Wisdom of the Ages

For every ailment under the sun

There is a remedy, or there is none;

If there be one, try to find it;

If there be none, never mind it.

 

-- Mother Goose (1695) 

More often than not, problems exist because we are not aware of the solution -- but accept the problem(s) as how it was meant to be -- for all time, and forevermore.  But living in these times, one is inclined to suspect that one simply hasn't discovered the right solution, and even if they did, many would not accept them -- or think those solutions are just for the privileged few, of any time and place.

Thus, many think they have to first become kings and queens, or very rich people, in order to be entitled to such privileges -- rather than that they are the right of those who can merely recognize what works and what doesn't -- in today's mass market world.  Some of the best ideas are nearly free -- because the greatest value of a great discovery (invention), is the sharing of it with the rest of the world.  That's how that reality comes into being.  Otherwise it doesn't, and is lost for another few centuries -- until it is inevitably discovered again.

The challenge for many at this time -- because never have so many lived so long before -- are these challenges of "old age," or simply "aging" (badly) at any time in life.  Since so few lived to deal with it, it's never been thought that people can age well -- as commonly as they accept that aging badly is the fate of all -- with no exceptions.  Except now, because of mass media, more are aware that a few seem to defy what we've come to regard as the normal aging prospect -- however usually attributing it to extraordinary means not accessible to most -- just as pharaoh in his day, felt he had the exclusive right to immortality.

Now it is the right plastic surgeon or geneticist too far ahead of his time who is credited with having those powers -- rather than the realm and jurisdiction of most consumers with access to all the markets and information -- most of which is unarguably bad, even with the imprimatur of those who claim exclusive authority on such matters.  But ultimately, authority derives from those who really know what they are talking about -- rather than how much money they received for deceiving others into thinking they do, which is what commercial writing and propaganda is all about.

In a previous generation, it was simply dismissed as the proper province of Madison Avenue -- where it was regarded that it was fair game to say anything one could imagine, as long as one could get away with it -- after hiring all the experts to their side -- to look the other way.  In some places, everybody who was anybody, was in on it -- because the money made it true, at least for them.  Thus we had many boondoggles that became money pits that solved no problems -- but actually perpetuated them -- as their solution.

The majority then became jaded into thinking no solution was really possible -- for any problem anymore, and all in life was futile, and then you die -- after being robbed all their lives of hope that anything worthwhile could ever become of anything, and all one's efforts.  Such people never saw any problem actually solved.  It was simply the selling of one gimmick after another -- falling more into the category of "entertainment," than any other.  One simply hoped to amuse themselves in this way -- until one met their ultimate and inevitable bad end.  "For nothing else was possible" -- in their world. 

 

That, unfortunately, is still the life for many -- exploited by the few, but not the few they think.  These are the few one would never suspect, because they trade on confidence, and not the actuality of results -- that are even obvious to those who haven't been persuaded otherwise.  That may even be the myth that they live in "Paradise," when everything would indicate otherwise, and convince them that they don't, and live lives harder than anywhere else -- without such sanctimonious proclamations that theirs was the best of all possible worlds, and would be best off not even venturing to find out, never questioning the truth they've been taught by others to believe.

 

And that is all their "education" and "conditioning" has been -- to let others do all their thinking for them, and repeat it as though they thought of it themselves.