What are we Doing?

Sometimes I ask myself “Why am I writing?” Is it my ego, my need to be seen, recognized, and respected by my fellow beings? I’d be lying to myself to deny that such motivations are not at least a part of my reasons. But there’s something else. There’s a lingering hope that having lived nearly eight decades I might actually have something valuable to say, something that someone might find interesting, or even enlightening, or that some policy-maker with the political power to make things happen might read something of mine and be inspired to do something: propose an ordinance, or pass a law that helps set the stage for a better world.

What’s the matter with the way things are? Well, if one is happy to let psychopaths, sociopaths, criminals, and selfish, ignorant, and immoral men take control of the levers of power in business and public affairs, then nothing is wrong. Everything is great. That is, everything is great if you are a beneficiary of the system in which these barely human creatures exploit the rest of us.

I am lucky. I live in a beautiful house that was built nearly 200 years ago. It is in a good neighborhood, aesthetically comfortable, and full of nice things: furniture, paintings, clothes, musical instruments…(cluttered, actually, and in need of down-sizing). But it is obscene and wasteful when the energy bills come in during the winter months. My god! I consider myself a conscientious environmentalist, yet by living in this house I am participating in the extractive economy that feeds on natural resources while polluting the environment in ways that I am mostly protected from seeing or feeling. It is other people, less fortunate than I, who bear the consequences.

I don’t like this arrangement, yet I am largely stuck in it. Do I have the personal energy to change it? Only incrementally, it seems. Take out low interest financing to add some insulation, install heat pumps, weatherize windows and doors; then hope the monthly payments don’t sink my ship. Maybe sell it all and buy something smaller and more sustainable?

The truth is, I am lucky to have such privileges, to have been born in a family that valued education and culture, and that gave me the freedom (sometimes misspent) to experiment with life and to travel many paths through cultures, arts, science and more. I am lucky to have been prepared for life with good genes, good education, a good marriage, and a wide-ranging set of skills that have allowed my wife and me to build a comfortable life for ourselves. I am grateful, but burdened with the knowledge that great responsibility comes with such privilege. And I don’t want to shirk that responsibility.

The other day I was thinking about the passage in the Book of Genesis where Adam and Eve get thrown out of the Garden of Eden. That story never made sense to me. What’s so bad about the tree of knowledge? It seems that knowledge is a good thing. It is something we highly value. After all, it is to gain knowledge that we spend most of our childhood, adolescence, teens, and often into our 20s going to school. There must be something good about knowledge to deserve so much of our time and energy in its pursuit. But why then were Adam and Eve tossed out of the heaven-on-earth that was the Garden of Eden? It only recently came to me: it is only through the use of knowledge and science – or rather its misuse – that mankind was able to create the hell on earth that life has become for a very uncomfortably large segment of humanity.

Wasn’t Cain’s picking up a rock and killing Able the first mis-use of a tool? And as humanity’s knowledge and technology advanced through the ages – the stone age, the bronze age, the iron age, the middle ages, the modern age – the means of murder and mayhem only increased and allowed for the rise of “powerful” men who subjugated the rest and fought wars of conquest by sending young men to die or to return with traumas of mind and body. It was knowledge that stripped Adam and Eve of their innocence. Not the knowledge of their nakedness as I was taught many decades ago, but the knowledge to inflict death and destruction and poverty and misery on others in the pursuit of power and wealth and worldly comforts. Cain, after killing Able, asks rhetorically, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The answer, of course, should be a resounding YES, and some 2000 years ago, after the untold centuries of slaughter and conquest documented in the Old Testament, Jesus finally came along and responded to Cain’s question, saying “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But the world order was established by Cain, and despite the efforts of good men and women, that order persists.

Here we are on the brink of previously unimaginable scientific breakthroughs in science and medicine. Isn’t it exciting! We could be sending humans to Mars in another decade or two. But for what purpose? So we can set about extracting and destroying whatever resources we can find there? So we can conquer and exploit other worlds? So we can ever further enrich the wealthy 1% while most of humanity suffers and slowly dies away on the remains of a planet that used to be the Garden of Eden? What the hell are our priorities? Why are we perpetuating a system that is so obviously unjust and cruel?

It is not an accident that we live in the grip of this system. It was designed this way, one step at a time in the wake of Cain murdering his brother, as wealthy and powerful men, free of conscience, used the levers of political, economic, and military power to shape societies and laws that have allowed them to amass ever more power and money. Are these fabulously wealthy people actually blind to what is happening here? Do they really think they are safe and secure in their gated communities, helicopters, and private jets? Are they not smart enough to see that the system is unsustainable and headed for collapse, just like the game of Monopoly? What happens when they own all the Hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place and no one is left with any money or property to lose? It’s “Game Over”, of course! And how much money is enough, after all? In the pursuit of security and worldly comforts, how many millions, how many billions are needed to pad with luxury the few short decades of a single human life while hundreds of millions are left with nothing but poverty, desperation, and suffering?

And yet, here I am in a warm and comfortable home while hundreds, perhaps thousands of people are homeless, enduring single digit temperatures within 100 miles of me. I do small things to help: giving to the local food bank, donating clothes and books, volunteering in local non-profits… But I often despair that my efforts are not much better than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It is fine and necessary to help the victims of the grossly inequitable economic system in which we live: we have to do what we can to relieve the suffering. But there are bigger issues at stake. The system itself is broken. And are we not charged with fixing it?

Right now, in the early months of 2026, we all have an opportunity to make a difference. In every state of the Union, good and honorable men and women have answered the call and are running for political offices at every level of government. We need to support them with our money and with our time and energy and talents. It is not that hard. Right now, elected officials in local, state, and federal governments everywhere are considering legislation that could move the needle either for better or worse. We need stay in touch with what they are doing. It’s easy to do: sign up for action alerts from organizations that are advocating for the issues you care about (hint: start with The League of Women Voters in your state). Then communicate with your elected officials before they make their decisions: call them up, write them letters, visit them in their offices. Their contact information is easy to find. It takes about 5 seconds, and another five minutes to make a phone call or send an email message. If they don’t do the right thing, we work together to elect their replacements. And let’s show up together on March 28.