towards today, we can see the potential for change.

Conscious Evolution will require learning to think with a new panoptic perspective, permitting us to view all parts and elements of our moment. This will be a practical evolution. One brought about by our commitment to personal and World Community growth. It will come through the exercise of our expanding perspectives.

It begins with this moment. We can stand clear of the trench in which we have been hobbled. We can look outward, we can see. It’s not magic or beyond our reckoning.

And, We are not meant to do this Alone! -

 

Together.

The other half of the new equation, Evolution of Consciousness, can only be done together. As I grow, as I open, my connecting to you is as inevitable as breathing in after breathing out. Our paths to understanding and experiencing our unique, personal path reveal, and our growing recognition that while each of our paths is unique in the history of the universe, the transcendence we open to and recognize is One.

And as inevitable as our connection is, we have come to recognize that without this Evolution of Consciousness we cannot make real changes out here in the endlessly changing world.

Evolution of Consciousness, Conscious Evolution. One leads inevitably, dependent yet independently, to the other. Another in the endless repetitions and variations of duality.

And from that balance, in the experience of the light and the darkness, in that middle way, comes experience of transcendence.

Which we’ll talk about again. And again.

love,

bill





My Denial, or Strength



My Denial, or Strength

My father was seventy-two when he retired. He came home, sat down in his favorite chair, and was dead by seventy-six.

Yesterday, after a chaotic meeting that was aimed at designing a fundraising event to raise four thousand dollars for the Sena Foundation/Quicksilver Times video transfer and Google+ On Air project, I overheard a conversation between a volunteer (who is a dear friend) and my wife who were walking behind me.

“We can get this money.” the volunteer said in sotto voce, “It’s important, especially to,” pause - gesture towards me implied , “him. Can’t let him get,”

then in super sotto, “…you know.”

Response, “I, know…”

Depressed.

How strong is my denial? I can’t get more than two or three people to read my blog, my Facebook and Google+ posts are virtually unread.

My attempt to make use of Google+ On Air has been a struggle, and I can no longer maintain belief that the folks helping me have any real interest in the project.

Then there is the book - White man Dancing - Grief, God, and a Unified Theory. Out of over a dozen readers, ranging from the closest, dearest people in my life to virtual strangers, only one person, my editor, has even finished the book. Except for my editor no one except my wife has even been able to give me feedback.

Depression? No. The real issue is my denial.

Lately I find myself taking small comfort in a Facebook post I saw a few months ago -

“Stand up for what you believe - even when you are the only one standing.”

At the moment I can more realistically adhere to another saying, one I’ll create for the occasion -

“If you stand with a group of ten thousand awaiting the rising of the sun, and you are the only one facing west, MAYBE YOU ARE JUST WRONG.”

Recently I tried to look back and remember how long it’s been since I have been involved in Resistance to what I saw going on around me.

I usually trace it to an early spring noon time when I was about twelve. I was sitting on our front porch after lunch trying to slow down time so I wouldn’t have to go back to school. (Yes in those ancient days we came home for lunch.) I remember thinking about what my Missouri Synod Lutheran church was teaching us in catechism, Sunday School, and from the pulpit. At the time they were still not totally convinced that Roman Catholics weren’t going to hell.

Then came what I later learned was an epiphany. How could I accept what they were teaching me when I knew nothing about what others believed?

That day I rebelled.

There have been periods of my life that I believed that I had turned my back on the rebellion, but I came to know that those were the periods when I needed to process and integrate what came before.

When I look back, sixty-two years now, I remember the fire. The outrage. The naiveté.

I have stashed away in a metal box in the corner of an unused closet a small format, hard covered, brown three ring binder. It’s from those early times. Poetry mostly. Some prose. All of it sophomoric, and all of it from the heart.

I never want those words to be seen. Yet, you notice, I don’t throw the words away.

One poem caught the heart of the struggle. Actually it was published in my hometown newspaper all those years ago. And even after six decades, for all that it lacks as poetry, it still defines the struggle -

To Lift The Mask

The world lives on and all its’ creatures here within,

Pass, though still as strangers,

Lost within themselves.

And man, his conquests spewed about him,

Stumbles onward,

Seeking life,

And knowing not himself.

From birth to death he totters on,

His path marked well with signs to guide his way,

And n’er a thought to lift the mask

And look within his heart.

I think perhaps that fate,

Its’ fingers intertwining men with time

And time with men,

Has cast me back ten thousand years

And set me down to live and die,

Amidst a world of modern men

With pre-historic minds.

These minds,

To which the universe is black and white

And only after self reproach and bitter qualms

Will let a shade of gray slip into view,

Will scream in mortal anguish lest they see

A bit of truth.

Their superstitious faith rewards them

Asking only for the freedom of their minds,

And who among them cries with courage,

“Life, Death. Nothing more, nothing less.”

I stand, my solitude complete within their mass,

And ask to live a life of Truth.

To love, and love to love,

To feed upon its precious goodness,

To seek it out and know its’ truth where ere the path may lead.

Then let me say in death, “It is the end,

And nothing more,

For it is only truth.”

But man shall strip me naked,

And the world will put the mark upon my head.

Yet as they strip and mark me,

Their fear will tell them

I seek truth.

Ten thousand years

And superstitions long since shed,

And morals long discarded,

Will bear the burden of my proof,

That I seek naught but truth.

But I shall lie

Now dust these many years,

And those that did destroy me

Are now dead and cannot know.

The poem seems without hope.

Now I know the paths’ direction, the nature of temporal and transcendent love. I have knowledge and experience of Love. And I have hope.

My hope is for the future.

In this moment are my reactions Denial? They are either strength or delusion. Whether my words hold promise and awakening, or are me simply pissing into a hurricane, I guess I really can’t know.

Unless, of course, one of you reallly smart folks come and enlighten me, or disillusion me, or just bust a cap in my ass.

There is a reality here too, having to do with my father. He sat down and died. The reality for me is that if I give over to the possible reality that while my words are true, I really am pissing into a hurricane and all the words are just a waste of time and effort - if I sit down - does my old buddy Death come sit on my shoulder? “How ‘bout now, Billy? God (You should excuse the expression) knows you know the way.”

I just don’t know. I want to say that if I sit down I’ll look to other endeavors, but I don’t know. I’m seventy-four. Its been a long haul already.

I don’t remember what it feels like not to be a part of this Resistance. I don’t know how to be without it centering, focusing, and teaching me. And I don’t know how to be in the Resistance without reaching out. Without trying with my imperfect and after all these years maybe, still, sophomoric words, to share.

There is also the often repeated justification for reaching out, the one I’ve been repeating for decades. The one that until this moment I’ve successfully blocked from my scattered and often less than coherent mind -

It’s not my job to convince anyone of anything, nor to get a single person to read or hear. Judging by numbers is, finally, an act of ego.

There it is then.

I can’t sit down. At least not today. So if my words don’t make sense, are without meaning, continue as you have - pay little mind. I’ll just put ‘um out here in the knowledge that to some few folks on this day and in this moment they will serve.

love,

bill

　

　

 

“MORE!” How deep is the dysfunction?

 

 

 

 

“MORE!” How deep is the dysfunction?

In the February, 2013 issue of Wired Magazine there is an article discussing product design, The Simplex Complex, by Mat Honan. In it he writes -

“…Travel back in time to use your parents’ first microwave and you’ll likely see a box with three buttons (High, Medium, Low) and a timer dial. By contrast, one of LG’s current models boasts 33 buttons… None of these make my popcorn pop faster or taste better. Why do products become more complex as they evolve?…”

He then quotes Mike Monteiro, author of Design Is A Job -

“…We live in a culture of consumption, where quality is associated with more.”

So the driving force behind much product design isn’t making the product better, it’s to make the product look like it has “MORE.”

That our culture is fundamentally based on and motivated by the concept of “MORE” is indisputable. That that most of the planet is now infected with that dysfunctional concept is equally beyond question.

 

 

Rewarding greed, using MORE as the standard for determining success, has had a debilitating effect on every aspect of our personal lives as well as our social, political, economic, and spiritual institutions. And now, if we look closely and heed Mr. Honan and Mr. Monteiro, we can see how this dysfunction even affects the products we use.

 

 

How deep is the dysfunction of “MORE?” Deeper than we have imagined.

But perhaps more important - How has this happened?

And ultimately - What can we do about it?

First -

How Did This Happen?

To understand how we could become so addicted to a concept that brings us frustration, physical and emotional dis-ease, and lack of fulfillment we have to look first not at our institutions, but into our own hearts.

Stay with me here.

Often when you read about opening your heart, finding your bliss, reaching a state of perpetual happiness there follows a series of steps that have no real basis, at least to you, in the real world.

This, however is real. And rather than “Pie In The Sky” this relates to REALITY.

It starts with Death. It starts with loss.

Here’s the pared down version - because to fully understand and begin to open to REALITY takes longer than a few minutes reading a blog post.

1. All loss triggers a grief response.

2. Everyone experiences loss throughout life.

3. Birth is a loss. (Actually conception may be the first loss, but that’s a topic for another day.)

4. Since at birth we have no words to explain our loss or to hear a way through the grief, that loss remains unresolved.

5. From birth we look outward trying to understand what the **** is going on out here.

6. As we develop words, and continue to experience loss we begin to understand what loss brings.

7. We don’t understand why it comes, we don’t understand how to stop it, it hurts, and it’s scary.

8. At the same time we begin to recognize something else. LOVE.

9. Like Loss and grief, we don’t understand it, but it feels good.

10. One of our first rationalizations, and a completely understandable one, is that since loss and grief are hurtful we should push it away, ignore it, DENY it - as soon as possible.

11. And since Love makes us feel good we should hold on to it.

12. Loss and grief continue to come to us.

13. We recognize it and, as best we can, set it aside. We hold it beyond our conscious moment.

14. Grief can be denied. Grief symptoms cannot.

15. When enough grief is denied the symptoms begin to leak out around our very best efforts to DENY.

16. But because we are no longer aware of our unresolved grief we assign those symptoms, wrongly, to what is happening in our moment.

17. Dysfunction follows.

18. As this happens we are searching for LOVE.

19. We learn about it.

20. One of the lessons it that it leaves. Always. Leaves. Sometimes it is through death.

21. Because we need it we try to hold on to it. Own it. Do whatever we need to have it. But still it leaves.

22. It’s hard not to believe there’s something wrong with us.

23. As time passes and more losses come and are denied it takes more and more energy to hold back the grief.

24. For many of us all we have time and energy to do is to hold back the grief.

25. We learned another lesson waaay back when this whole process was just beginning - Once the denial took hold and the love was inconsistent, nothing around us was meaningful.

26. Then we discovered that Ice Cream was good. More Ice Cream was better. MORE.

27. The satisfaction of more was so temporary. But we had the answer.

28. MORE. MORE!

29. Etc.

30. Etc.

31. The key to whatever kind of more we opted for, food, drink, relationships, education, money, power - each on its own a normal, natural part of life - ultimately could not fulfill us.

32. And as we looked and lived outward, we created a world that fit with our DENIAL.

Each of us can look to where we are individually on this Denial scale.

It’s the foundation upon which our lives and institutions are based.

You are a part of it. Only you can determine where on that scale you live.

　

Second -

What can we do about this?

When we started to work with dying folks and their families thirty-five plus years ago we were looking for a way to more humanely, more lovingly share that last loss of the human life cycle. We weren’t looking to deal with global cultural issues, issues that would profoundly affect the way we live and the world community in which we live.

What we discovered about Loss and Grief in a human life cycle grew out of our own need to understand the lessons dying folks were teaching us.

We did learn. And today, while the path forward is defined, it is far from complete. We can’t, well at least I can’t, see where it will lead, but we definitely know how to begin.

What can we do?

We can come together and speak to our losses, help each other heal, recognize the incredible power which - at this amazing moment in human history - is there for us to exercise.

What can we do?

This too is a pared down version. What we can do can’t be defined in one blog post.

But Quicksilver Times at

www.quicksilvertimes.org, the Discussion Forum at the net site, Quicksilver Times Facebook page, the upcoming Quicksilver Times OnAir broadcasts, and this blog, are a place to start.

There are practical things to be done. Come. Ask questions. Help.


love,

bill