I got on the E train at West 4th heading home from a seminar. When I stepped on the train, I think I was listening to “Welcome to the World” by Bobby Weir and Ratdog. There was something savory in the bass line, something bluesy in the guitar. The lyrics weren’t beautiful or poetic beyond measure, but they had heart. I wouldn’t concede that my musical taste is the highest form of absoluteness or that the tunes that fill my iPod would be considered classics to all. I think I can concede that, when I heard that song – like many songs – I felt that I wasn’t missing something. There wasn’t the emptiness of pop or the trendiness of hip-hop, the tragedy of emo or the angst of punk. All that was left was a feeling that a thought had been completed. An appreciation was born. A need to fill a void didn’t exist.

So how does this transpire to a new age of enlightenment? My thoughts that follow targeted the people surrounding me on that train, pondering their levels of consciousness.

We have learned that money is nothing but an empty promise. Talking to my friend at the seminar, I realize that his first real passion, the thing that got him up in the morning and filled his dreams in the evening, was money. Photography was second. I don’t know if – at pushing 40 – love of another’s companionship ever trumped money. Maybe no one wanted to compete with his lust for the green? Maybe he’s only found true companionship with the S&P. Doesn’t let him down like a woman could? Maybe he’s happy just the way things are. But man, haven’t we learned that money will only bring us all down? It owns us. Creditors own us. Uggg, what a baseless value system we have!

So what do we do with this money? We buy crap! What do we do with this crap? Dunno? It only serves temporary purpose. We’ve become a disposable nation!

And Religion. The big ‘R’. What have we forgotten about the context of the lesson plan? All religion is beautiful when applied properly. The GOP uses it to scare and control people. The Holy Wars that continue in the name of the Gods are true slander. No God of any real worth would command harm on another for not believing the same thing. No God would conceive of the ills that people have caused to others. Those are truly human inspired acts of the mind and body. We are weak. We are fallible and capable of lies and anger and jealousy. Christians can be hypocrites of the worst kind. Most offensive as I learned from the inside wanting out. Jews, Muslims, Hindu’s, Buddhists alike. All practitioners need to start with themselves looking inward. We in the U.S.A. are not a Christian Nation as some believe. If so, I will flee like the Puritans fled Europe. None of the founding fathers would recognize this country as the one they intended (quotes of the founding fathers pertaining to religion). I have to defend my view by saying that I wanted to believe in the stories of the Bible. As the son of a Christian family joined with the traditions of a Jewish Stepfather and later married to a Buddhist, I reached out and realized we are all human and the highest devotees tend to fall the hardest and longest. I later found Taoist, Buddhist and Hindu beliefs to align better with a personal, logical and humanistic reality: Compassion and logic being the underlying tenant. Judge me by the content of my character…

So we continue to learn. We learn that the environment is disintegrating before our eyes. Plastics don’t go away. They end up in the ocean. Look up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s a 100 million ton floating garbage bin in the Pacific, occupying as much physical space as Texas x 2. Plastics not only get tangled up with birds, sea lions, turtles and other wildlife, it disintegrates into little tiny pieces. Fish eat those pieces and in turn, we eat the fish. It’s a fantastic irony that we are literally killing ourselves with our food. Let’s not start on the corn/antibiotic meal we feed our cows and the genetically modified fruits and vegetables. Oh and the GOP recently (AKA John McCain) scoffed at the idea of Honey Bee insurance in the latest 700 billion bailout package. Does he even know what the disappearance of bees means to the human race??? Do you??? We’ll there’s another thing to research. Without bees, our plants and vegetables cannot be pollinated. We’ve already killed of 90% of the fish population in the oceans. The last 10% may be gone by 2020 if things aren’t done to stop overfishing. Cows eat corn (although they can’t live off it so they’re fed antibiotics to keep them alive) and there’s not enough grass left on the planet to sustain our appetite for beef if corn cannot grow.  What will we eat? Grain? Bees. Fruits? Bees. Vegetables? Bees. Bees. Bees. While quotes about colony collapse disorder have been wrongly attributed to Einstein, the underlying message of apocalyptic proportions is worthy of false acknowledgment to the greatest mind we’ve ever known. As he would say, “We’re fucked!”

For more information on the Honey Bee, watch the PBS Nature Special.

So conservation of water resources? Sue always gets on me about long showers, dish washing technique, shaving & tooth brushing techniques, etc. I think the East Coast ought to have enough with all the rain and snow we get. When I lived in Vail, Colorado, the locals were angry about their dying lawns. With all this snow on the mountains and raging rivers all around? Yes, because they had water bans during the summers. Reason why? The water was being allocated for Los Angeles, CA. Crazy right? What happens as global warming shortens our winters, melts our ice pack and glaciers and changes the levels of our precipitation? No more water. It’s already trucked around the country in plastic bottles, what else would we need??? Stop trying to change the nature of the earth we’re given! Grassy lawns and golf courses in the desert of Palm Springs? Give me a break! Move to Northern California where it’s plenty warm and still has golf courses (if you really need one of those ecological “dead zones”). What is wrong with the human race that it feels the need to destroy and manipulate all that Mother Earth has provided for us? It’s gonna be hard to breath without all those trees making oxygen!

Energy conservation is a simple problem to solve. Yes, we will need the assistance of corporations to help develop products that relieve us from our dependence on oil. While we wait, turn off the lights! Compact florescent lights are finally affordable enough that incandescent bulbs should all but disappear soon. If you haven’t replaced the lights in your house, do it now! Living in NYC you see businesses starting to conserve energy by turning off the lights at night, etc. Too bad its venerable citizens can’t follow suit when they’re at home. Do they still need those Christmas tree lights turned on all night outside their balcony? Suburbia is even worse. I barf when I think about the lack of responsibility I witness when we venture outside the city. Did you not get the memo? Air conditioning should not be below 78 degrees in businesses either. Nothing makes me madder than a store on Broadway in the heat of a 100 degree day with it’s double doors wide open. I can see the appeal of feeling 20 degrees cooler and wanting to shop because of the divine intervention that the store provided. Not a bad strategy. Just an energy vortex.

I’m getting tired of writing angry. I guess Bobby Weir started me thinking about how we have all this information in front of us, laid out like the gift of a beautiful song. Economy, Environment, Conservation of Resources, War, Religion. Nothing has been discussed more in the news of late. Even discussions about the economy all lead back to the need to conserve resources and develop “Green Businesses”. It’s all the rage, get on it! How can we consume this information and watch like a bystander? Like it’s someone else’s problem? It makes me sad that other people haven’t been hearing the same tune. Maybe the Age of Reason colliding with the Age of Information will keep us from returning to the Age of Stone. How about we start thinking positively towards the new Age of Enlightenment? The age where we took all the warnings and advice of the experts and put it to use! Let’s leave the next generation with a planet better than the one we currently inhabit. Do I have your attention? Welcome to the World!!!