The Lever

"But we must remember a crucial fact; east and west do not mistrust each other because we're armed. We're armed because we mistrust each other."
-President Ronald Regan's Address at the Brandenburg Gate, 1987

As we progress through these blogs together, I would like to do my best linking them in both the obvious theme, as well as the material presented.  To paraphrase President Kennedy again in his American University Speech, a lot of the problems of the world are man-made, and thus, can be solved by men.  Too often we are held back in doing what we need to do because of perhaps pride, or a personal vendetta against one another, that instead of swimming toward the solutions, we are back-peddling from them.  I always point out to people that this idea of “war” is a man-made concept. 

Do we see factions of beavers going to war with one another?

Do we see the pigeons of Manhattan arming themselves to the teeth to fight off the seagulls flying in from Long Beach?

It is an extreme that does not need to be crossed but often is because we lack understanding of the situation in question.  The hawks chime in for war often not knowing the journey walked in the moccasins of our neighbors and believing that war will always be the sole justification for resolution of any conflict. 

How easy it is to tell our fellow brothers and sisters to go to war, but refuse ourselves to jump in with them.

How easy it is to tell our fellow brothers or sisters to promote the peace, and more often than not, observe no hesitation.

War ultimately establishes a “winner” and a “loser.”  Yet, peace establishes a “winner” of everyone.

Archimedes, a Greek Philosopher and mathematician, once said “Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.”  The mission of this blog is ultimately to end this blog.  To foster a future world that will have finally found an everlasting peace.  And for the future children, who dare to question within that world ever the absence of peace, becomes as ludicrous as us now living in a world continually tempered with war. 

That “lever” serves as the metaphor for “peace.”  Our journey is to create that lever to lift the world.   And without succumbing to either a defeatist attitude or to this daunting task that seems far-fetched and unrealistic, let us remember that nothing is impossible if we put our hearts and mind to it. 

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu