I did it my way

And the last post, which was supposed to be about teaching children to make good decisions but was also about why we should try to make better decisions ourselves, leads to this one. I wandered out into blogland...

What is my ultimate purpose in life? Google it if you want to. There were some interesting ideas on this question. I can't say any of them were wrong or earth shattering, either, but they got me thinking again.

What IS our ultimate purpose in life? To preserve and advance the race. To aid the race in surviving. To protect and educate the young of our race to their best abilities so that they may, in turn, preserve and advance the race.

From the man who invented the club to the woman who concieved of matched furs, every human has added to the knowledge and skills of the next generation of humans. Back then if you showed them how to find food and water, use the club and how to preserve the furs, they were educated. At a young age they were ready to take a mate, breed and educate their young.

Then came fire and flint and knives and bolo's and slings and spears, planted seed, cooked, smoked and preserved food, more complicated clothing, sewing, trapping .....

You can see where I am going with this. Each thing we have learned that is good or to be avoided must be taught to the next gen. Every machine we run, needs someone that understands it to keep it running. Every minute of every day there is more knowledge and that means each generation has more to learn to survive.

Every time some one has died without passing on his knowledge of a skill or a poison bearing plant, that knowledge is lost. It has to be discovered all over again. And there is so much to know that no one person can master the knowledge of everything.

Then we came up with specialization. One family always makes wine and trades for the rest of the things they need. The family that has horses trains and sells them to the baker for bread. The computer guy fixes a machine with a glitch for a tray of home baked cookies. Swiss watches, German wood carving, Japanese porceline, African gold and diamonds, Tennessee Whiskey, just a few examples of specializations.

I can't run a phone line or set up a satillite tracking program in machine language. I can crochet a lovely doily, not a very tradeable item....I can skin and gut a deer, fish and clean same and cook both. I should be able to trade for work on my car and such.

So now, each child, instead of having to learn everything the race knows, needs only to learn PART of what the race knows. There are some things every child must learn to keep the race progressing. But younger and younger children are beginning to specialize in their studies. Music, technology, engineering, law, and such have become the wine, horses and baking of our past. You have to choose wisely or risk not being able to trade your skill and learning for sustanence in the future. We have all heard of "starving artists". Art is advanced when the economy is stable and leaves room for "extravagances" or non-nessesities.

More skills and knowledge are being lost every day but we can't afford to have babies with brains much bigger or birth will become a form of Russian Roulette for our women. I believe this is where books became important. It preserved not just the knowledge of how to survive but of the more extravagant knowledge people accumulated.

Our purpose is to preserve the race. Above and beyond the drive to procreate, survival and the basic knowledge of livingk I believe that teaching our children how to get along with others is becoming a required survival tool. Tolerance, diplomacy, and acceptance of those different from us is more important now to the suvival of the race of humans than it may have been when the only way to go see someone was to walk or even ride a horse.

As our world became smaller because of advances in transportation we came in contact with people of color, of different life styles and beliefs. Conflicts began because we were not able to communicate well or deal with our differences diplomatically. Fear of the stranger was a survival trait that we must now teach out of our children and replace with curiousity and tolerance. We have only begun to work on this recently so we still have wars based on differences we should be able to accept and live with.

Greed is another trait that used to be a useful survival trait. More food meant more to trade for other things for the family. This was good. When it goes beyond providing for the needs of one extended family it becomes a useless greed. It is no longer aiding the family or the race's survival but creating envy in others and causing more wars. You had too much land, we did not have enough - poof! - land wars. We are in fossil fuel wars that we will eventually see were foolish and a waste of resources because advances are even now being made in using the energy that surrounds us that will make these wars seem inconceivable to future generations.

And the competition to make sure that each sector of the race can blow up every other sector with dirty bombs that ruin the earth itself for use by any of us or the animals we share it with is the scariest learning of all.

Our goal should be to teach the children that every person holds, will learn or discover part of the knowledge we need to survive as a race. That they should treasure each person for their contribution to preserving that knowledge. However small you may feel your contribution is, some unique thing in each of us adds to the knowledge the race needs to survive. That is why we are each special and irreplaceable.

So what is my ultimate purpose in existing? To teach the children.

Lead them to the science of energy, the study of diplomacy and the art of learning.
To instill curiousity so they continue to learn as they grow.
To teach them why health and fitness are important and how it can be fun.
To learn to know others different from them without fear.
To show them that to live their lives with joy, love, friends and family in peace and having enough is good.
To share with those in need.
To teach them to heal the earth of the hurts we have inflicted on her.
To inspire them to search for new planets and ways to terra form the ones we have to be useful for raising food or housing brave humans.
To show them that destruction is the province of nature and construction should be the work of the race.
To teach them to believe that we must all work together if the race is to survive with a planet that will sustain us.

What only I can teach is my contribution to the race. If only I can do a thing it is up to me to teach it to another or to write a book that shows another how to do it. What only I can create, what is unique with me, that is what I must preserve for the race. It may not be important now but it may save the world in the future.

We must not enforce the herd mentality in our schools. Let each person go their own way to fully develop themselves in the direction they feel is important without hinderence. Most important is to teach them that differences really are just skin deep, we are all humans on this planet together. And if each of us holds part of the knowledge then all of us have value to the whole race.

If ONLY you can tell that story, create that invention, show a way for two strangers to become cooperating friends, build the machine that turns ground grain into any type of food, (come on replicator!) grow a better strawberry, stop a fight, resolve a conflict, invent a game that can be played by two people who speak different languages, then you have a duty to preserve it for the betterment of the race.

To share that knowledge that is unique to us in a way that will preserve it for the future should be the goal of each of us. Write down your best soup receipe, write the book, record the song, diagram the machine, sketch the idea, paint the concept of that building, grow that flower. Some of us are only here to inspire the rest of you to be sensible and get on with your lives. None of what I have put here is really unique to me. Others may have said it better. Perhaps just putting it where you would think about it was my contribution. What willl be yours?