It's Martin Luther King Jr Day, and we in the U-S-of-A are inaugurating our new head honcho attended by his crew--all denizens of a Star Wars cantina, "a wretched hive of scum and villainy". *
Are you ready?
for Open House for Butterflies by Ruth Krauss
"A screaming song is good to know
in case you need to scream"
STORY IDEA: The world's richest and most powerful bad men (r&mpbm) are gathered on a platform for a ceremony.
Due to what is later determined to be an accidental but catastrophic failure of the screws supporting the structure, the platform collapses.
Miraculously most people survive with barely a scratch,
but the r&mpbm are crushed to death.
What next?
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Such catastrophe is unlikely.
We're more likely in for the continuing slog along "the arc of the moral universe", which, MLK said, "is long, but it bends toward justice.”
I used to think that MLK quote was mere wishful thinking.
But it came to me last night as I was falling asleep:
no, that's right.
I keep marveling at my (our) experience of being a Blip o' Carbon that gained Consciousness.
It is the nature of Consciousness to expand beyond Self-awareness to Other-awareness:
As it is for me, so it is for thee.
A concomitant result of the expansion of consciousness is what we call justice. Justice is not an emotion, it is a response to the rain that falls on all.
The Golden Rule, applied, can look more like engineering:
if you don't like to get rained on at the bus stop,
build a bus shelter.
The growth of the species is like the growth of a child.
Consciousness expands, like a stretchy web.
First it becomes self-aware, and it cares for its own survival. And the survival of the other people it depends on, and later, its own offspring.
Gradually it (the child, the species) builds up awareness that Other People Are Real too--other people beyond the immediate family and tribe.
And the consciousness expands outward, for some, to include all of existence.
So yeah, I think 'the moral arc bends toward justice' is a way of saying that. It's not guaranteed--MLK doesn't even say it will reach justice--but it is like a plant growing toward the sun--it wants to go that way.
It helps if we clear the stuff that blocks the light, that warps the arc--of our own personal life, our hearts, and onward, outward to our neighborhoods and beyond.
Let us hold hands and keep on going.
How long, oh Lord, how long?
Long, and very long.
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* The quoted words from Star Wars are Obi Wan-Kenobi's.
The idea of DT's cabinet picks being from a Star Wars cantina is Robert Reich's, former US secretary of labor.
I had snapped a photo of the Sendak illustrations weeks ago--and saved it for today.
Yes! Thank you.
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