My wife and I have just redesigned our back room, the one that serves as office, TV lounge, library, exercise center, and guest bedroom.  It’s not a big room, just an awfully useful one, and given all the uses to which it is put, it was clear we needed to have a neater, more efficient floor plan.

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It’s hard to believe that it was only eight years ago that the world watched in horror as 110 stories of glass and steel and hopes and dreams and visions and human lives came crashing down to Earth, not once but twice. Those of us who were there to see it will never forget it. The scars which it left on our psyches and in our hearts may never be completely healed. And while a lot has changed since then, we now have a Department of Homeland Security and long lines at airport check-ins, sad to say, the energies and fears, hatreds and self-righteousness that allowed 911 to happen have only gotten worse.

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It should come as no surprise to anyone possessing even the slightest powers of observation that civility in America is dead. Now I am not speaking here of the long lost art of chivalry… spreading one’s cloak on the ground so mi’lady can daintily step across the puddle without soiling her toesies. No, I’m talking about the common courtesies of giving seats on the bus to old people, not flinging garbage on the streets, and refraining from “throwing the bird” to every driver who happens to move into lane in front of you.

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I was listening to the ten o’clock news last night and was regaled by the usual progression of natural and man made disasters – floods in Samoa, roadside bombs in Afghanistan, fires in Southern California, political repression in Iran, several murders in Oakland, and just in case that’s not enough to keep the juices flowing, the swine flu is still spreading throughout the world.  Just for an instant the thought crossed my mind, “Why do I really care?”  And I realized that there are several different ways to answer that question.

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One reason to ask the question “Why Should I Care?” is simply to ponder the opposite scenario. What if nobody gave a flying crap about anybody else? What if we actually lived in a Mad Max/Clockwork Orange Society where everyone just took what they wanted, did what they felt like, and ran roughshod over anything and anyone who stood in their way, leaving broken shards scattered behind them without thought of the suffering they had caused or the ultimate consequences of their actions?

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Here’s a fun question.  What if one single advancement in technology could turn Earth into an absolute Eden, a place where war was unknown, nobody starved to death, and everyone really and truly had the opportunity to do and become the very best they could imagine?  What might that advancement be?

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An article appeared in today’s newspaper about a number of social innovators who will be receiving awards this week for work they have done to solve community and world problems in their “encore careers”.  According to Civic Ventures, the San Francisco non-profit sponsoring these awards, this refers to people over 60 who are embarking on a “mid-life redirection” of their lives.

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I read an interesting book this week entitled The Next Evolution: A Blueprint for Transforming the Planet, by a visionary gentleman name of Jack Reed.  It’s premise is simple… our world is becoming polluted, our resources are disappearing, the vast majority of Earth’s people are starving, disease ridden, or worse, and even those who think they’ve got it made live boring lives of quiet desperation, fearful of losing what they’ve amassed.  And it’s all because we’re living in a dog eat dog society where everyone’s looking out for #1 and the rest of you be damned.  The book would be a real downer if that were all it said.

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From the time we wake up in the morning till we go to sleep at night, the media is constantly informing us about what’s going on in the world.   And whether we are tuned to the local TV station whose top story is about the latest mugging, robbery, rape, or killing on the streets of our cities or National Public Radio keeping us up to date on the number of innocent victims from the latest car bomb in Afghanistan, suicide bomber in Iraq, or typhoon in the Philippines, the news is almost always bad.   True, the common wisdom says that “Bad news sells newspapers”, but that’s precisely the issue.  Why should bad news grab our interest more than good, and what might that say about the nature of humanity?

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