Energize Our Routines and Transform Our World

To energize our routines, we ignite our hearts and minds!

There are many ways to do it or in special cases, it simply happens to us.  What many great people suggest are these:  We clear our mind of our current concerns and worries, we go to a secluded location (a quiet room or place) or see a very comforting sight (looking at our sleeping loved ones, the ocean, the meadows, the marvels of science and our universe,  etc.) then we summon, recall or feel empowered, or as a believer ask God's tremendous enlightenment of the true essence of our existence, our deep humanism, our drive to right the wrong around us;

Or read the autobiographies of great people or their TED talks and get inspired; and for some people from the daily mundane or sometimes tragic events of our lives to rise above it and feel empowered and inspired to embark on a mission; or watch an inspiring show or movie; and many other ways we can think of ...

In the same breath, we look at the problems around us and around the world and allow ourselves to be ignited by our aspirations and our ideals that will enable us to focus and contribute our current capabilities or further improve our abilities.  We contribute our pursuits to the lives of others and to our world which fulfill its true meaning in selfless service and impeccable humanism.

It's a total transforming paradigm. All our little worries and concerns can vanish and we can see the more important matters in life.  We will see our families and the world around us in a new perspective that can literally transform ourselves, our family, our community, and our global home that is now desperately crying for help.

The only limit to our great potential is the limiting belief we have of ourselves or the limiting opinion of others that we may be unknowingly consenting to.  In certain situations, we may need also to escape from the trap of our righteous minds living in the comfort our own groups that may have been blinding us from the truth of our mutual interests.  If our own righteous words or identity is causing bias and impairing our cooperation, then we may need to take a universal identity and a new language for our mutual interests.

There is a great dynamism in our true inner worth and capabilities, our struggles, our failures and our successes and the achievement of our greatest potential that makes our lives a great adventure.  This great adventure of life gives us the opportunity to carve our names and our deeds as a true and lasting legacy to our world and to our children!

The Challenge of Voyager: A Global Worldview to Rule our Nations

Recently, our space explorer the Voyager has just reported back that it is now crossing the last frontier of our solar system.  We are excited to have discovered that our solar system is being protected by a mesh of magnetic bubbles.  Our space missions are also delivering messages that we exist in this lonely corner of Orion Belt, orbiting around our Milky Way Galaxy.

If an alien were to discover us today, how will they reckon the state and power of our planet?  Obviously our capabilities are centuries away in enabling us to engage possible alien neighbors.  Many of us are not yet stepping out of our own worldview and recognize that we can have a common global worldview that can co-exist, progress and made strong by the dynamics of our diverse society, our diverse worldviews.

As scientists, do we have to abandon our religious beliefs if it can also harness our undefined power to love and hope?  Do we have to debate God's existence when all that matter is our shared concern for all people and our planet and that we can avoid the extreme power of our faith to harm other people (which is contrary to what God would have wanted for all his creation!)  Can we have a singular worldview that defines our common interests in a common language that deters personal bias?  Can we have singular worldview that can take any belief, any issue, any problem, any solution, any concern and see the meaning and relevance of all these and avoid many confusion and disharmony that plague us today?

Yes we can!  Americans have heard this before and it is indeed the deciding the power of our free nations as we see the growing worldview of independents powered by love, hope and clear scientific insights.  But much work still need to be done.  Many of us are still trapped in our personal prison and the prison of our own worldview.  We need to break out of our own paradigms and empower a greater paradigm that will move our world and make us ready to face other worlds that lie beyond our solar frontier. 

In the years ahead, we need to help escalate the power of the minds and hearts of 9 billion earth citizens making our planet ready to engage other solar systems beyond our 9 billion mile boundary and expand our global family into our galaxy and into our universe.

This is why today we need to translate and contribute the power of our beliefs and convictions into the simple universal language of our mutual interests and wield it as a driving force to transform our world.  Today we energize our hearts, we energize each other, we energize our hearts and minds and together we transform our world.

Discussed in TED Conversations.

Can we transform our world based solely on our common interests?

"Our righteous minds were designed to unite us into teams, divide us against other teams and blind us to the truth ... we need to step out of the moral matrix and cultivate moral humility.. we are passionately involved to improve our world but we are also passionately committed to the truth ... and use our passionate commitment to the truth and turn it into a better future for us all."

 - Jonathan Haidt - Author "Happiness Hypothesis" (TED talk on moral roots of liberals and conservatives) 

Do our debates about God's existence or non-existence really important?  Our convictions are important to us (believers or non-believers) but can we work together based on our common interests?

From a theistic perspective,  we believe that God is immaterial, a spirit and that God had endowed each human being a distinct spirit.  Our faith teaches us and also our hearts and minds tell us about our personal and social duties to love one another.   Our life can be happy or sad, we can help or oppress other people.  When someone gains power and commits injustice or atrocities to other people and somehow escape judgment  in this world, we realize that injustices and crimes should not have happened  because we should have been fervent in our social duties, we should have setup systems or are now helping setup systems that prevent injustice and crime from happening.  We also believe even if a person escapes earthly judgment, this person will not escape God's judgment and the spirit that survives (the intellect and will) will be punished accordingly.  Individually, after doing our best to live justly within the sphere of our influence,  we die and we return back to God in peace.

From an atheistic perspective, we don't care if God exists,  God is immaterial, not important.  We know however that in our hearts and minds, we have a personal and social duties to love one another.  Our life can be happy or sad, we can help or oppress other people.  When someone gains power and commits injustice or atrocities to other people and somehow escape judgment in this world, we realize that injustices and crimes should not have happened because we should have been fervent in our social duties, we should have setup systems or are now helping setup systems that prevent injustice and crime from happening.  When an unjust person dies, the only thing that matters is that we prevent injustices to happen in the future.  Individually, after doing our best to live justly within the sphere of our influence,  we die in peace.

Looking from our world history and our debates, I believe these perspectives can agree on many things (among others):

1.  We are free and we can choose to love and be happy and help other people to be loved and be happy as well; and because we can be weak and abuse our freedom, we also empower a government system to prevent or deal with our weaknesses.

2.  We want to know and live by the truth and let justice prevail.  We want to be responsible and hold others to account and make sure our systems is just, equitable and earth-sustainable.

3.  Failing to live to the good ideals of God or failing to be responsible in our personal and social duties will oppress or kill other people.

4.  Using the idea of God or the idea that there is no God to empower people to oppress or kill other people is a bad idea.

5.  Using our identities as God's people, or using our imperfect personal integrity as a moral authority in dealing with other people instead of the power of our common ideas does not seem to work in our cooperations.

Maybe we need a new word for God because whatever is our belief and conviction, we are essentially talking about the same idea.

Many people feel uncomfortable when others say that we abandon "God" because we don't realize that the transcendence of God also means our humanism - caring concern for our fellow humans. Many people are also worried that our belief in God will cause us to blindly follow God and oppress other people which is a contradiction, although sadly, it can happen in some places - but this situations are extremism, the trajectory that we should and can avoid in all kinds of beliefs and convictions. 

We can translate and contribute the power of our beliefs or non-beliefs and agree on our common interests that will help setup systems that prevent, at the most,  gross injustices and crimes from happening.  We can enable systems that resolve crises and transform our economy into a just, equitable and earth-sustainable global home.

The power of our convictions can strengthen our resolve to energize the hearts and minds of many people and achieve a critical number of caring and inspired people enough to transform our world.

Discussed in Ted Conversations: Unity of beliefs, Global Ethics, Semantics of Beliefs, Convert more people before we can transform our world?