THE NEW AGE OF TRANSPARENCY And our Current State of Cultural Affairs As the human species continues to share

our planet home discoveries and technology surge on. As the implosion of the human presence coalesces around the known, along with discoveries of the new, information continues to pile up and filter down at an ever accelerating pace. Our present challenge is the ownership of our history as well as the current implosive human moment. Integration of the facts at hand is always a process of the eventual acceptance of a must, and that must has to be recognized as sufficiently important to merit our time and effort, it must be integrated in some meaningful way, discarded, or just plain ignored. In retrospect, ignoring may place us personally, some of us, or most of us, in mortal danger. This has always been the human circumstance. Why does this seem to be so hard to remember? At some levels knowledge integration is alive and well, although there is another process that is ongoing the unfiltered plethora of savage attacks on the accumulated wisdom of the ages. There are those confrontations of science and justice: children and parents, generations upon generations, fundamental human truths, sedition, the continuance to an adherence to an apocalyptic age, always hoping for a better place, adventure, entertainment, and the parsing of the really real with the potential good and bad that surrounds us all. Always there is the need to know, to care, to be responsible, and to respect, to

always respect the need to protect the innocent. This is becoming more and more difficult. Smaller slices of repose in our rapidly moving environment are providing insufficient reflection to understand and to integrate the truths of the ages. The downside of the current moment is that there are too many individuals who operate with insufficient understanding. They lack the necessary parsing tools to comprehend the facts at hand. While we know we seldom have all the facts about any occurrence / happening, we do know that there are times when we have a critical mass and that is enough information to make a reasonable assessment. And yet, it is also true that sufficient common sense is indispensible in fathoming the relationships of facts to the Truth as opposed to the truths from the facts at hand. We must have an ongoing honest and universal educational effort that encompasses our past and the ever mounting new. Our very survival depends upon our recognition that we must own Natures profoundly equanimical dictum: Pay attention or die! This must be understood and applied, in the human realm, to all four theaters of our very existence: the physical, the intellectual, the emotional, and the spiritual. Unless these are all recognized we cannot hope to survive. This all presupposes that there exists constructs of an ability to reason through various generalities as well as specifics and arrive at what is termed a reasonable understanding that can subsequently be used to make some common sense response to the vicissitudes of life. Natures inherent efforts demand a moving participation in life itself. Taking a historical stance and maintaining a

continued commitment to that stand makes sense, is reasonable, if and only if that standpoint meets the demands of our current moment do the facts at hand demand a different response is always the perennial call. This can only be answered after a moments reflection in which we ascertain whether or not the presenting circumstance(s) needs more or less than it would have needed before did need before would have been sufficient before would be sufficient now. Then, in that omnipresent existentiality, the one that always presents a new now in which an ever increasing body of facts and information become available to us if we will only be open to them, facts present themselves as choices. And it is precisely this new information that needs to be brought to bear on the current need.* The facts, both historical and actual, of the human presence on the planet earth are of paramount importance; nevertheless I feel we must now reference our current states of being as we spend more and more time and resources on space exploration. We inhabit a space station that exists in an earth bounded orbit with some sense of earthly security. And yet we will, in the not too distant future, require a dependence on a different set of circumstances. To this we are destined, to this we must mature. The point here is that as a species we cannot hope to survive either in our current earth moment or our future space moments without the fundamentals of sufficient common sense that enables us to make life and death decisions about our self and others.

As the depth and breadth, and these are two different things, grow and magnify, we are exposed to the thinking of ever increasing numbers of individuals from now not so far flung countries and quite different circumstances. It behooves us to assess the veracity of the current conversations and interactions in order to be able to relate to them in ways that will provide sufficient understanding so as to have adequate security to maintain our commitments to potential and actual mortal dangers, as well as opportunities to survive, much less take with us into a future necessities that will undoubtedly offer ever greater opportunities to grow and develop. There will always be ideologies that foster the very attributes of being that made it possible for us to get where we are now existing in the plenitude of benevolence that sustains our capacity to dream and hope with a faith that abounds in charity. We are all alike and yet different. To respect that similarity and uniqueness is one of Natures most profound laws. The phrase It is prudent to recall is another one of the most essential standpoints of the species the call of humankind. That reflective parsing of new and old information, in the midst of the cacophony and rambunctiousness of our current selves, along with the new omnipresence of all forms of instant communication, has become our most pressing opportunity. This new sharing will provide a plethora of avenues for new responses to new and old contingencies. The way we choose to accomplish our survival and this new melding of the species must become the new hallmark of the behavior of humankind. Far too many

individuals live ensconced in a pathetic intransigence of limited thinking or ignorance. Grow or you lose, if you lose those around you also lose, the world loses. has already been written.* Too many people are unaware of the acceleration of an omnipresence of information that will demand a new level of integrity from each and every one of us. The audio and visual, of an ever attendant technology, will present a new demand for absolute integrity that if lacking will crush the staid and slow to adapt. They will be left wondering how it is that truth will out so quickly and that lies will be exposed in the blink of an eye. The concomitant circumstance that will blindside these individuals will precipitate an immediate response of anger rising even to rage (that maligned behavior without reason). The swiftness and abruptness of this will come as a surprise when pitted against ignorance and intransigence. The subsequent confusion of an old understanding in the face of a new circumstance will make for very difficult moments, especially for those involved in making decisions meant to be in the best public interest. Those involved in the exercise of governance will need to be very well informed and act with the utmost integrity or they will be met with swift and appropriate punishments. And this may preclude their presence in an elected office with some term limit (election) in which they will not be allowed to participate. We will no longer have the luxury (if that was ever true) of allowing malfeasance to be carried on until the next election. Justice must be administered in a timely fashion. We now have sufficient tools to assess, in a reasonable time frame, the veracity of their behaviors.

A PERSON A person, an image and likeness, presents itself. What constellation of events makes a person a person? Time and space surely play a part history wraps its arms around our knowing (being) and we are caught in those tumbling times from which we come. The events of the ages adhere and dispose. Myth and legend merge from learned stories and surge to the forefront of our selected druthers: Choices! Always choices! Heroically we attempt to justify our beliefs, beliefs that we employ to weigh and measure those choices, our choices, choices that have bloodied the earth maligned our souls, torn asunder relationships of family, and of love, as well inspired our heroics. Why is it that in the face of difference we resort to modes of being that do not complement the needs of the human family? What cursed daemon sits upon our right shoulder,

what gargoyle perches upon the left? Why in the face of Natures benevolence do we insist in wallowing in chaos when we all stand in wonder and awe at the birth of a child? Simple truths befriend us all. To these we must adhere, to these we owe an everlasting thankfulness. Natures profound mandate: Pay attention of die! must be met with a chorus always singing, Yes to self! Yes to life! Yes to all life!* *(You may wish to see in Sign Posts Vol. I., An Agenda For Us All, and as well, The Greatest Challenge of Our Time Part I and II in Sign Posts Vol. III, and also an essay entitled Changing Our Minds in Sign Posts Vol. IV. The other essays in the four Vols. of Sign Posts may be of some help in understanding the absolute need for educational programs, both formal and informal, that have integrity of purpose that cannot to be trifled with by pushing errant ideologies. All of these vols. of essays are available free of charge at: pathtotheself.com/allpostingvols.html) Don Davison *You may also be interested in The Game of Life: A Players Manual for Executives and Others. Rules and Corollaries give some constructs for lifes winning players. The text is at: http://amzn.to/fOrqEi

*The Phenomenon of Man, speaks clearly of a sense for, and an absolute need for, the coming upon a realization of kindred spirits and the omnipresent sense of biophilia,* especially for those who think believe that Sharia holds, offers, some inherent holy purpose for humanity, I offer The Eternal Feminine. Both books are by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. *There is another text with a poem entitled Perpetrators, which touches on the omnipresent theme of biophilia. It is in Always Extolling: A Collection at: http://amzn.to/gpHPRB