Bleeding Edge

Worry Not – Fear Not – Dieu Merci

There are a lot of things to be thankful for this year — yet fear is not one of them.

We have a lot of things to do for the New Year — yet worry is not one of them.

Clearly a lot s expected from those to whom a lot is given.

So in summation — we best be optimistic and cheerful because the new year doesn’t like grouches. As a matter of fact — nor do I.

We all know that sometimes things are tough. I know — but we don’t need to worry about it.

We should actually avoid any kind of worry because it is simply not helpful.

So, worry not.

Worry not — not only because it’s not helpful, but worry not, because it will not alter the balance of any given situation.

Fear Not.

Fear Not — because fear trips you up…
Fear is just an exercise in futility. Nothing else…

Don’t worry about the future.

Or worry, enough to be motivated to do something about it.

But if you are given to worry — do this fully knowing that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing gum.

Worry Not — because the world is getting better — year after year.

Fear Not — because it makes you Free. Fearlessness makes a person fully human and almost Godlike in our capacity to reach for the sky.

Living without fear allows you to soar high and live the promise of humanity fully.

Remove the nasty baggage of fear and worry and you’ll get to the highest ground you’ve ever been.

Even when all around you — you hear worrisome stories and bloody events that make you cringe — you ought to stay free of fear and clean of worry.

Count the things you need to be grateful for. For one you are reading this. And you’ve got a Life to live…

So why worry?

I know that you see it on TV and it makes you afraid because the terrorists are gunning down people in some far off desert…

Turn off the TV and instead try to help the refugees streaming out of that violence. That should cure your fears quickly…

News is hurtful. TV is daft. Newspapers lead with awful bloody stories. We know that if it bleeds it leads…

After all this blog is called the Bleeding Edge for being beyond the cutting edge of progress and technology.

And we all know that negative stories lead in the press, because they have such an easier time getting attention and getting talked about thus getting around…

And there are plenty of problems to fight against and issues to fix, and conflicts to settle.

But we should not lose sight of all the reasons why we need to be Thankful for…

We should not lose sight of the incredible progress happening around the world, because of the war in Syria and the Refugee crisis stemming from that.

We can sort that and we are working to solve the Refugee crisis problem and we certainly will — but we also need to help the world feel good about itself and regain a measure of Optimism easily lost amid today’s headlines.

And of course we still have got lots of work to do ahead of us to head off all other issues that threaten our lives — but in good measure, and in good time, we’ll do all that, because we also have a Life to live for…

And the scientific progress will bear me out since Science has been making great strides so far and especially in 2015. And it is now that we learn to feel good in a scientific way, because today we can design our Life Experience as closely held real virtualities, or pre-configured theaters-of-experience, that can work miracles to catalyze shifts in our thinking and in our moods.

So why be fearful now that for the first time in history we can design “spas for the mind” that combine controlled sets and settings, and the ingestion of psychedelic agents, in order to provide entry points for designed interior experiences that engage subjectivity in profound ways.

We are well and truly advanced since from our humble accident of DNA and human coupling — we’ve gone to the place and time, where we can clone anyone and anything. We could even package the best desirable traits for the kids we want, and these kids can be the perfect “junior” that looks just like us.

And we all have sets of beliefs that allow us to define our own religion. Yet aside from that — we could design our own spirituality [a-la-carte] and we could even exercise the need for “Love” via AI, and provide the necessary chemistry in our brains. Oxytocin and other endorphins can become our staple delivery of moods on demand.

For the first time in history we have the Technology, the Psychology, the Neurobiology, and the Psychopharmacology, to design Neural Nirvanas and to rest ourselves and cycle back the sleep mechanism in shorter formats that will allow us to rest in the blink of an eye…

We’ve gone to space but the interior space we have not explored. Now is the time to do just this. This is the internal joy-ride that will allow us to become Paradise Explorers, without the affliction of alcohol, nor the addiction of drugs, and without the related aphorisms.

So even if we are given to “worry” – we can overcome the difficulties, and get ahead of ourselves. Psychological disorders, Bipolar depression, schizophrenia, and PTSD, can all be treated today, and so can physical illness.

So why worry?

Or better yet…

Why can’t we treat worry and fear?

Maybe because our fight or flight instinct takes over and worry is the manifestation of Fear and that is where the real troubles in life start.

Fear begets fear and this is where people worry themselves sick since the illogical fears are apt to be borne out of things that never crossed your worried mind. Instead it’s the kind of things that blindsided you when you least expect it.

Letting go of fear is crucial and our capacity to find Courage is the best way to overcome the incapacitating value of fear. Put the fear mongers in their place and brush them aside before they manage to convey their silly message. Fear takes away your control and separates you from your power.

So let go of worry and fear because we can get ahead together — as we have this far.

And what is the breakthrough that I have found is that when you are Thankful for whatever you have — you become fearless. Be Grateful for anything and everything and suddenly — you become worry free.

Let’s be Thankful for all the Progress Humanity has demonstrated this far…

Still we know that we’ve got some way to go before we rest…

Truly — let’s be thankful because the United Nations reported this year that global child mortality [from all causes] has more than halved since 1990. That means an additional 7 million kids under the age of five survive early childhood each year — as compared to the 1980s.

Seven million Mothers rejoice because their families have avoided the pain of burying their child in 2015, who would have gone through it, if the world hadn’t seen two and a half decades of historically unprecedented progress against childhood illnesses.

Health improves everywhere around the world.

So you too should stay healthy.

Eat simple nourishing foods. Drink plenty of clean tap water. And make an effort to prepare your own food with some measure of love for yourself and others.

Treat people kindly…

Communicate gently and fiercely…

Do this because in this age of full on telecommunications and thousands of TV channels — you’ve only got one channel to tell your truth. So use it wisely before people switch to another. Make this your communication priority. Be clear, be honest, be succinct. Use your communication to help people and not hurt anyone. Use your words to be an honest dealer. And always be honest with your words. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. And mean what you say…

Avoid using the words to speak against anyone, don’t point fingers, don’t judge, others or yourself, and certainly don’t gossip. Instead use the power of your words in the direction of truth, justice, beauty, and love.

Be Clear and Personable.

Don’t expect to be liked but don’t take anything personally either. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do, is because of them. People themselves act out as a projection of their own reality, their own dreams, and their own drama. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others — you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don’t take anything for granted. Don’t make assumptions. Don’t expect anything and you won’t get disappointed.

However you ought to find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can, in order to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama.

By not taking things personally, you can completely transform your life.

Be Optimistic, in your own Life, and in all of Life.

Stay positive about yourself and about the world around you.

Become a beacon of Hope for those less fortunate than yourself. Give and give again. Be a giver as a default state of being.

Trust that the returns of anonymous giving are far greater than the returns of compound interest. This has been discovered for Millennia now…

Trust that the State of our World is constantly improving. Take my word on this, because the year 2015 saw continued progress toward better quality of life for the considerable majority of the planet, alongside technological breakthroughs and political agreements that suggest the good news might continue next year and beyond.

Today the world is better-educated, better-fed, healthier, freer, and more tolerant — and it looks set to get richer, too.

Now at the end of 2015 there is about 7 million kids under the age of five that are still alive, because this many fewer children are dying due to childhood diseases each and every year — as compared to 1980’s.

With that much tragedy and misery avoided — these diseases are rarer than they were before 2015 — and there is every reason to hope they will be even less prevalent in 2016 and beyond.

Some of the Millennial Development Goals are working.

On the local level in these United States we now have affordable healthcare and the hope of most people getting insured. Hate and Violence are diminishing. Still with major acts of violence in America grabbing the headlines — the future looks better, despite the seeming epidemic of mass-shootings. Apparently, the country is still far safer than it was in the past.

The latest FBI statistics, suggested that the trend toward lower rates of violent crime in the United States that began in the early 1990s continued at least through 2015. Indeed there were nearly 3,000 fewer violent crimes that year than the year before and more than 600,000 fewer than they were in 1995. That’s a 35% percent violent crime decline over this period.

The latest data from the United Nations also suggest that this is part of a global trend. Just to examine one category of violent crime — homicide rates — have dropped by an estimated 6% percent, in the countries for which data was available between 2000 and 2015.

Sadly the same is not true of terrorism and war. Worldwide, both war and terrorism, have risen according to the most recent available data. Combined they claimed more victims in 2013, 2014, and 2015, than in the few years immediately before.

Still beginning in 2011, Syria helped reverse longer-term progress toward ever-fewer global battle deaths — while 2015 may be even worse than 2014, in terms of Syrian deaths.

The resultant deaths also force the Refugee situation. And the rising death rate in Syria is on an atrocious growth trajectory, as reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

And that suggests more global war related and collateral civilian deaths this year than in any year since 2010.

Yet there are hopes for this problem to subside.

The US-Iran nuclear deal struck this summer, provides some evidence that progress toward peaceful settlement of disputes is possible, and the Syrian proxy war might de-escalate. Progress both in the region and worldwide via diplomatic means — helps us all sleep better at night, and alleviates the pressures that cause people to up stakes, and leave their homes behind in search of a new life and safety.

Still the growth of refugee flows away from Syria and Iraq constitutes the greatest people’s movement in Europe since the German Nazis in their terrible extermination of so many people — drove upwards of twenty millions to resettle across the globe.

Today, unlike the era of the German Nazis — the numbers of ongoing wars and battle deaths are still far below their levels of the 1970s and 1980s. But the numbers of the Refugees and of the internally displaced people is still growing massively.

Furthermore, terrorism, war, and murder together, remain a minor cause of death worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that 119,463 people died in incidents of “collective violence and legal intervention,” such as civil war, and 504,587 died from episodes of “interpersonal violence,” such as homicide, in 2012, the most recent year for which data is available. In the same year, according to the Global Terrorism Index, 11,133 people died in terrorist attacks—suggesting terrorism accounted for about 1.8 percent of violent deaths worldwide. And for all that terrorism deaths have increased since 2012, they remain responsible for perhaps three hundredths of one percent of global mortality. All collective and interpersonal violence together accounted for around 1.1 percent of total deaths in 2012. Rabies was responsible for three times as many deaths as terrorism that year. Stomach cancer killed more people than murder, manslaughter, and wars combined. And the good news about many of the more important causes of global mortality is that the world continued making progress against them in 2015.

Yet we persist in being optimistic because if we take two other fellow horsemen of the apocalypse alongside war: One is famine and the other is pestilence. Both were on the defensive in 2015. There were fears of drought across the Sahel causing a famine this year—especially in conflict zones such as South Sudan, Darfur, and the Horn. Yet while the risk of major food shortages in 2016 is rather high — this fear hasn’t materialized yet. Today famine deaths are increasingly rare and increasingly limited to the few areas of the world suffering complete state collapse. Related to that, the proportion of the world’s population that is undernourished has slipped from 19 percent to 11 percent between 1990 and today.

Now let’s look at disease: Through the course of November 2015, only four cases of Ebola were confirmed in the three West African countries at the epicenter of the 2014-2015 outbreak. Roughly 11,315 people were either known or believed to have died in that epidemic worldwide, but compared to a 2014 Center for Disease Control forecast that, absent intervention, there might be as many as 1.4 million Ebola cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone alone by mid-January 2015, the world got off lightly, with total cases resulting from the outbreak standing at around 29,000 today. An Ebola vaccine that underwent trials in Guinea this spring proved 100 percent effective, suggesting future outbreaks of the disease should be far less deadly. The world has also seen progress toward a partially effective malaria vaccine this year.

The rollout of older vaccines over the past several years has also saved more lives than ever before this year, since vaccination protects for life, or at least multiple years. In August came news that there had not been a single case of polio detected in Africa in over 12 months, meaning the disease is now known to exist only in Pakistan and Afghanistan. What used to be a global killer, with 350,000 cases as recently as 1988, is on the verge of extinction. And just since 2000, worldwide cases of measles have dropped by more than two-thirds, saving more than 17 million lives—largely thanks to increased vaccination rates.

Meanwhile, the United Nations reported this year that global child mortality from all causes has more than halved since 1990. That means 6.7 million fewer kids under the age of five are dying each year compared to 1990. Nearly 7 million families avoided the pain of burying their child in 2015 who would have gone through it if the world hadn’t seen two and a half decades of historically unprecedented progress against childhood illness. 2015 also saw the lowest-ever proportion of kids out of primary school according to the UN—less than one in 10. The number of kids out of school has fallen from 100 million in 2000, to a projected 57 million in 2015.

Civil and political rights also continued their stuttering spread. While 2015 saw rights on the retreat in countries including Turkey and Thailand, the number of electoral democracies worldwide remains at a historic high according to Freedom House—at 125, up from just 69 countries in 1989 (though less than half of these are considered fully “free;” there is still a lot of progress to be made). This year, there were peaceful and democratic transitions of power in settings as diverse as Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Myanmar, and Argentina. And Saudi Arabia held local elections where, for the first time ever, women were allowed to stand as candidates and vote.

We ought to stay optimistic because across the world there are also many serious advances in Equality, and common prosperity. Equality for one has been advanced. In the United States this was the year that gay marriage became the law of the land. And once again events in America reflect a broad trend worldwide. This time toward greater acceptance. Mozambique decriminalized same-sex relationships in June, and gay marriage became legal in Ireland in November. In 2006, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association reported, there were 92 countries with laws prohibiting sexual acts between consenting same-sex adults. This year, the number dropped to 75. Added to the trend of growing sexual and reproductive freedom worldwide, China finally abandoned its one-child policy in 2015.

So the world is better-educated, better-fed, healthier, freer, and more tolerant — and it looks set to get richer, too. In October, the IMF forecast 4.0 percent growth for emerging and developing countries for 2015—slower than the 7-8 percent that they managed through much of the last 15 years but nonetheless considerably ahead of population growth. The World Bank declared in September that, for the first time ever, less than 10 percent of the global population lived in extreme poverty, on less than $1.90 per day. That is down from 37 percent as recently as 1990. There are a lot of reasons to think the poverty measures the World Bank creates are flawed. That said, the decline certainly reflects an underlying reality: Many of the poorest countries in the world, and many of the poorest people in them, have seen dramatic income gains over the last few years.

Developing countries and the industrialized world alike also saw improved prospects thanks to continued support for globalization. The agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, for all of its myriad drawbacks, demonstrated that some of the world’s largest economies remain committed to open trade. And despite the nativist backlash across Europe provoked by the Paris attacks, German Chancellor Angela Merkel held to her country’s policy of enlightened self-interest toward migration flows. At the end of November, she tried to convince seven European countries to resettle as many as 400,000 refugees as part of her efforts to see the European Union admit at least 300,000 refugees from the conflict each year. Similarly, French President Francois Hollande reiterated a pledge to take in 30,000 refugees after the Paris attacks, stating that the French should remain “true to our values.”

As for the fast warming planet and CLimate Change — we saw that the Paris climate conference in December resulted in a Deal. All the 200 countries that participated — demonstrated renewed resolve to tackle global climate change together. Absent of any policies enacted to slow climate change since 2010, the world might have been more than 4 degrees Celsius hotter in 2100 than pre-industrial temperatures.

Today all the existing policies to cut emissions, reduced that forecast to 3.6 degrees, and the additional pledges in Paris brought it to 2.7 degrees Celsius.

Of course these are just scientific estimates; and in addition, the countries that spend the most on research and development of renewable-energy technology like solar power agreed to double Research and Development budgets for renewable energies by 2020.

A private-sector “Breakthrough Energy Coalition” whose members have $350 billion in collective holdings pledged concurrently to invest more in energy innovations to reduce the cost of renewable power. Because electricity is so central to economic development, investments like these are the only way to avert dramatic climate change without slowing global progress against poverty.

Even before Paris, world leaders were coming together this year, despite their often-dangerous differences, to work toward common goals.

In New York in September we all agreed to a set of “sustainable development goals” to try to hit by 2030. The targets suggested that the world could wipe out extreme poverty, reduce deaths of those under the age of five by millions each year, and guarantee all children go to school and learn while they are there. Achieving all that would require historically unprecedented policy changes that haven’t even begun. Still, the goals point in the right direction: They build on the immense progress the world has achieved over the last 15 years and suggest that, working together, humanity can do even better over the next 15. The combination of that progress with that potential is why 2015 was the best year in history for the average human being to be alive — and why 2016 will almost certainly be even better.

So remember to always Do Your Best and the best will be there for You.

And if this seems to be too optimistic — don’t fret, because it is. That’s how you win…

Just remember that whatever you feel and whatever you hope for yourself and for the world — You shall be proven right. Either way you’ll be Right on top of your predictions.

Somehow we make our own reality. Same as we prepare the bed that we are going to lay upon. So perhaps we should take care to make it proper and happy…

And indeed some people call us Polyannish, and threaten us, because they are afraid of our optimism.

And some others claim that we forgot our rose tinted glasses permanently on…

And there are even some people who keep declaring that 2015 was nothing but full of bad news.

But we don’t believe them because the facts and the data don’t support that view of the world.

And since for every item on their list of disasters, there are at least ten good things that prove our point of positive developments worldwide for all humanity — we are winning the argument each and every time. And we further win each and every day we live through with progress and development…

That also happens to be the rough ratio of human beings who have been gradually improving their lives and those of their children, for every one whose luck went worse.

Should we attend to the latter? Sure… But one reason we care is that technology allows us to see suffering everywhere, in images that tweak and tug at human empathy. The same burgeoning and empowering technologies that are now empowering the Black Lives Matter Movement. So that, too, is a kind of good news.

We face horrid problems, not least of which has been the deliberate effort by fanatics in the US to destroy politics and negotiation as a problem solving methodology. And gloom merchants feed into this vileness, by getting everyone nodding glumly and cynically that things are worse, when they are not.

Make no mistake, cynicism is the tool of playground bullies who have attacked enthusiastic problem solvers ever since we each were six years old. The curled lip sneer and shrug of knowing-nihilism. Anyone promoting that attitude does not deserve to claim they are progressive or eager for a better world.

This is why dogmatics of both the far left and the entire Right so hate, the clear statistical proof that per capita violence and poverty have been steeply declining across most — not all — of the world. A sane person would look at these facts and feel encouraged that a can-do spirit might accomplish so much more.

Are the Kassandras even remotely aware that 2015 was far and away the best year for human exploration of space and the cosmos?

Are the Luddites and the Naysayers aware that we are vastly better than the lamented 1960s and the taxpayers who funded it all with pennies? We all seem to be unaware.

We seem to be unaware of that fact, and of the myriad other fields where rapid advances are accelerating, and progress is manifest each and every day.

And all this, despite, a clearcut and open, ongoing War-on-Science, declared by the far-left and the Entire Right.

There is good news and bad.

Politics is not one of them. It’s just a sport. Political sport and need not be taken for granted either way. Same goes for ideology and religion… With 13,000 religions actively pursued around the world — what makes you think that yours is the best one. As for ideology — please don’t get me started…

Today we are all accustomed to the accursed pendulum swinging wildly to the left and then reverting to the right. Always and forever this will hold true. OK?

So no need to worry too much about it or to fear the progress of it all. The more things change the more they remain the same.

And the perfect should never become the enemy of the good, because the only good and constant thing about the Universe and about our Life is that is constantly changes. Always and forever… Change is our Reality. Get used to it.

So let’s not pursue perfection because it simply does not exist. Nor should we allow our need to save the world, and to do the big things — to stop us from doing the little things that truly matter. Always remember to practice the small acts of kindness and offer the minimal good that we can carry forth quietly.

Do these little things because helping the beggars does not distract us from our enlightenment pursuits. Instead it actually is the only thing that offers a dose of enlightment in our own lifetimes…

Being moderate and pragmatic about what we believe is far more important than engaging in problem solving, and in negotiating for our progress. Charity starts at home and it begins with self love…

Our enemy is not left or right, or radical Islam, nor radical Christianity — but the underlying hatred of hope that propels so many of the cynical whiner-bullies out there, who would rather wallow in declarations of despair, and spread the toxic gospel of fear — than choose to lift themselves up, and choose to simply live within the human family as a contributing member.

This is the way to actually help.

The World will get to be a different place anyway — so why not try to make it a better one?

So do your best to advance the World’s goals. Yet one must keep in mind that doing your best is going to change from moment to moment and it will be different when you are fully optimistic and healthy — as opposed to when you are not. Accennuate the positive and diminish the negative. It’s always your choice…

Still under any circumstance, simply do your best, and avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

The world is your oyster. Just because the past didn’t turn out like you wanted — it doesn’t mean the future can’t be better than you ever imagined.

Now go out and own it.

Life is to be ruled like a master rules his pawns, or a painter paints his canvas.

Write your own story and try to be helpful.

Manage to lead your Life forward.

Don’t let it ever rule you or run you, because if you allow the events and the difficulties dictate your course — you shall be ruined.

Celebrate.

Celebrate, and make an extra effort to enjoy this season — because for the Average Human Being, 2015 is perhaps the best Year in History, and 2016 can be even better.

Merry Christmas to all.

And I sincerely hope that we all have a Happy and prosperous New Year.

Yours,
Dr Kroko

PS:

Please keep this in mind:

There is No Way to Do Wrong, if You Always Aim to Do the Right Thing…

So go out in Peace and Love and have some fun along the way…

Worry Not – Fear Not – Dieu Merci