In the 39 previous blogs of this year 2013, you and I have dealt with some fundamental issues, but we haven’t yet talked about hope.   There is hope.

Among those fundamental issues were:

• complex systems;
• understanding society and culture as a complex system;
• environmental questions, including fracking and oilfield pollution;
• the social impacts of climate change and the anthropocene epoch;
• politics and government controlled by money;

and

• scientific illiteracy propagated by denial of information.

Throughout the ages, people have always been faced with issues of their day, questions that seemed—and sometimes were—life-threatening.  Yes, there are life-threatening issues today, too.  But, as before, there is hope and a season of hope.  Every time a child is born there is hope.   Some children grew up to  teach and to assist each other in developing a vaccine for polio.  Other children were born who enabled humans to fly.  Musicians and poets were born, bringing symphonies and song and significance to lives that otherwise might have been lived with uninterrupted quiet desperation.  A few people were born who, electing to risk hanging separately, hung together to conceive a new form of government.

Yes, it’s true that no child has yet grown to end warfare.  No child has yet grown to stem the perils of population, pollution, and depletion.  But there is hope, so long as we look to saviors for guidance, not solutions, to the problems we regard as impossible.  We must seek and acknowledge the words of peace and wisdom, and then take the necessary actions ourselves.

Remember to smile, to laugh with others, and to encourage the children.  Take a holiday, along with me.  I’ll be back with the next blog after January first.