When you close your eyes what do you see? Is it really a world working in tandem and side by side with no frowning or discontent? When we dream at night are we transfixed in a utopian space of complete ecstasy and harmony with ourselves and others? As we think about these concepts of equality, unity, harmony, etc.. we must be realistic that in all efforts the most vain one would be to think that there would be a day of arrival. For the Christians the return of Jesus is a joyous one in which the saved will be hoisted away to the kingdom of heaven while the destitute and “others’ will be left behind. Even at this point when Jesus returns utopia is still an abstract uncertainty not given visibility to all, but only privy to some. Earth and the real world to which we all wake up to has never been written or conceived of as a place in which “heaven” or Utopia” can ever exist (See Freire, P., Souza de Frietas, A.L., Park, P., & Macedo, D. (2007). Daring to Dream: Toward a pedagogy of the unfinished). I find this to be perplexing when trying so hard for a better world with a more equal and equitable sustenance for all. I lose “hope” at times that perhaps dreams of moving toward something better and harmonious is as fictitious as heaven itself or the rapture. What if we are only living in ourselves in an abstract world much like the matrix? What if we came and realized this as our being and sustenance as a human individual? Then could it be possible if it is our world that we can make such impacting movements of moving toward what we believe will be a plateau of harmonious enlightenment? My intention in discussing such a matter is that I believe we become comfortable in a world in which we can float along blissfully, but never rise to enlightenment or critical consciousness. In reality it is impossible to sustain a single goal among all men, and if it does so happen it will be but a breath’s moment. How is it that we remain so disparate? Some have framed such difference in terms of “barbarism” and “civility” (Like Immanuel Kant), but such descriptions should be critically understood by those who are uttering them (i.e. middle-class, white, elite, educated men of patriarchal societies governed under monarchies and the guise of Christianity). How do we begin a unity among so much disparity?

I believe that it has not happened yet that we have been given the experience of needing solidarity. The evil within us is not terrorism as much as it is the egoistic influence of insatiable desire for more and more. Everything acts on itself and on others. We can continue to indulge in power as a gluttony of the ego or we can relinquish such pursuits in understanding that this is the real issue. Christian as well as all religious and non religious, people are vulnerable to the ego. It relies on vanity and reward that is often manifested in material terms. People, or converts, become material gains and thus serve to relish the ego more in determining a sense of rightness and this is the way. How so can I argue about such a thought and path when I myself am advocating for a collective thought or shared “humanhood”. Am I being so entertained by the ego even as I write about it? I do not put myself at a distance with this topic. I understand that brief exhilaration of someone fawning over your work or ideas, but I have come to understand this a s brief pleasure that serves to misguide benevolent intentions and practices.

It is really at this philosophical and spiritual point that I draw a line in the sand about the role, nature, and function of man in conjunction with humanity. For some who have been called “existentialists” there is a very humanistic and specific concentration on the individual as removed form any obligation to the other or collective need outside of the individual. My work with the pedagogy of humanity should not be confused with humanistic philosophies that negate a religious membership or even at times spiritual consciousness. Some of the ideas of humanism have been adopted in the pedagogy of humanity, but I make clear with the utmost certainty that spirituality is not lost in human objectification that is humanism.

I believe that man may exist on his own, but will not survive on his own; for if this were the case, man would always have been man and never man and woman constituting humanity. Those with a more spiritual and enlightened sense of the world around us also feel a more communal sense with all that is around us. Should we not feel that we are a part of everything? Perhaps energy transfixed and illuminated in different lights producing differing objects, but all within a cosmic ball of us and the universe. We, and religion especially, try to remove the relationship between the natural world and the abstract idea of the human world. Some Christians (See Jesus Camp Movie) disregard the natural world under the scripture that issues credence to take what you will from the earth because that is why it is here. Additionally, the apocalyptic rapture mentality has caused fundamentalist to become blind to the natural world because they believe the rapture will be coming soon so there is no need to plan for a future that does not concern them. The hell that will be left behind and the torment scorched earth that has been drained of life and sustainability will not be the doing of sinners or nonbelievers, but those who believe without a consciousness. When people start to disappear it will be out sickness create from biological weapons used to fight terrorism, it will be from genocidal endeavors from those seeking to purify their lands of the wretched (see the crusades, Rwanda, Cuban revolution, US patriot act, and so on), it will be that many know the future and choose to take themselves before the future takes them in climate shifts of roaring oceans, earth quakes, torrential flooding, or nuclear holocaust.

We sit comfortably eating a dinner in front of the TV and watch as the world creeps up on us and yet we still ignore that it affects us. When the world has swallowed itself perhaps we can start again with a blank slate. Perhaps the next time we will be more cognizant of such failures and egoism. I, however, that we will continue as we do with no recognition of learning what has happened, but always creating some justification in an ideology, belief or religion, or orgasmic succumbing to the egoistic vanity that rest in each individual.

Take and do what you will as an individual with no regard to the consequential affection to the rest of the collective. When alas we repeal our lives and take our last breath we will become enlightened too late to understand what it was all for or what it all meant.