Still turning pages

We are constantly learning and perfecting ourselves, even if we don't realize it at the time. The idea of Earth as a school in which we go through some purifying experiences that move us closer to total enlightenment is, unfortunately, probably correct. I say "unfortunately" because although the analogy explains a lot, it doesn't really comfort. And it leaves the individual learner ultimately alone on a lonely track.

So maybe the whole thing is a team project. Those of us who find ourselves here must find ways to learn together, solve our mutual problems, and achieve communal goals of knowledge and action that could not be accomplished without group interaction. This also solves the loneliness issue.

Looking at the Earth right now, it would be hard to argue that the whole class has not flunked all together. The polarities and intransigencies have hardened as if the global brain had massively shifted obliquely in its techtonic plates. The axis of communication and understanding is askew and drifting hopelessly off its center of gravity and cohesion. Is this the supreme challenge, or simply the endgame?

My generation, the 1960s, I often refer to as "the most disappointing generation." So much potential was wasted, squelched, drowned in materialistic cares, forgotten by the wayside. Yet there was so much that was brilliant and brave and illuminating. As a result we have left a huge legacy.

To give up hope, to say the game is over, would be premature. It also deprives us of our best tool. Give up the vision and we have nowhere to go. It also ignores the fact that a new generation is arriving with better tools and higher intelligence. We could fail completely and yet the team reserves could still pull off a victory.

But what we have done, what we have witnessed, what we have felt--it hasn't been enough to justify our presence here on this planet at this time in our individual and collective evolution. That is why we find ourselves still here, waiting, struggling, hoping, still turning the pages of our textbook. There is more. What happens next remains to be seen.