I am but one. I try to do my best. My contribution is small and there is no glory waiting for me.

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I am but one. I try to do my best. My contribution is small and there is no glory waiting for me. 'If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs...' R. Kipling, IF You can loose your head fairly quickly these times. It just happens. Strange as it sounds in this abundance of information the agents of madness are much more subtle than the agents of sanity. That is because the US is a land of opportunity. Only one opportunity that is: to be who you are, to fortify the real you by hook or by crook. As most of the people are tired and bored by the sanity, they are deliberately prone to madness and, lo and behold- you can get nuts 'in the comfort of your own home', encouraged and pampered by the media. I am sure everyone has his own recipe on how to keep sane in these times. I hereby would like to share my own. The following are the things I remind myself of every day when I wake up. 1. We are exactly the same as everyone else. I am exactly the same as everyone else. I am unbelievably lucky that I have a clean place to live, clean water to drink, nice and lighted place to work and a decent salary. I am also lucky all my family is OK. The odds against such arrangement were astronomically high. I am lucky. Luck does not make me better than others, better than the homeless person, better than Rockefeller, better than Bush and/or better than the President of Iran. I can become better if I put my luck to the good use. 2. This country is not the best or the worst in the world. It is only the youngest in the family of the Western- oriented civilizations and also so far- the luckiest; it did not go through the inevitable devastations. If this luck is put to the good use- this country can avoid those; if not- those devastations can be much more horrible than the ones before. So far the latter seems more probable. 3. The current people we have in power are petty crooks and criminals. They hijacked the elections in the Y2000. As such, all institutions, laws, regulations and orders activated by those people or with their consent are criminal and serve to help the criminal activities. 4. The wars proclaimed by our administration are criminal. They cannot be explained, condoned or 'repaired.' Those are the crimes against Humanity and against us. The one and only outcome of those is hate. The one and only goal we have to pursue is to bring the perpetrators of those wars to justice. 5. Racism is certainly not the privilege of white Americans but they are classics in it. Thus racism exists here on a 'molecular level'- it is diluted in the air. It is so common that we do not even notice how we talk, what we say, what is said to us. The primary way it exhibits itself is in our arrogant perception that we have to do something to other people, that we are somehow better than other people and do not need any permission if we want to change them. But... 6. The world does not want to be saved. It wants to be left alone. 7. Ignorance is in abundance in this country. It is a very special kind of ignorance- a spiritual one. Most of the Americans are street- smart: they are savvy, hard-working, know money and success and also are good in what they do. But they are unbelievably psychologically unstable, have short attention and memory spans, are prone to believe in anything as soon as that anything seems to pamper them personally at that particular moment and also shield themselves from all the external world by surrogates. All of that is glued by... 8. Hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the cornerstone of the American Way. It is everywhere but it is especially well seen in the area of religion. The US is not a Christian country; it is a country where Christianity was adjusted to paganism, where Christ is a totem, a symbol, an attribute. This country is the least religious on Earth but it is not even agnostic. It exists on a surrogate and Jesus here plays the same role as the sweetener plays in coffee. All the real bitterness of Christianity never touched the unfortunate souls of the people here. It is not the God's country; it is a lost country. 9. The one and only positive force in this country is its diversity, its dynamics, its abundance of the different people. That is in fact the hand of God. He offers it again and again. To help Him is the only duty of every honest person here. The more different people we bring into the process, the more personalities we lure, the more we rely on dynamics rather that statics- the higher are the odds for avoiding the devastations which can face us if we drown in hypocrisy. 10. I am but one. I try to do my best. My contribution is small and there is no glory waiting for me. I am not good and I am not bad, just an average person. But I know who I am. And I know when I do good or bad. No self- deceit. That truth sets me free. That verse above has a peculiar second line: 'If you can keep your head when all around you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you...' Tough Luck. What do you think?

Authors Bio:

The writer is 67 years old, semi- retired engineer, PhD, PE. I write fiction on a regular basis and I am also 10 years on OEN.