Desperation is a Great Motivator

Many people won't do anything until all their chances have run out -- and then they are desperate for anything that might work.  But until they get to that point, they expect a miracle to save them.  Miracles are even a greater long shot -- than the most modest thing one can do for themselves.  God is usually too busy to intercede -- especially when one has done absolutely nothing for oneself but pray to God to do everything for them.  Even the most beneficent of beings, will run out of patience.  So it is largely up to each individual, to do as much as they can for themselves -- before asking for divine interventions, because the plan already works -- but everyone must learn how it works.

That's not automatic; one is not born with that perfect knowledge, but has many years to learn as they live -- and get better by it.  Presumably, that is what life is all about -- and not the many diversions and entertainments that occupy them otherwise.  Chief among them now is just consuming all one can -- just because they can.  That seems to be the undoing of many people now

That's what "opportunity" means to many -- unlimited chances to waste them all, and not that each must be properly valued and appreciated (made greater).  It still is a world of finite resources, and not all you can eat (consume) -- at every opportunity.  Even in ancient times, the wastage of resources, made for hard times to follow.  And so a few wise ones advised on the need to live judiciously and shepherd the resources for ever better days ahead.  Usually, those voices were unheard, and in many cases, persecuted and suppressed by the ever growing madding crowd -- who thought that unlimited more was their entitlement and birthright.

But alas, the world is what we make of it -- individually, and then collectively -- and not just everybody waiting for everybody else to do it first -- for them.  Obviously, those are the societies and civilizations in decline, while more robust and rising ones emerge each day -- in new ways.

Even for the most undiscriminating, some things work better than others -- but more than a few, never figure that out, merely choosing to accept every outcome as equal to any other.  Not surprisingly, they are even seen to go backward in their lives to a time of less accountability and responsibility for their own actions and lives -- instead of moving ahead at every opportunity and challenge.  Instead, there is no progress but only repetition -- of the same behaviors that got them to their present quandaries.

Before we go too far down that path, hopefully we find a few who see things clearly, and guide us to the light.  They are not everyone, or even most people -- but the path of a few who see their own lives with that significance.  They are the self-chosen few, and it doesn't matter how many are on the other side -- lost in the wilderness of their own self-deceptions.  Chief among them are those working in the various media -- catering to whatever popular delusions and madness is the order of the day.  It might be the present investment scheme, magical potions, rituals of contemporary fads -- each outdoing every other for the limited attention bandwidths.

They think that whatever they want to think, makes it so -- if they can't get enough people to get with their program.  In that respect, they are lot like every generation before them -- with their shamans, gurus, and experts -- proclaiming to know better, for each and every other -- which is much more convenient than each learning for themselves, the truth of every matter.  So what they believe to be true, is largely what someone else has told them is the truth, and there are experts in every matter -- and not that anyone should ever experiment and find out for themselves.

Usually one lives that way -- until one comes to that moment of desperation in which they are forced to find another way -- or perish.  For the best, that often comes early in life -- when they realize that they are very different from the others, and so simply going along with all the others, only ensures their doom and abnegation.  That is most obvious with the child prodigies of every age -- realizing that what most think is impossible, is way too easy for them, and they have to be very circumspect at "showing off," lest they be brutally suppressed and censored by the self-appointed gatekeepers of the truth.

But in more humble lives, those days of reckoning can come to most -- if they choose to embrace it.  More often than not, it is the path opened to them by desperation -- as the person given no hope otherwise.  Legends are built on such transformations -- with no idea of a definitive result.  They just do because they don't know what else to do -- as all the options provided to them, have no future but the hapless known.  That's almost invariably how the weak became strong.  They refused to accept their doom, and so they worked tirelessly at changing that prognosis.

That's not a hard thing to do.  It takes dedication born out of desperation -- that that is the only thing they can do, and what makes perfectly good sense to do.  So they are "all-in," no matter what.  That's the easy part.  Finding out the right things to do may take the entirety of their lives -- but what better and more important things have they got to do with their lives?  In that way, is their greatest service to the rest of humanity -- to find that better way -- rather than the dismal familiar.

That's true of every pioneer in every field -- and particularly, the ones that have yet to be created.  And nothing less is possible.  If it is not one, it will be someone else.  That is the ongoing evolution of the species.  Supreme health is the evolution of the species -- and not simply more of sickness providing more cures.  That is the old paradigm of somebody else making everyone else well.  People have to do it for their own sake, as well as their own good -- and nobody else can do it for them.  They have to live their own lives with that sense of urgency and desperation.  It's not the power over everybody else -- but to manage their own lives as though it matters, and makes a difference.  That is the only action that ever has.

It doesn't mean that everyone has to run marathons or become a "mass" monster.  Everyone has to become their own person -- and not just the latest mass media fabrication that has gone way beyond parody.  The only silver lining in that is the realization that such instant transformations are entirely possible.  But far beyond the manifestations are the sustainable lifestyles of truly healthy people -- and what they will do because of that underlying health.  Health is not even about the absence of sickness and problems.  It is going where humankind has not gone before.

It is not one thing -- but everything.  It's foolish to talk of living longer lives if those lives are not achieved by vastly superior health that makes living longer feasible and enjoyable -- or what would be the point of simply deteriorating longer?  That doesn't make sense to anyone.  That is truly putting the cart before the horse.  What matters is the health of the horse -- and that will take us to where we want to go.