Dear Friends,
It seems odd to me, that someone could care less about hunger in their own town, but are livid over “starvation” in Gaza. That’s acting to stop a thing you have no control over while ignoring a thing you do. It’s so demented it’s almost Satanic. To fixate people on that which can’t be solved keeps us from solving that which we could. You and I are capable of lending a hand in our towns, donating to charity or better yet, giving charity directly to those we know need it. That’s how we solve hunger. By grappling with the close at hand. But the distant is glittering, and since the press keeps it front and center, ignoring the suffering in our backyards, so it’s all we see. That our neighbor’s bad decisions leading to their poverty is no more damning than the bad decisions foreigners made.
There are problems we can solve and those we can’t. Wisdom is, in part, knowing the difference. We only have power over the proximate, the close at hand, not and never the distant in space or time. No matter how upset and motivated you may be over injustice 200 years ago… there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it today. You’re powerless because of distance in time. If you’re watching a live stream, and the streamer is murdered on camera, there’s nothing you can do to stop it. You can call the police… if you know which police to call. But due to distance in space you’re input to the situation is zero. It’s only when a crime happens in your presence that you can stop it. Only when the injustice is in the now can you stop it. Our power is with the close at hand and we’re powerless with the distant.
Bonhoeffer said stupidity is harming ourselves and harming others without malicious intent. If that’s the case, then spending effort on that which we are powerless to solve, at the detriment of that which we can… is the definition of stupidity. The opposite must also be true. Those who benefit themselves and others, without trying, are wise. How to benefit ourselves and others? By acting on the close at hand to end poverty, stop injustice and using our energy effectively… not wasting it. By this definition, protesting to stop a fake famine across the world is stupid while feeding your neighbor is wise. Because the one effects actual want while the other creates want by wasting effort. Bonhoeffer would be deeply impressed by today’s sophists. Like the press.
The media wants us to focus on the distant unsolvable problems at cost to the close at hand solvable ones. I suppose to keep them unsolved. If your livelihood rested on chaos, then you’d protect chaos too. No one willingly destroys their career. Even to save the world. It’s not in our nature. Which means, the energy we waste protesting global warming, famine among the overweight in Gaza and slavery from 200 years ago… the less energy we have to solve solvable problems. Protecting those solvable problems from the threat of solution. When Covid could have been cured by quick administration of Ivermectin, as the science now proves, the media, experts and politicians universally rejected that solution. For a pie in the sky vaccine, with technology they could never make work… and still haven’t.
Stupidity is harming ourselves and others, while meaning to do good, and wisdom is it’s opposite. Therefore, simply by acting in the world the wise make it better, while the stupid make it worse. If we’re wise then, we solve the problems we can, while paying attention to the ones we can’t. Because it improves our lives and the lives of those around us. While expending energy on unsolvable problems is emotionally satisfying, it creates more problems, and solves none. The elite won’t help in this regard, their livelihoods rest on the chaos… keeping us malleable, afraid and weak. Which is why no societal problem ever gets solved, new ones are simply added to the bag of old ones, and we carry them too. Until the burden becomes more than we can bare and society collapses. Which is why I find it odd.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
