Searching for the Spirit of Love

“Here's what it all comes down to in the end: Choice. Your choice, and not someone else's choice for you. You can choose to adopt beliefs that empower you rather than simply inherit or accept beliefs that entrap you.”
— Ryan Murdock

A lot of people want to know what's going to happen in December 2012. In case there are those of us who haven't heard, that's the month when the Earth, the Sun and the Milky Way will all be in perfect alignment for the first time in over 25,000 years. For those of us reading this article after that time, I wonder how our beliefs will have changed? Because focusing a lot of meaning into just one thing can blind side us to the bigger picture.

It is said that History does not hold sway with the present, and that Time has little respect for the vanities of humans. And as the end of the year approaches, what will this soon to become history present our children with? There are just over 80 days left in 2012 - and in a history no longer shaped by kings and queens, but money and power, what images will look back at them from our stage of evolution?

That we experienced dramatic turnarounds and weird phenomenons like "blood rain" in the weather, and worried for the future climate? And climate change, acclerating habitat loss and fragmentation affects more than just humans. We damaged wildlife to such an extent that reducing the risk of extinction for threatened species, and establishing protected areas for nature, will cost the world over $76bn dollars annually. We continue to drill resources out of extinction; we have depleted 90% of the oyster in the United Kingdom alone. If animals could speak in human tongue, what would they say to us about their mass slaughter, either for food, to control the habitat, or worse - as sport?

And while animal culls cost the taxpayer more than it saves, we show an equal lack of respect for plant life. Los Angeles residents have been turning out to watch the US space shuttle Endeavour as it inches through the city on a giant trolley, bound for a museum - but will they replant the trees cut down for the occasion? When our descendants look back, will they cringe at the waste?

Or how about the news that, with the rise of energy prices and poverty among the most needy this year, there hasn't been enough of water for crops to grow and the world to eat - but we still waste a third of all food. Along with the energy crisis and rising food prices in the UK, a charity says that a record number of people received emergency food from food banks in the last six months, too. Increasingly, governments are saying that new ideas are needed to meet the cost of an ageing society and avoid "welfare chaos" trapping people in poverty.

In many ways it's been a year of extreme opposites; where the focus has been not only on a lack of choice, but on more choice at the same time. The lawyers who once went after the big tobacco companies are going after the food industry - for misrepresenting products by promoting them as "natural" or "healthy" - and the lawyers say this isn't about telling us what to eat, but proper food labelling. They believe that knocking off the "health halo" of the big retailers is about freedom of choice, because to have free choice you have to have accurate information. And vast amounts of information are available at our fingerprints more than ever before thanks to advancements in technology.

As a curious race we have always liked to know where we are, but it is now almost impossible not to know - our phones, computers and sat-navs keep us continually co-ordinated (we even continue our hostilities through them), and through them we are involuntarily tracked ourselves. Our data and the tracks we leave behind us online are being logged; the comments we make and the pictures we upload seemingly take on a life of their own to come back and haunt us. Technology can cause as many problems as it solves.

With today's fast paced lifestyles and an ever growing "I want it now" generation, the reliance on technology has arguably never been so important to people's lives. Focusing very much on our modern obsessions, like tearing things down to build state of the art monstrous complexes, or the need for a better world; be it the laboratory testing for better life forms, or machines to run our lives; it has played out as a sort of morality tale that sees the gadgets themselves as by-products of the human condition. Like humans, technology, after all, is a work in progress.

For instance, high-risk medical technology is open to infection just like the people it saves, by computer viruses and malware, and technical glitches can cause upset, yet, people increasingly expect technology to make complex systems work intuitively. Our cars are becoming more computerised - as is the potential for our bodies. Pioneering surgery allowed a man with no heart to survive more than six months; scientists have been studying ways of creating three person embryos.

Even our consciousness is changing. Technology gets in between our experience, sitting in between us to mediate our behaviour in the world, and mediates what we see and perceive (and even what we say). There has come a loss of privacy to our lives; some question whether social media and Web 2.0 is becoming a harmful culture in itself, while our reality is increasingly becoming augmented by patented gadgets offering bonus material, with technology complimenting favourite TV shows and children's toys in novel ways. Still, while ever increasing fun gadgets are being pushed into the market for our purchasing pleasure, many of us are struggling to buy quality food. Is this the picture of 2012 that will remain with those of us after December passes, and that will reverberate far into our human history?

Or will it be all about the post-2008 economy - where the financial crisis we created impacted economic growth for many years after? There's also the old saying that markets don't like surprises, and there's been quite a few. Or, as bankers tried to restore public trust amid warnings they were still not calibrated for the "end-of-the-world risks", will it be the reality that we were constantly on the verge of war?

In the UK this year, war has never been far from our minds, not just with the country's conflict in Afghanistan, but as November approaches and we are reminded of past World Wars. A unique and thought provoking photographic exhibition held by The Royal British Legion, over the period of the Poppy Appeal, has given an original view of what life is like in Afghanistan for female soldiers on the front-line. It is a poignant display that humanity should have progressed to a stage where it has no need of soldiers either male or female, and critics say they suspect even if humanity has, politicians have not.

In human history, politics and warfare have long gone hand in hand; indeed in the UK's political past, the man who established parliamentary pre-eminence over the monarchy (establishing that no monarch is above the law) has also been branded a genocidal butcher by neighbouring countries. Oliver Cromwell is reviled by the Irish for his mass extermination policy towards their people, while in England he is revered for the political change he ushered in. English historians, however, believe his conduct in Ireland should not be judged through modern eyes.

But war never determines who is right, only who remains standing. Even if we do assess politicians by the standards of their time - and in line with their own contemporary laws of war - a position of power is not a de facto right to act with impunity, nor is it a guarantee that those in power will always "get it right". The news headlines are quick to remind us how good American politicians are at making political statements that stupefy - judging by reactions from the social media - even the most intolerant amongst us.

At the very least some believe it's a lesson, if any were needed, that governed by intolerance, our societies become more intolerant themselves. Take as an example, Christian owners of a bed and breakfast who believe they have a right to run a business that discriminates against homosexuals because of their paragon beliefs, or a priest in England who banned yoga classes from a church hall because it was "not compatible" with the Catholic faith. Father John Chandler from Southampton was quoted as saying that they could only use the premises to promote the Gospel, and not spiritual exercises.

Meanwhile the Russian Orthodox Church has come under fire following recent stories about church officials being involved in drink-driving and road rage attacks, at the same as across the border the Ukraine is about to outlaw love. Public displays of single-sex affection, such as kissing and hand-holding may soon be punishable under Ukrainian law.

Now I'm not implying any criticism, nor am I responsible for what anyone else thinks, but is violence really more acceptable than two people of the same gender falling in love? And do we have the right to place judgement on the lifestyle of others merely because it clashes with our beliefs? What happened to "judge not lest ye be judged"? Shouldn't we show tolerance to different ways of life, especially if we are going to open our home to the public as a business establishment? Dealing with the public means dealing with all sections of society, and I can't help but ask, what is the world coming to when we are so frightened of difference that we must ban it?

Or do we just put a gun to its head and pull the trigger? Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai came to public attention with a BBC diary about life under the Taliban. Now recovering from surgery after being shot by the militants, she is in the spotlight again. I can't comprehend the cowardice it takes to shoot a young girl into silence. Or her courage to speak up at the cost of her own life.

Putting the humanity into community

“Dear Religion, this week I safely dropped a man from space while you shot a child in the head for wanting to go to school. Yours, Science.”
— Ricky Gervais

However, lest we associate all religion with the narrow mindedness and ignorant actions of a religious few, it's safe to say these so-called "godly" don't have a monopoly on intolerance. In England we have begun imprisoning people for wearing T-shirts. A man who wore an anti-police T-shirt in public just hours after the killings of two policewomen was jailed for doing so. The message written on the T-shirt was completely offensive in its celebration of the deaths of police officers, and such negativity and unfeeling thought is hardly beneficial to anyone (if not to the sensibilities of others, then at least to the thinker of the thoughts).

But some say that surely it would be better to understand why this sort of thing happens, and to educate - to help change through understanding - rather then cement their way of thinking in prison? Critics argue we put up thick prison walls and think our job is over, but convicted people are in danger of becoming worse criminals then when they went in, while police and politicians advocate more discipline and zero tolerance.

Today we are a far-cry from Britain's "bloody code" of public hangings, but with the prison environment constructed as one big human bomb, some believe zero tolerance is the equivalent of saying kick it and it'll be quiet, when what is needed is more patience and understanding - and making sure the punishment truly fits the crime. The T-shirt case is only such example. There was shock in some circles when a protester, who swam in the London Thames in the way of this year's University Boat Race to protest against government cuts, was jailed for six months.

Many people think the sentence was related to the race being between teams from prestigious universities, Oxford and Cambridge, and there is growing fear in England that there seems to be a growing disconnect between crime and punishment. On the T-shirt conviction, Nick Pickles, director of civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, condemned what he believed to be a punishment gone too far:

The public shame of such a senseless and callous act is punishment enough. The idea that you should spend several months in prison for writing something on a T-shirt when shoplifters, burglars and a whole host of other offenders serve far less is absurd.

Using the Public Order Act to police words is a chilling effect on freedom of speech and these powers have also been used to arrest Christian street preachers, critics of Scientology and even students making jokes.

It's time we reform the law to protect freedom of speech and focus the police on bringing to justice those who seek to incite harm, not those who cause offence.

The theory goes that opinions, whether they are offensive or not, should not be a crime. We need to make distinctions between the things people are, and the things people do. For example, who is and isn't prejudiced is a distraction. Let's focus on those who do and say prejudiced things. Take the Christian couple who barred homosexual guests from their establishment, their opinion on homosexuals is not a crime - it's that they actively discriminated against people on the basis of those beliefs which is in question.

Similarly, with Christian-based American company Chick-fil-A, whose President Dan Cathy said he was "guilty as charged" in his opposition to same-sex marriage in August - you can agree with him, or not, but the point is the company (whose ratings got a boost from the controversy) is not turning gay customers away from their outlets. Chick-fil-A posted a statement via the social networking website Facebook regarding their attitude towards customers, saying they would remain devoted to treating everyone fairly no matter what their conflicting views may be.

More recently, a wedding planner at a luxury hotel was disciplined for describing a heterosexual couple as not the "type of people that we would want" to get married there, because of the way they looked. The disciplinary action only came about because she inadvertently sent an email with her thoughts to the couple in question, who then went to the press.

But more worryingly - whether it's in the Ukraine, Pakistan or the UK - is that the people who incite and cause harm seem to be on the rise. Sport, too, seems to bring out the worst in us; we become racist and abusive and mar competitions with violence. And it infects even those you would think "should know better". The British ambassador to Chile, Jon Benjamin, apologised for a tweet that made reference to an anti-Argentine football chant. Chilean fans usually mock Argentina's defeat in the Falklands War with a chant that says they lost the islands to the UK for all of them being gay and cowards.

When having simple consideration for others would make all our lives a lot less difficult, it prompts me to question what has happened to our self-control? More illustrations of this extreme: A mother-of-two jailed for life for the kitchen knife murder of a woman who laughed at her, a mother and all five of her siblings killed in a suspected arson attack, children violently assaulted by carloads of men, seven Royal Marines arrested for murder in Afghanistan, and the list just goes on, and on.

Some would say that this negativity has been programmed in us from generations back, and we are seeing the fruits of it now. Due to many external and internal factors, the peace and love of the sixties has not worked; the world emerged still in the same state of collapse and chaos that some people were trying to repair. Some believe that sense of anger is prevalent today. Like Mary Shelley's monster in Frankenstein, who began with a childlike innocence and was goaded into violence, some fear we are watching the final phase of the complete disintegration of the community - of which our children are at its heart.

We have a culture which used to want children to be seen and not heard; lately we've been more tolerant of children speaking but we don't always listen to them. So it is even sadder still, when we read the news of teenage suicides, like Amanda Todd - a 15-year-old girl who killed herself after being bullied online because she had no one to turn to in her time of need. Her death came just five weeks after she uploaded a video to YouTube describing years of bullying that she said drove her to drugs and alcohol.

The cause of Todd's cyber-bullying (done through Facebook) was reported to have occurred after she sent an image of her breasts to a man who later circulated it around the internet. And with many children's bedrooms equipped with computers and the proliferation of the smartphone, some say such incidents are bound to occur.

Children are growing up in an overtly sexualised world. That includes easy access to pornography, and some are now advocating they need the skills to deal with it. Critics warn that many teenagers have a distorted view of sex and relationships because of the proliferation of pornographic material online. Experts in the UK now suggest school children need to be taught about the impact of porn as part of the national curriculum.

But do we have to be an expert in child psychology, to remember what it was like to be children once ourselves? In the UK, adult selfishness is blamed for many of the problems afflicting young people in 2012: experts say that high family break-up, teenage unkindness, unprincipled advertising, too much competition in education and "our acceptance of income inequality" is to blame. Experts warn that growing up in chaotic homes is leaving some children "actively harmed" and unprepared for starting school.

It paints a stark picture when studies acknowledge that in the UK some young children start school in nappies and unable to speak in full sentences due to the effects of the disintegration of family life. There is an emotional bluntness to the analysis. There are talks of the need for "a more caring ethic and for less aggression, a society more based upon the law of love". In short, experts are arguing for a significant change of heart in our society.

But all the while our politicians lie to us in real-life political situations that read like satire, and the promises of consumerism cheat us deeper into debt - we just feel more and more frustrated. At a time when global commerce and the economics of profit mould the political structure of the civilised world, this frustration has manifested itself in a spate of public riots and protests in most recent years.

Critics say this view has been reinforced with films glorifying a violent way of life and extreme nihilism - or the eternal underdog and anti-hero of the movies. Ever since the invention of motion pictures, film fans have delighted in the cinema's ability to bring stories from our world to life. Unfortunately, Hollywood's version of history and the facts can often be a little different, with a lot of myths spread by movies. The Wild West wasn't trigger-happy; 300 Spartans didn't battle against the Persians, but it's easy to see why film-makers decide to tell stories in this way.

Adding violence can make a story more exciting, and creating contemporary myths allows for more artistic licence. The only danger comes when we begin to think about real life like this. Thus corrupting ideas from real life stories to add glamour to violence doesn't help, when in truth there is nothing glamorous about being a thug. Cinematic and televised dramas with no hope, critics say, are not paying homage to realism, they pay homage to nothing. But as visual violence has become mainstream, so, too, it seems has violence in society.

Read how television affects young minds.

Arguably, the best way to deliver serious issues is with a lot of heart and a little bit of humour, because that's the way people survive through hard times, and the best children's classics traditionally handle death and darkness with a light guiding touch - they can become symbolic of greater things, as lessons to help us make our way in the world. Conversely, some conspiracy theorists go even further to claim that modern nihilistic film-making is backed by governments to stifle the vision of the younger generations with a "no hope/no win" herd-eye view - filling their mentality with the lure of drugs in a vacuum of self-pity, and therefore be easier to control. But the increasing violent protests and riots erupting from the younger generations of university age would seem to indicate it's had the opposite effect.

Only last July and August there were two mass shootings in America alone, while in the UK, between 6th and 10th of August in 2011, several London boroughs and districts of cities and towns across England suffered widespread rioting, looting and arson to become what some have termed as the worst public disorder for a generation. Innocent people were attacked and mugged, and shops were looted by criminal opportunists - hitherto law-abiding people saw the chance to break the law under the guise of disorder, and they took it.

Because before our prejudices would have us believe that all the rioting youths were from some subversive "chav" sub-culture, straight-A university students were arrested for looting during the London riots, too. Naturally just because you're from a poverty stricken area it doesn't mean you're more likely to steal, or if you're well-educated you'll have more morals, but it can be said to be indicative that no one is immune to the pervasive mood of a breakdown.

Another such example was the vandalism and disruption at the 2010 protests against plans to raise student tuition fees which showed how angry people really felt. And the anger amid the carnival of the anti-cuts march in the UK in 2011, a third - out of a long procession of marches since the turn of the 21st Century. And how will historians record the long line of unease that spread through Europe in 2010, which united young and old alike?

Tens of thousands of people from around the European Union had marched across Brussels in a protest against spending cuts by some EU governments. Spain held a general strike, with protesters in Barcelona clashing with police and torching a police car. Other protests against austerity measures were held in Greece, Italy, the Irish Republic and Latvia. We don't even have to look as far back as two years, police throughout France have been placed on high alert after riots in Amiens earlier this week left 16 officers injured.

Thus some would say in this context, it might seem natural that the law would react sensitively and jail a man wearing a T-shirt likely to cause offence. But deeper questions about police brutality have also bubbled up; police in Lancashire had to make a public apology after they fired their Taser weapons at a local 61-year-old blind man, when they mistook his white stick for a samurai sword. The sword of justice is swift and sharp, to say the least, but I'm sure this isn't what the police meant by a zero tolerance policy.

Putting ourselves into humanity

“...Despise the imperfect body, and embrace the soul.”
— Hermann Melville

Nevertheless, my father always used to advise that fighting and acting tough is easy. His motto was: Bravado is easy, bravery is hard. Behaving yourself, studying and advancing yourself intellectually and spiritually, discovering your own ideas academically and politically is the hard and long path, he would tell me. But it's the one path that will lead you somewhere better. I have always tried to follow that in my own way.

It seems apt, therefore, that today marks the 161st anniversary of the publication of Moby-Dick, first published on October 18, 1851, in Britain. Through the journey of the main characters hunting whales in the book, the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God are all examined, as the main characters speculate upon their personal beliefs and their places in the universe.

Google marks the 161st anniversary of Moby-Dick with a doodle

Herman Melville's book was revived after the horror of the First World War and on the back of the burgeoning of Modernist aesthetics the war helped shape. Modernism explicitly rejects the ideology of realism, and makes use of the works of the past, through the application of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision and parody in new forms.

In many ways, individual personal development is a similar journey of discovery - it is a revisiting of primitive wisdoms and ancient knowledge to see what it means for a new era. For somewhere in the synergy of the human mind, body and soul is the key to our existence, to open the door that separates us from our source. Once we can reprise this connection, invariably we'll find ourselves involved, not with human issues of the day, but with human culture and sub-cultures that transcend time periods and regional borders, and the evolution and blurring of traditional identities.

Yet, unless we look inward, we are constantly filling the gaps in our lives with power-plays and status symbols, and other transient human issues - thinking of each other as a hierarchy to climb over - where some are better than others, and some countries are better than others. As humans we are programmed from birth to have a deep love for our country of origin; we have even laid down our lives for it. We mark our history by world wars fought against countries vying for the balance of power to tip in their favour.

Some would say dying for territorial borders makes no sense, because we have no say in where we are born. Yet, we are tied inexorably by this "accident of birth" - something which seems totally random, but will influence the fullness of our lives. But sometimes simply being human doesn't seem to be enough, we may feel we have to be something extra - we have to be part of some group, as if it were some catalogue or genre of being human.

Naturally, we want to be connected to our ancestors, or to something else - whether it's the tribe of heritage or pop culture, or of beliefs, or to a similar age group, interests and ideologies and the like. We can feel left out if we are not part of something, so we search for an identity (which is in part why we usually act up in our teens according to the experts) and we need an authority figure as a role model or as an identity to rebel against (e.g., to feel distinct from our parents). Some will not want to fit in or blend in too much, remaining apart from society so they don't lose themselves and forget their own unique purpose.

It's great to know who we are, to feel like you belong to the big melting pot called Earth. And searching for meaning during this transitional period is a necessary process. It is important that we find out new things about ourselves, and parents careful of their children's feelings will readily allow them opportunities to go and find themselves within their own space. But we shouldn't let wanting to belong to some tribe or group give us a purpose of meaning; what we are shouldn't wholly define who we are.

We are all important not for what we can do, but because we are alive. We are of equal importance, because the whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece is lost, even the smallest piece, the entire universe is the less for it. And I'm not judging other's cultural beliefs according to my own; I just believe everyone should have the choice to choose their own identity.

The world has a wealth of cultures, but how rich are we when we divide ourselves up into arbitrary subsets and limit ourselves to those boundaries? Can't I be more than my genetics and my skin colour? I prefer to see people, rather than colour, but this doesn't mean we should discard our heritages.

Instead, it should mean that it is simply one facet of what makes us unique, not superior or less than someone with a different heritage. It should be a vehicle to communicate and share, not divide and isolate ourselves from other people's differences. Out of all the ethnic groups, how can we give valued judgements (or even worse, think one is the best) when we are all going to be biased?

Great nations were something people built so that they could have somewhere they belong, but we have come to treat our countries like football teams to which we owe allegiance, and bring all our hooliganism to its defence. But the world is our greatest nation - with no boundaries that can cause wars. So, has the time come now, then, to make humanity - and the sacredness of life - our mutual connection, the tribe we all recognise? Is this what it will take to restore families as the centrepiece of our societies, and finally unite the living community as a family?

This isn't about dismissing local culture; I deeply respect different cultures, and I would feel very uncomfortable saying one culture is "right" and another "wrong". They are all the colour, vibrancy and spice of life. And as I would not want every living species assimilated into our urban human habitat, I neither think it right that we all dissolve our identities we feel close to into "some global cohesive". That isn't equality, but a dangerous type of conformity - which as some historians would say, China has so well shown the world can never really be achieved anyway. Half of China's population lives in the countryside, and the gap between them and the cities gets wider every year according to reports.

Meanwhile, environmentalists say China's rapid economic growth comes at an ecological cost to the global environment. They say the Chinese "economic miracle" during more austere times for the West has had a major environmental impact - pollution levels have soared by the large increase in its energy consumption. Therefore, arguably there should be a global cohesive of rights for all living things, because none of us can live as if we were an island unto ourselves.

Even if we come from different worlds, everyone should have equal rights. When we actively discriminate based on our prejudices about other races, it becomes offensive, and then we realise that the only thing that matters about a person is what they have inside. We are all carbon based life forms, and every living thing has certain universal rights that are not being shared all.

It's to our shame that we are in the second decade of the 21st century and slavery has yet to be abolished, and human trafficking is still a global problem. Moreover is it wrong to question why a Pakistani girl shouldn't enjoy the freedoms we experience in the West, if that is her wish? Is she any less deserving? Isn't now the time for action for universal primary education? And when we begin to outlaw thoughts and emotions (even if we wear them on our shirts), are we any better than gangs that hold guns to the head of youngsters? And to those that would say, "It's not your culture so you don't understand, it's none of your business," I ask: Why should I just care about the people that live in the land I happen to have been born in?

For the Chinese, what matters is civilisation, for Westerners it is nation - and doesn't it amount to the same thing if the consequences of it taking precedence over other living beings are the same? And conversely, if those of us born in our respective countries were forced to take "citizenship tests" would the majority of us pass them? Meanwhile, hundreds of children living rough in London and other cities may have no nationality, and these stateless children end up living rough. Should we treat them as lesser human beings because of it?

Thus perhaps we should not limit our perspectives to one country, or one race, but remember that we are part of a larger living community. The whole planet is our home, and every living species part of that community. This is true now more so than ever, with advanced technologies bringing the collective consciousness of the world closer together. The key to success in the future will be to embrace diversity, and we must all learn to do that better - because difference is not a danger to our way of life. Difference is our way of life.

Putting meaning into ourselves

Neither is Western culture the spokesperson for all humanity; it is only one culture out of the tens and thousands that used to exist on this planet. Only one culture out of the many that are still hanging on. That it has overrun the world means nothing about its rightness, its greatness, or its destiny. It only means that we live in a system of a social evolution that selects, for a short term, power rather than compassion, reason or long term survival.

Some believe it seems obvious that the survival rate of a way of life made up of cultural assumptions of racial and commercial supremacy would be low. Bound between opposing beliefs that the physical world is all there is or the physical world must be shunned, we fail to find the middle ground because of the cultural blinders we wear.

Caught in this tug-of-war, we live in a society that tells us more is always better, or that mere stuff will make us happy when they just serve to make us feel incomplete, and we try to fill the void by consuming even more; and so the circle goes on. Self-help gurus will tell you that you'll feel better if you buy more so you'll buy their products; they mix lie with truth as though somehow you'll generate wealth for yourself by making them wealthy.

It even has a name for it; ever heard of the self-development cycle? It's when you've got dozens of tactics, methods, techniques and so on from dozens of "gurus" and nothing seems to work together. Learning it all feels impossible and your self-development is fractured, combining ingredients like a child in their grandmother's kitchen.

A little "Law of Attraction" here, a dash of visualisation there, throw in some brainwave entrainment, a subliminal music track or two, hypnosis, and top it off by adding some affirmations, goal-setting, and EFT to the mix - and what do you get? Nothing, because the amount of conflicting information, countless gurus, and mysterious systems and methods out there is enough to confuse anyone.

Read more about money-making gurus.

We can easily get derailed by a sloppy strategy, and it can feel like we're "winging it". This seems an apt description for those in power in 2012, as well, because when democratically elected leaders continue to tarnish their public image, younger generations will no longer see them as previous ones did - "wise parents" that can take care of any problems that may arise. And if the people we vote in to govern us don't know best, then who does?

Is it any wonder then, that in such instances, voters try to "take back power"? And these aren't an outcast minority; they're an outraged majority. Whether it be by rioting or small pockets of rebellion, it highlights that despite our relative affluence (compared to some countries around the world), our life is filled with deep dissatisfaction. The utter shallowness and hopelessness of it all is profoundly depressing for some, and we can all empathise with that feeling.

Humanity is an odd mix of joy and sorrow of hope and despair of triumph and tragedy - but it's what makes us feel so alive. I was recently at a baby ward, and I was mesmerised by an entire ward of pure distilled life; knowing but not knowing, seeing and all at once forgetting. Time here moves really fast, so fast we hardly realise it's moving at all, until it's too late. That's why, some suggest, we search for meaning in everything, because to do less would be to shut our eyes to reality.

But that isn't to say a bit of escapism and freedom from people wanting to brighten their day from the current climate of doom and gloom is wrong, either. We must be positive and realistic; it's not mindless happiness but mindful happiness that grounds us to our world. We're not trying to eradicate the world from its ills, but to bring balance to them. We must be aware that opposites are always needed; the light and dark has to be balanced in us, without us being lulled back to the sleep of the daily routine of our lives where we forget the problems we all face as a living community.

But though common wrongs and issues unite us, what's right, what's real and what's beautiful are all subjective to us. Happiness can be a look in a child's eyes when a loving parent tucks him in safe at night, or the wonder of two young lovers as they stroll hand in hand dreaming of what is yet to be, or the quiet contentment of a couple in their autumn years as they sit and reflect on a life well spent together.

Read about the philosophy of happiness.

For me, happiness is the way the sky looks from my bedroom window, the way my twin flame sleeps, his look when he puts on a new shirt, or gets into a newly made bed. For my twin flame, it's the smell of a good cask ale, the first morning's kiss, the times we can sit back and enjoy each other's company. That's the real world, that's the real Earth that we must all protect, where we are each free to pursue our individual pleasures.

And how simple life can be when it becomes less about having, and more about loving. Love can rebuild us from the ground up; it's with help and love that we are shown how to make sense of the world, and sometimes when the world doesn't make any sense at all to have the courage to hold on tight to the reins with confidence that we'll get to where we need to go.

Some things in life are unpredictable. We can't control everything. There are forces out there greater than humans, but all of us living consciously are aware that our descendants are watching us. How will human history view us? Are our descendants going to look back at us in anger - shake their heads and say, "What happened to those people? How did they lose sight of such basic things?" Will it be a story shortened to 140 characters or less, turned into a comedic quip by our descendants tweeting back on this present time?

Or will we be the monsters in the nightmares of our great-grandchildren? Will we be reviled for our destructive ways, or will we be lovingly remembered in the songs of our descendants as they recount the story of this lost and very wounded episode in human existence, where we step back from abyss and find our way back to the community of living souls? Will we walk as heroes and healers in the epic poetry of those still unborn voices?

Ultimately, however, like dreamers and drunkards, emotional words are empty if there is no solution. We are in the process of learning, and there is no easy fix - but isn't it time to forge a new way out of bankrupt philosophies? The old ways are not just killing the planet, it's destroying us as human beings. The situation does look desperate from where we stand in 2012, with climate clashes and human strife seemingly ready to overshoot us into mass extinction, so much so it invoked a classic sceptical line from Woody Allen: "One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly".

However, although there is much to give us concern, what about the alternatives? Are there really no alternatives as Allen jokingly implied? Is a slam-down at the end of the universe all we have to look forward to? What about the final creature loosed from Pandora's box - that of hope? Can we allow ourselves to be hopeful? After all, we hold the bandages for the wounds human civilisation has bestowed upon the planet and ourselves.

For instance, the European Union has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for six decades of work in advancing peace in Europe. The committee said the EU had helped to transform Europe "from a continent of war to a continent of peace". Although the future of the EU might seem uncertain due to past economic woes and national interests, the struggles for balance of power that caused the First and Second World Wars are obsolete. Fifty years ago, the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war when a new struggle for power began between the USSR and America, but once again we pulled ourselves back from the brink.

We can rebuild, and we can destroy; we have great potential for both. We can create, restore and produce works of art that talk deep of dignity and emotion with as much thought as the thoughtlessness it takes to destroy them. But we are changing. Out from a period in which mass murder and mass suffering were absolutely universal, the only chance of a new world being born was in great suffering - and so many ideologies such as Communism, which caused millions of deaths in the USSR, China and across the world, was thought worth backing.

Today though, we are on the verge of change with no need for bloodshed; a torch has been lit, talked of for so many centuries but kept unlit, now burning small, but sure, and even if those with ideas of true equality for all are struck down, there will others ready to pick it up and hold it high in their place. Now it's no longer a question of if, or when, or even who shall pick up the torch for the sacredness of life - it's merely a question of how many.

And the numbers will increase, because when we shine light in the lives of others, it cannot fail to shine in our own. When we believe in ourselves, such pride and confidence is to be admired, but it can also have a downside - a tendency to look down on others when self-esteem turns into narcissism. But getting what we want at the expense of others is no longer satisfying; we want to get what we want and share it with others.

We won't deny our own light, or someone else's chance to shine. It's time to honour the everyday things that bring us together, and celebrate people everywhere opening up and connecting to share their own uniqueness with each other. It's time to focus on the things that connect us, while we celebrate the differences that make us unique.

One of the reasons we connect with others is to remind ourselves we have each other in a vast and dark universe that makes us wonder if we are alone. Now a new era of humanity is here, in which we move into a new phase where love is the universal culture with which we all identify; the only land we can freely choose to call our home. It comes with the realisation that while many aspects of our lives today are very different to almost a century ago, the really important things haven't changed at all.

Love is a universal story which will keep being replayed throughout time. So, too, will it be for our descendants. And I like to think that is what our children will see when they look back to this time - our dreams for a better future. In the hope that the greatest parts of us will live what the best of us have dreamed.

Yours in love,