Well, that is how it looks like when I unleash my pain-speech. It sucks. I can do a lot better. Sigh.

No, this is all good. Better to get it out than to hold it in.

Though I posted this, I can't say I trust Bernard. Too much disinformation out there and too many people seeking recognition. That is yet another disease of this civilization.

It can cause pain to realize how fucked up our civilization is and how manipulated we are. That may be a price to pay for waking up.

All of us are addicted to our technology, some more than others. It doesn't have to be that way but few will give up their luxuries of indoor plumbing and electricity willingly, even if it is destroying the very planet on which they live and even thought their children would be much happier without all that crap.

It's no stretch to see that cell phones are creating misery for the young, even though they feel that without their cell phone they couldn't possibly be happy. That is a form of social and technologically induced cognitive dissonance we all suffer from. We don't want to quit using our heroin even though it's killing us.

That is why I have simply quit hoping for a good outcome for humanity and have simply accepted that we will eventually destroy ourselves. Consciousnesses will continue even though humans will no longer be an expression of it. Evolution always tries new experiments, some of which are successful, like ants and some of which do not survive, like dinosaurs. I'm not a humanist and so the loss of humanity is not that big a deal for me. I write to inform people that there is another way, but I don't believe they will take it. Humans aren't that bright.

Your mother is an excellent example of someone who realized how painful life could be and simply accepted that. In doing so she released herself from trying to make life more enjoyable by pursuing externalities. She found peace in the small things in life. She was lucky enough to have a tribe that cared about her and that was all that truly mattered. And she was that way because nobody insulated her from the realities of life, of bodies and sickness and human cruelty.

We don't have lepers and beggars in the streets. The war wounded are carefully hidden away in hospitals or care facilities. The sight of death is hidden away as well. All of this is to our detriment as humans and why the X and snowflake generations cry if harshly talked to. They're babies. Unevolved. Depressed.

I read a recent post on "camping." I won't link to it because it didn't resonate with me. It talked about how some campers refuse to leave their cell phone behind because it caused anxiety. As a coming of age rite, American Indian boys were required to go on a long vision quest into the wilderness alone and with nothing in search of their animal totem. They often fasted and slept in the open for many days at a time. When they found their totem, they returned. They were now men. Civilized boys, unless they experience war or are raised on mean streets within ghettos, remain children their entire lives. Yet we still revere the civilized over the savage and comforts of civilization over the challenges of the wilds.

I suppose that the EU is more civilized than other parts of the world where midwives are common and available. My last grand daughter was delivered in hospital by a midwife. In Canada they have separate facilities, hospital birthing rooms for midwives that are close to medical facilities in case something goes wrong. It is the best of both worlds.

The biggest problem with socialized medicine is that government is always controlled by big business interests and the religion of science. This tends to strip people of choice "for their own good." The future might reveal that we currently live in the Dark Ages of government, science and technology, perhaps even more desolate than the Dark Age of "The Church". That is, of course, if we survive it.