Here we go...

• Because I am okay, doesn't mean it's okay.
• Because I am complicit, doesn't mean I am in favor.
• Because I live in America, doesn't mean I have choices.
• Because I am nice, doesn't mean I am truthful.
• Because I believe, doesn't mean it's a certainty.
• Because I can talk, doesn't mean that I know.
• Because I can judge, doesn't mean I should punish.
• Because I can be, doesn't mean I can belittle.
• Because I can think, doesn't mean that I do.
• Because I am patient, doesn't mean I am patient.
• Because I can walk, doesn't mean I can run.
• Because I respond, doesn't mean I understand.
• Because I don't know, doesn't mean I am insignificant.
• Because I can rule, doesn't mean I am just.
• Because I am judged, doesn't mean I am less; or more.
• Because I can smile, doesn't mean that I care.
• Because I profess, doesn't mean that I am.
• Because I can run, doesn't mean that I should.
• Because I have good intentions, doesn't mean that I'm good.
• Because I am attentive, doesn't mean I am listening.
• Because I am substantial, doesn't mean I am essential.
• Because I am certain, doesn't mean I am not afraid.
• Because I am me, doesn't mean I'm not you.

Every moment of every day with every thought, I am me. When I think of you, most often (with possibly one or two individual exceptions) I think of you as a part of something else. For all meaningful intents and purposes I am the only streaming individual on the face of this planet. Everyone else is at the least interrupted by commercials, and most everyone else is a momentary smudge in a lumpy ensemble cast. This is why we cannot work together to save the world. Some, from their streaming perspective, may argue and profess a spirit of compassion and empathy and defend our way of being, maintaining there is only so much we can do, but those that do this are regurgitating political rhetoric. We can do more. But because there is more we can do, doesn't mean we really want to do more.

In the 1880's Leo Tolstoy wrote:

“I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means---except by getting off his back. It is really so simple. If I want to aid the poor, that is, to help the poor not to be poor, I ought not to make them poor.”

We, individually together, have made this world, this nation, this society what it is today: a diversion keeping us from our universal essentiality.