Listen to this articleRAISE! TOO
In 1981, the musical group Earth, Wind & Fire released an album (LP, compact disc, or CD) titled Raise!. One concept or theme of the Raise! CD was humans raising their consciousness to a futuristic plateau. The CD contained the timely song titled "The Changing Times".
SOME THINGS IN NATURE THAT NEVER SEEM TO CHANGE
It popularly is stated that "no matter how much things change, certain things seem to remain the same." The implication of this popular expression is that history repeats itself. Of course, it also is said that "those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them." It is true that some things remain the same throughout history. The following videos take a look at some of the kinds of things that seem to remain the same throughout history:
It should be noted that the reasons why the orbits of planets, continental drift, the changing of the seasons, the 24-hour day, and so forth, do not seem to change is this: The pace of change for macro-phenomena in nature such as these is too slow for humans to perceive during a lifetime. It takes millions and even billions of years to notice a change in these processes.
SOME THINGS IN NATURE THAT ALWAYS SEEM TO CHANGE
Moving down to a humanly scale, as time marches on, it is easy to take a look around and see that societies change and people change. Nothing about human civilization seems to remain the same forever.
In the same altruistic tradition of Raise!, I, too, believe that the time has come for humans to begin looking beyond the upcoming 22nd century and looking forward to the arrival of the 61st century. I believe the time has come for humans to educate their minds, fix up their lives, and transform Earth into an oasis of beauty, peace, and prosperity. The time has come for humans to abandon the "Pastime Paradise".
How can humans accomplish this feat? How can humans transform Earth into an oasis of beauty, peace, and prosperity for the living? As I have stated elsewhere on this website, first and foremost, I believe that the journey begins with the "Man In The Mirror". Transitioning from the old to the new entails schools and teachers embracing some of the best educational practices in the world. For the Third World or developing countries, transitioning from the old to the new entails making Nicholas Negroponte's vision of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) a reality. Not only would it be a good thing if those laptops were fully loaded with educational applications but also it would be better if those laptops were linked to the educational cloud. On the Information Superhighway page of this website, I mentioned how, in developing countries, those laptops could be linked to the cloud via cloud-based operating systems such as SilveOS, astraNOS, and Windows Virtual Desktop . The bottom-line is this: To transform Earth into an oasis of beauty, peace, and prosperity, humans have got to find a way to "Hang It Up" and "Turn It Into Something Good".
Since the advent of the computer, the following links and videos spotlight several (among many) changes to have taken place in the field of education alone:
The following videos recap some of the changes that are occurring in the educational and business worlds:
I am not convinced that most humans fully grasp or appreciate just how much civilization already has changed as of 2012. With the advent of the microchip, microprocessor, and Internet, ordinary citizens now possess the computational power that used to be the domain of large corporation running large mainframe computers. This computational power now resides at citizens' fingertips in the form of laptop computers, tablet devices, and smartphones. The potential for humans to be creative with this microcomputing technology, say, to improve the human condition, has been increased manyfold.
It remains for humans to Raise! It is very easy for you to fall into the trap of becoming content with doing little more than spending most of your waking hours in pursuit of a good high (which, of course, is your prerogative in a free society). There are far too many humans who are in pursuit of a good high, and before long, they find themselves abandoning all notions of moderation and recreation. Humans begin to become addicted to these various substances. Once addicted, humans begin to become unduly preoccupied with acquiring more and more of these substances to abuse. There is a big distinction between humans achieving a higher state of consciousness (such as humans colonizing deep space) and humans achieving an altered state of consciousness (such as humans abusing all kinds of artificial stimulants and depressants). I know it sounds like a cliche, but a simple solution to the problem of substance abuse and addiction by youths is for youths simply to say, "no," when someone approaches them and offers them substances to use such as alcohol, tobacco, and drugs.
When it comes to artificial stimulants and depressants, substance abuse, and addiction, humans have to ask themselves one question. The question is this: If birds, bees, cows, pigs, fishes, turtles, penguins, seals, bears, wolves, snails, spiders, household pets, and so forth, can manage their lives without using any artificial stimulants and depressants, then why can't humans, too? These other life forms seem to manage daily life just fine without recourse to use of mind-altering substances.
The musical group Brick has shown humans that an authentic or natural "good high" comes from things such as the "Southern Sunset", not from all kinds of artificial stimulants and depressants. In the form of a song, Stevie Wonder has demonstrated to humans that a natural "good high" comes from things such as the "Bird Of Beauty". Minnie Riperton has shown humans that a natural "good high" comes from the "Simple Things" in life. The essence of Curtis Mayfield's "No Thing On Me" was this: There are hundreds of ways to have fun and to live constructively without resorting to the use of artificial stimulants and depressants. The following videos and songs survey some ways to have fun and enjoy life without resorting to the use and abuse of artificial stimulants and depressants:
As the following video demonstrates, Virtual Reality (VR) promises to provide humans with the means to experience all kinds of exotic head trips without recourse to artificial stimulants and depressants. It remains to be seen if humans will become addicted to Virtual Reality, too.
The following link offers a different perspective on the pace of human change at the dawn of the 21st century.
- Geography
- MY NASA DATA Live Access Server Basic
- Travel Math - Trip Calculator
- Online Conversion - Great Circle Distance
- Surface Distance between Points of Latitude and Longitude
- Get Lat Lon - Find the Latitude and Longitude of A Point on A Map
- Convert Latitude / Longitude in Degrees/Minutes/Seconds to/from Decimal (FCC) USA
- OpenStreetMap
- Google Earth
- Google Maps
- Bing Maps - Driving Directions, Traffic and Road Conditions
- Rand McNally Driving Directions and Maps
- OArcGIS Online | Cloud-Based GIS Mapping Software
- Latitude and Longitude of Countries | Latitude and Longitude of All Countries
- NGA: GNS Home
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Intellectual Property Disclosures: All videos and songs (as well as many of the images) referenced or spotlighted throughout this website are the legal and intellectual properties of others. All content and opinions on this website (bruessard.com) are those of the author (Edward Bruessard) exclusively and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the contributors, creators, owners, and distributors of these referenced videos, songs, and images. The author holds no legal interest or financial stake in any of these referenced videos, songs, and images. The contributors, creators, owners, and distributors of these referenced videos, songs, and images played no role at all regarding the appearance of said videos, songs, and images throughout this website; they had no clue that this website would be spotlighting their works.
