CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATE

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 CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATE

Even if we do not walk across a stage to applause

We are still graduates of the School of Life Experience

Perhaps you stopped punching holes in walls

Here is your degree in anger management

With a minor in drywall repair

Maybe you no longer get blotto on substances

When life gives you a hard time

You get an engineering degree in coping mechanisms

With a minor in practical philosopy

If we grow past any unproductive behavior

If we implement a better skill set, then congratulations

You get degrees in life skills, managing hazardous situations

And whole life development

Go forth, graduate, a new life and a community awaits

Your commitment to excellence

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ALWAYS A REASON

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ALWAYS A REASON TO LOOK UP

Every living thing has a biological imperative

To survive and reproduce when possible

Biological mechanisms born to make more biological mechanisms

Ad infinitum

Humans have that biological imperative

Superseded by a stronger drive than survival

That imperative is to advance, improve, move forward

Move on from the past and look to the future

Our vision of human life is far beyond the simple life of the animal

We are ambitious individually and collectively

The drive to improve is fueled by chronic dissatisfaction

Competition, an eye for the main chance

Fighting and struggling to get to the highest level of technology

We can attain

Everything can be improved for a cost, nothing is free

Every step forward must be forced and developed

No sooner do we get to a better vantage point

Than we struggle to develop a still higher level 

Of science, technology, civilization

One day we might change the very nature of what it is to be human

Until then we are naked apes

Clubbing each other while tinkering with immortality 

And rocket ships

More ambitious than Lucifer we are reaching

For the stars

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ETHICS

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ETHICS

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What if a truly loathsome immoral person

Came up with a cure for a deadly disease

Using unethical methods that harmed the test subjects

Stealing work from other ethical scientists

Scamming money from the elderly to fund the research

Yet, in the end they have truly invented a cure

Would you use this cure for yourself or your loved ones

Knowing how immoral, illegal, and harmful the process was

A cure held out by a despicable person for their wealth and benefit

But desperately needed by the blameless afflicted 

Who would suffer the worst and terrible consequences

Without this fruit from the poisoned tree?

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GHLURR

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GHLURR

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What is a ghlurr? - It's just a blur

It might be a him, it might be a her

It's moving fast, we don't know why

You can only glimpse it from the edge of your eye

There is no explanation why it comes and goes

What a ghlurr wants? Nobody knows.

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HOORAY FOR THE BLACK, WHITE AND GREY

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HOORAY FOR THE BLACK, WHITE AND GREY

There is a difference between judgement and judging

Judgement is what helps us decide what contractor to use

Which food choices are good for our health

If a symptom needs medical attention

How long we should wait for something

Judgement and discernment are crucial

Based on reason, research, life experience

Judging on the other hand is not fact based

It is based on our preprogrammed personal knee-jerk reaction 

It could be spot on, or wildly wrong

Judging requires an open mind

Time to consider the evidence on both sides

Coming to a considered conclusion to something

That we may not have understood

While judgement says that quantum physics is still progressing

Judging says all these scientists are crazy, making it up - a hoax

Just because I have not seen a true miracle I can believe in

Does not mean miracles don't exist

And what is a divine miracle to one way of thinking

Might just be a statistical improbability to another

It is crucial to have good judgement

While judging requires one to consider the possibilities

On both sides of the big picture yin-yang

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NOT ALL ROADS

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NOT ALL ROADS

We could settle our differences peacefully with a soccer match

Flipping a coin, spinning a wheel of fortune

A game of chess, using a magic 8 ball, an AI program

We would have to all agree on the method

However, we can never all agree on anything 

Even if we say we will all agree we will not abide by the answer

If it goes against us

Whichever side lost would reject the answer

The verdict was rigged, the program flawed

Some reason to refuse to abide by the former agreement

How can we force them to accept the answer?

By waging war on them until they complied

Do all roads lead to war?

It would seem that way to territorial apes whose might makes right

We all agree that the brutality of war is an abomination no one wants

Until now the best minds have not devised a way to avoid war

The masses and the power hungry have not listened to the peacemakers

For the time being

The path to the Garden is overgrown with the weeds of hatred, revenge, outrage

While the path to war is tramped bare by the armies of the brave

Asserting their territorial dominance and defending hearth and home

Endlessly

I do not despair though because we all clearly see the problem

Homo sapiens might be chest beaters, but they are also the problem solvers

Eventually we will find a way to prioritize peace, remove the troublemakers

Find a better way than the crude might makes right way we are stuck in now

We will eventually walk the path of peace because it is the only true path

To the future

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NEVER FORGOTTEN

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NEVER FORGOTTEN

Sometimes we are forced to fight

Then we wage war with all our might

When peace is not even a choice

Then bullets and bombs are our voice .

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So to those that fought and gave their all

Lest the bastion of freedom might fall

I honor your gift everyday

By being free in what I do and say

By your valor you saved our land

Where the gratefully free still understand

Just what you sacrificed for me

Because freedom was never free

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