when will we learn?

who among us has not had suffering thrust upon him? who among us has not caused another being to suffer? we are here in our part of the world concerning ourselves with whatever it is we feel we need to do to eat, to clothe ourselves, to have a home and oh yes...to have luxuries. at what price do our luxuries come? what is it that makes our concerns supplant those of another being? what makes our brand of suffering worse than that which happens to someone else?

how many would consider having the opportunity to contemplate the wonder of life to be a luxury? unfortunately too often for a great number of beings, all their time is spent wondering where their next meal is going to come from, or where they are going to sleep tonight or why am i trapped in this cage without being able to turn around. what is it we hope to achieve for ourselves while causing so many billions of living beings unbelievable horrors? why do we choose to turn a blind eye to their suffering and think the sky has fallen in on us when our favorite sports franchise has not brought home some cherished chalice?

what is it that occupies our belief system? is the world nothing more than causing others to suffer and then have suffering to endure yourself?

it is nice to have someone or something to blame for all the hardship in the world and god is the ultimate scapegoat. is he to blame for the cruelty of nature and for the holocaust? how come man is never to blame for any of the pain and suffering he inflicts? suppose for a moment there is no god, are we then responsible for the choices we make or is our DNA to blame?

let's say that from this moment on we stop. we stop retaliating, we stop pretending that we are not a part of the problem of air pollution, of water pollution, of human overpopulation, of war, of indifference to homeless people, of the cruelty inflicted on farm animals when we destroy their lives for food, of the millions of animals tortured so we may have another cosmetic item, of using animals to serve our medical needs so that we may continue to consume foods which give us cancer or heart problems or that we may continue to smoke or drive cars or the myriad other unhealthy lifestyle choices we make.

it's not god that is cruel or nature, and even if we think that these things are cruel we are certainly more than qualified to make that determination and recognize cruelty. the problem is we are shifting the blame away from ourselves and transfering it onto another entity. if we recognize an act of god as cruel or an act of nature as causing harm how much more cruel is it when a human consciously makes the choice to hurt another living being or to turn away from the harm which is caused.

if we are not aware we are causing others to suffer you would think that once we become aware we would find alternative methods of doing whatever it is we do in order to minimize the harm caused. sadly however, this does not seem to be the case. for even when confronted with the problem we may theoretically agree that the harm we cause ought to be lessened, too often overriding desires become more important to us. our conveniences outweigh the vital interests of billions of sentient beings. when will we learn