Destroying what is left of our harmony in everyday life is even worse than destroying the harmony of the beach. So let’s not do it. But seeing the discord around us, we might consider that maybe it is already too late. The combat is already in motion, and will not stop unless each of us stops feeding the fire. So what we need to do, at this point, is to declare a CEASE FIRE. Cease targeting each other. Stop, think, what are we saying?. Will some of us be offended to the core and fight back? Let’s no longer use confrontational labels and slogans that are clearly designed to target groups of people. Millions of us feel that we are constantly under attack. Which means that WE are attacking each other. Pointing at each other and saying that many of us are fundamentally wrong, or ill-intentioned, will up the challenge to the ultimate fight. Let’s not ask for our dismantling. Asking to dismantle is asking to be buried in the rubble.

What do we share, and how can we unite?

We share “life” and we share our “humanity.” We have an innate mandate to preserve life. We have an innate capacity to see the humanity in each other and share the depths of our experiences, our pains and our joys. Our shared humanity helps guide us to a vision of a better world. These innate qualities have propelled innumerable people to contribute to human progress. Please let’s not call them haters and racists. Look at ourselves, we are all flawed human beings, but overall our vision is for the good. Yes, the children of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s… are good people taking us forward.

Throughout history we humans have witnessed the agony of humanity and responded by devoting our lives to positive work to the benefit of humankind. We share this awareness of the human condition that drives us to positive action. But we are also aware of our existential vulnerability that drives us to define and protect our individual identity and our collective identity. We thrive when we build our collective identity as humans. But we are challenged because we do not share all the elements of our individual identity. This sets us up for conflict, which we must continuously resolve. We respond to this challenge by respecting each other’s personal identity. Much of our social order depends on this mutual respect which we must preserve. Targeting a person’s identity triggers the survival impulse to fight back. Public incitement to be united AGAINST, can be experienced as threat to each of our individual identities and can result in hostile, destructive responses.

By targeting each other we are drawn into a spiral that generates hate. We are drawing the extremes among us to responses that violate our shared values. This is not where we want to go. We need to simply stop! Stop now and look forward.

Let’s stop using words and phrases that target millions of us against each other. This is a call to us all (including all participants in the media and education). Let’s edit what we write. Edit what we say. Pause and erase words and phrases that target any of us. Let’s Please stop now.

What should we turn to?

First we need to look around and say Thank You. Why say thank you? Because thank you changes our direction and our vision. We reboot and recognize the good in someone other than ourselves. We establish a common ground and kindle the drive to continue in a positive direction. In a sense, we go back to our creation. In the beginning there was chaos. Then there was light, and we said thank you for light, thank you for night and day, and thank you for the fruit of the earth. Then we realized that there was also a lot of hard work to be done, and we started to assume responsibility and work together. After saying thank you, we recognize the phenomenal progress that has been made by innumerable people before us, and we are ready to join and look forward.

Now, more than ever, we witness the tragic events of our human condition as they unfolds around the globe, and we are called upon to respond. In times of grief and pain, humans, before us, responded by sharing the pain with lament, experiencing sorrow and confusion, expressing spiritual longings, taking the leap to faith and uniting in songs. Songs of praise and songs of thanks. Our shared lament gives rise to the positive vision of where our efforts should go. This is the spirit that unites us and gives meaning to our lives. It opens our eyes to all the good that humans have accomplished and to all the work that remains to be done.

Saying Thank You, is turning our vision to the good among us. It unites us.

Let’s rejoice in the human work that made this a better world. Let’s open our eyes to the phenomenal progress that humans have made so far, and join the work that remains to be done. Let’s unite with joy to reach our dreams for the future. Let’s say Thank You.

Thank-you for light.

Thank-you for food.

Thank-you for shelter

Thank-you for transportation

Thank-you for medicine

Thank-you for communication

Thank-you for knowledge.

We humans have achieved the ideal of shared knowledge. This dream, that was so far-away, has become a shared reality. All of our knowledge is shared and is accessible to all peoples of the globe, so that all peoples can build their vision of home.

No emperor in history had the knowledge and tools that we have. But knowledge places a tremendous responsibility on each one of us: The responsibility to respect, to share, to learn, and to build. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.