Promesa

Una promesa puede hacerse hacia otra persona, o hacia un ente —como en el caso de quienes hacen promesas a santos—. Pero en el fondo es como trasladar a alguien una promesa hecha a uno mismo. Y claro está, la promesa al yo más pequeño. Pienso que incluso las promesas a otras personas son, en el fondo, promesas contigo mismo —porque eres tú quien se compromete a realizar, completar o lograr algo—.

Y puede que romper una promesa con uno mismo sea más fácil que romperla con otra persona, por el sentimiento de compromiso que genera tener a alguien más implicado. Como si uno pudiera excusarse ante sí mismo con más facilidad. Con otra persona, en cambio, no es del todo seguro que funcione así —y según tus principios y valores, te será más difícil no cumplir—.

Una promesa, para su cumplimiento, está entonces ligada a los principios y valores de la persona. Entre esos valores están la disciplina, la coherencia y la integridad —y podemos también llegar al valor principal de tratar a los demás como nos gustaría ser tratados—. Y al propósito de amar, servir y buscar la verdad. Por ello es importante sentar los cimientos en la educación desde la infancia, para facilitar el cumplimiento de las promesas que se hagan a lo largo de la vida.

Contrato

Cuando el sistema permite abusos, incongruencias e injusticias, la solución no puede ser esperar cuatro años para elegir otros representantes. Cuando el sistema ya tiene las leyes, los políticos y las relaciones necesarias para beneficiar a quienes tienen poder económico sobre la mayoría, se tiende a la crisis —porque las élites se pelean entre sí por sobrepoblación de élites, porque ya no hay forma de seguir escalando, o porque las bases se sienten sobreexplotadas y están dispuestas a establecer un contrato implícito de lucha y protesta para conseguir un cambio—.

Ese contrato necesita un objetivo claro y el compromiso de luchar hasta conseguirlo, así como el apoyo de la mayoría de la población. He pensado en este contrato como una herramienta para luchar por cambios positivos en el sistema —pero también he recordado que los sionistas tienen un contrato implícito en el que uno de los medios para conseguir sus objetivos es el genocidio—. Así que el contrato también puede usarse para fines destructivos. Como en tantas cosas, el problema no es el sistema ni la herramienta: es el propósito que se persigue y los principios y valores que guían a las personas.

Y es ahí donde llego a que lo que se necesita es un contrato basado en un marco como el que he estado pensando: propósito, objetivo, principio moral, áreas de desarrollo y cimientos. No necesitamos un nuevo sistema como punto inicial. Necesitamos un contrato antiguo: amar, servir, buscar la verdad. Con eso como base, el resto —las leyes, las instituciones, los gobiernos— puede construirse bien.

Abuse

There is physical abuse, mental abuse — and we can even think about what spiritual abuse might be.

Slavery is an abuse. Genocide is an abuse. For abuse to exist, there must be someone who abuses and someone who is abused. There is an inequality of power — physical, economic, or otherwise. When someone produces milk and, instead of trying to create a better product for the consumer, tries to maximise profit, the focus is no longer on doing something good. The focus is disguised, but what lies behind it is greed.

The idea of capitalism as competition to offer the consumer the best product may be just an illusion — marketing, a fiction.

When there is greed, you can create different tiers of quality — but as the consumer also wants to maximise what their money buys, and the majority have little, they will choose the cheapest option of minimum acceptable quality. And so you become willing to create rubbish.

When there is greed, you may be willing to do immoral things — such as selling below cost until you bankrupt your competition, then recover your losses and fix an unjust price. When there is greed, there is abuse.

Rules

We follow rules at home, we learn to follow social rules, then work rules. And above rules are laws. But above laws we ought to learn about principles and morality. The lack of morals allows many people to follow their greed.

The principles on which capitalism was founded — the ideals of competition, supply and demand, and the idea that prices will equilibrate and the system will benefit everybody — are a lie from the moment the stated goal became not creating the best product or service, but obtaining the maximum economic benefit. When the focus shifted, the whole system became corrupted by greed. People no longer compete to sell the best milk to the consumer — that was the original idea, and many academics still teach it as though it holds. Many people use it as an argument to defend capitalism without realising that when the focus is maximising profit, people opt to water down the milk to get more benefit from less. And as they sell more cheaply, the others lose money — so all of them start to cheat. It can remain within the boundaries of the law, and that is the origin of many crises: it was legal, but it was immoral. Capitalism did not fail because of bad laws. It failed because we stopped above the law and forgot to ask the moral question: is this right, not just legal?

East

It is interesting how at a certain point in history someone labelled east and west as directions. I think the migration of peoples and the passage of time created new languages — but kept the idea of labelling the point where the sun rises and the point where it sets. I suppose that would be the reason. And with the labelling of north and south, the system was more robust. That raises a question: what came first, east and west, or north and south? Because if east and west came first — from the sun — then north and south, east and west would need to be slightly adjusted to be truly perpendicular.

The way we use time zones and draw maps comes, I think, from European conventions, where they put themselves in the middle of the map. I have seen maps from China where they place themselves at the centre. There are also some striking maps — such as ones where Alaska is shown at full size and the rest of the continental United States appears as a tiny frame in a corner. Humans throughout history have tended to put themselves at the centre — as they did with the planet in the universe. Maybe the great mistakes in human history have happened when ego and individualism take over. The lack of humility and empathy makes us lose the east — where the light rises.

Viento

El viento es parte de un sistema que involucra nubes, polvo, océanos, temperatura. Creo que el sistema de un Estado debería ajustarse de forma similar —como variables ligadas unas con otras—. Esto permitiría analizar y ajustar esas variables. Pero claro, los autodenominados defensores de la libertad y el individualismo —que en realidad defienden la ley de la selva, en el sentido de que el poderoso hace lo que le da la gana y el resto debe someterse— no quieren un sistema que les marque reglas fuera de su control, y por eso buscan eliminar el Estado. Similar a cómo algunos sionistas quieren eliminar la Corte Penal Internacional porque aún no la controlan —si la controlaran, no la atacarían—.

El sistema debería vincular, para empezar, cosas como el coste de la cesta básica con el salario mínimo. Deben evitarse los valores fijos; las multas, por ejemplo, no deberían ser cantidades fijas sino depender al menos del salario mínimo o de la cesta básica.

La idea, entonces, es progresar optimizando, buscando crear un equilibrio. Por supuesto, quien quiere poder no quiere tal cosa si no la controla —y dirá que se atenta contra la libertad: su libertad, la que aplasta la de los demás—. Y es que un buen sistema tiene límites. Pueden ajustarse según otras variables, pero deben estar presentes para que el sistema no colapse. Y como en todo sistema, el problema es la avaricia, el no ajustarse a la Regla de Oro —porque vivimos en una sociedad, vivimos con otras personas, vivimos en un ecosistema formado por otros seres, elementos y sistemas: uno en el que el viento también es parte—.

Tail

A ranking is only as useful as the context around it. Without that context, it can mislead as easily as it can inform. In a ranking, there is someone at the head and someone at the tail. But we need more information — because it is not the same to be second in a group of two as in a group of a thousand. Nor is it so bad to be in tenth position if the other nine have the same score and the only differentiating criterion is alphabetical order. And being at the tail can actually be better in a ranking about something negative — such as the most dangerous places to live by killings per capita, where the head is where the most killings occur.

That last example also raises the concept of per capita — which matters enormously. It is not the same to have a few universities in the top ten as to have all your universities in the top hundred. Similarly, having the wealthiest individuals in the world whilst also being the country with the most people living in poverty is not something to celebrate. It would be far better to have all citizens living well than to have a few living extraordinarily well.

Being at the head or the tail can be good or bad — it is relative, and depends on multiple variables. This is exactly the kind of analytical thinking we must include in mandatory education.

Limit

Every well-designed system has limits. Exceed them and the system fails. We apply this logic to software, to bridges, to aircraft. We do not apply it to society — and that is why society keeps failing. We need to put limits on bad things. We can be more indulgent with someone who stole a phone, a purse, or bread — because society may be lacking jobs, or in crisis, or at war. But if there are jobs and someone simply prefers to steal, then even if the amount is small, they must be punished in order to deter them from doing it again. There must be a limit — as there can be a threshold to define petty theft, there must also be a limit on reoffending. At some point, a person must go to prison and follow an education programme designed for their type of crime.

There must also be other limits — such as how much a person should have to spend on shelter or basic food. It cannot be the case that eating requires half a basic salary, or that shelter requires a full one.

We are in an era of technology, complex and efficient systems, variables, and limits. Engineering thinking does not seem to have reached politics. To prevent a programme from failing, we set limits — and if we want to change a limit, we work on improvements that allow the system to function at the new level. We must apply the same thinking to society in order to improve people's lives. Instead, we use variables, limits, and technology — and our brightest minds — to generate more money for investors, even when that goes against the public interest.

Cabinet

A cabinet should be like a team of heroes when the people need salvation — salvation from tyranny, corruption, insecurity, and the destruction of public services. That is the role in troubled times. But in times of peace, they can be the heroes of stability, progress, and improvement.

The members of a cabinet must share a common purpose, goals, values, and mission. This means there are certain matters on which they cannot afford fundamental disagreement — and that is the mark of a good cabinet. They can disagree, but once they have chosen what to do and how to do it, they must act in agreement on the why. That common reason must be what keeps them together. They must also be willing to try different approaches. You can help, disagree and not help, or go against — but going against is a signal: either that person should not be part of the team, or the team may be doing something wrong. That doubt is healthy, in the sense that it reflects a conscience alert to doing good. Because keeping the humility of knowing we could be wrong is essential — otherwise it becomes hubris, and in hubris we are blinded and in decay.

Purpose, goals, values, and mission must not only be the core of the cabinet but of the whole people. If the people and their leaders are not aligned, they are not yet one. And to build a society of brotherhood and wisdom, they must be aligned in the same good values, goals, and purpose. A cabinet of heroes is not one that wins battles alone — it is one whose purpose is so clear, and so shared with the people, that the whole society becomes the hero.

Foreman

People in power need persons who get things done. And in every hierarchy there are more than two levels — those at the top use a foreman to control and manage the others. People who had slaves to work the fields or mines used slaves who were put in charge of overseeing the rest. These foremen received perhaps a bed instead of sleeping in a group; they got the first portion of the slaves' food — but not the same food their owner ate. Perhaps they could have some of that food as a gift when they reached a milestone, but it could not be always. The separation was always maintained. The foreman received very little and made promises to serve and control others — but he would never become one of the owners. Sociologists call this the intermediary class — close enough to power to enforce it, far enough away to never share it.

Similar structures are still present today. There may be a few exceptions, and these exceptions are used as the promises and small rewards that motivate foremen to follow orders and act as the middle layer that does what the upper class wants. They even protect those above them by their own initiative. They are an indispensable part of keeping hierarchies in place. And they have the power to tip the balance in favour of the top or the bottom.

Sustain

Throughout life there can be moments where we can barely sustain ourselves. These crises serve as inflection points — moments of forced change. Sometimes because we refused to take action, which is itself a decision: doing nothing can lead to crises that force change upon us. And sometimes we are taking action, making decisions, and that too can lead us into a crisis. These crises can be related to one area — physical, mental, or spiritual — or to a combination of all three. In a certain way, all three are always related. If you lose your arms, that is physical — but you must adapt mentally and spiritually to the new reality. If you lose a loved one, your body, mind, and spirit are all affected.

Part of the experience of living is dealing with a few crises and sustaining ourselves through them. We can also be there for others — because we can embrace as our purpose the serving and loving of every soul. And in doing that we grow spiritually, and come to understand and feel that we sustain ourselves because we are one.

It should be clear that helping to restore a cathedral in France and helping communities in the Amazon are both worthy — and we can do both. We must integrate rather than divide when we help. But it must also be clear that we act from a purpose and a set of values, and our actions must be aligned with that frame.

Blackmail

The truly dangerous moment is not when the powerful become greedy — it is when they stop hiding. That is when greed has become hubris. In an environment of power and greed, people are willing to take any action to win. It would not be strange, then, that certain individuals use blackmail to get what they want.

The Epstein case is widely believed to be connected to a network of control over prominent figures across different sectors. These figures are protected by politicians, lawmakers, and judges because they are all part of the same network — one where favours are exchanged and members protect each other. In this way, they place themselves above the law and above ordinary people. They can traffic human beings, start wars, and subdue individuals and institutions. They control education, cinema, communications, banks, and real estate — they have influence across every sector.

This makes them feel they can do anything. Governments can be hypocritical — sanctioning some whilst acting to favour themselves and their allies. And their hubris leads them to stop hiding, because they feel untouchable, invulnerable. That is the mark of the beast: hubris that arises once greed reaches a point where evil no longer needs to conceal itself.

Cristal

El cristal es algo que, según su estado, puede ser tan translúcido que nos deja ver a través de él —aunque de cerca y con atención podemos notarlo—. Es un sólido que deja pasar la luz casi al cien por cien; si podemos verlo, es porque algo en su estructura aún retiene una pequeña parte de ella.

El cristal es transparente, pero puede no serlo del todo. Tiene de ambas cualidades, aunque se incline más hacia un lado. Creo que fue con un prisma con el que se demostró que la luz blanca se descompone en varios colores. Hay tantas cosas que ya no recuerdo, muchas más que no sé y que la humanidad sí conoce, y cuántas más aún por descubrir.

Los cristales se utilizan en tantos productos de nuestro día a día que ya ni lo notamos: monitores, ventanas, relojes, bombillas. Pero esto me lleva a pensar en cuánto plástico hay que parece cristal y se usa en su lugar —porque muchas bombillas, paneles de iluminación, lunas de relojes, pantallas, protectores de pantallas e incluso algunas ventanas son en realidad plástico—.

Muchas de las cosas que pueden parecernos cristal son plástico fabricado con ese fin: imitar al cristal permitiendo el paso de la luz. Tal vez ocurre lo mismo con otras cosas que creemos son transparentes pero son imitaciones.

Contrast

Like yin and yang, we need at least two contrasting parts. Many things and situations may appear contradictory, but they can coexist — and the contrast between them is what gives each meaning.

Another way to express something similar is the saying about having a right hand and a left hand: a way of saying we need to be both hard and soft, strict and flexible, tight and loose. I also think of an accelerator and a brake. We should not always be speeding up — we could crash. But we should not always be pressing the brake either, because then we will not progress. I relate this to conservatives and progressives: right and left. We need both. We need that contrast. All changes cannot and should not happen too fast.

I think humankind is evolving and progressing, whilst at the same time taking steps back. But that is our design, our way of working — and it is part of nature. Our nature.

So the next time you think conservatives or progressives are idiots who should not exist, ask yourself: do we need them? They can be your children, your parents, any relative. And think about ourselves too — because we can be conservative about some things and progressive about others, just as we can be introverted and extroverted. Think of a scale from minus ten to ten — minus ten being pure progressivism, ten being pure conservatism. Nobody lives at the extremes. Most of us sit somewhere in the middle, and we move across that space depending on the question, the decade, the fear we carry that day.

Stage

Parliament is a stage — and like all stages, what matters is not the truth but the performance. Parliament seems like a stage where the aim is either to defend everything the government does or to oppose everything it does. I think this is a problem that thinkers noticed as far back as ancient Greece. Leaders are not necessarily the smartest or the most suited to govern — whether by their morals or their skills. The skill that matters most is the ability to convince people. You can lie or simply complain; if you convince people, that is enough.

And those who are powerful in resources but lack that ability themselves can simply buy it. They can be the very company that oppresses workers whilst maintaining good public relations — and also funding the NGO that fights them. This sounds ironic, but they manage everything they can. And greed has no end.

Because sooner or later, those in power fight amongst themselves — when there is an overproduction of elites, or when their interests come into conflict. And the pawns are the rest of us. Seen this way, everything can be read as a stage where everyone is playing their character in a play called life.

Hen

I am not sure whether in English the expression is literally the hen that laid the golden eggs — but its short story teaches us to take care of the hen, to let it keep giving us golden eggs. If we slip into greed, we end up killing the hen to get the eggs she might have inside. And once she is dead, she can give us no more.

Perhaps that is the greatest problem of humankind: not following the Golden Rule — greed. Investors do not want to pay fair salaries; they want to extract more and more money in exchange for their money. They do not produce. They lend money and claim interest. They may try to justify this — and self-deceive — by arguing that they help society by funding companies. And some do try. But in general, are they trying to improve the lives of employees, or to satisfy investors? Where is the most money made? Is it not in war? Is it not in exploiting natural resources, avoiding due process, and paying no taxes? Is it not in granting mortgages where, if people cannot pay, they lose the house and still carry the debt? That is not helping people. It is exploiting them. It is not following the Golden Rule — unless you do not love your parents, your children, your brothers and sisters, yourself. You are exploiting the hen. And without people, you have no money.

Elecciones

Así como los computadores se vuelven más eficientes, el sistema estatal debería hacer lo mismo. Se aplica ingeniería para mejorar tecnologías y métodos en las distintas áreas, y hay avances constantes. ¿Qué ingeniería se aplica para mejorar los procesos estatales? ¿Cómo se mejoran las elecciones? Algunos países tienen distintos sistemas de asignación de escaños, algunos implementan el voto electrónico o mantienen el voto por correo, pero muy pocos —o ninguno— experimentan cambios de mayor calado: cambios que respondan a problemas reales como la insatisfacción con todos los candidatos, la necesidad de diferenciar el rechazo de la aprobación, o la dificultad de formar mayorías que eviten el bloqueo del gobierno.

Una de las situaciones que más llama la atención es caer en la percepción de que todos son iguales, de que las elecciones son un circo y da igual quién gane. Ante eso, debemos hacer algo para cambiar la dinámica. Al mismo tiempo, se genera una cultura de rechazo y estigmatización de la política como algo sucio —y por eso las personas de bien no se ven entrando en ella—.

Las elecciones deben mejorarse para reflejar mejor el sentir del soberano y darle una opción real de reciclar los partidos políticos. Las primarias actuales mantienen a los dirigentes en el poder, y en varios partidos se puede observar cómo llevan toda una vida enquistados: el partido se convierte en el partido del líder, en un cacicazgo, una mafia, una dictadura interna. Nadie aceptaría un computador que funciona igual que hace cincuenta años. ¿Por qué aceptamos un sistema electoral que sí lo hace?

Batalla

Tenemos una batalla que parece perdida: la batalla contra quienes buscan poder y entienden que solo mediante él consiguen su propósito en la vida, que es tener más y más poder. ¿Cómo ganas una batalla contra quien tiene poder y tú no lo quieres?

Hay distintas formas de entender el poder. Podríamos usar las tres áreas de desarrollo: físico, mental y espiritual.

El poder físico —ya sea la fuerza pública o los mercenarios— responde en última instancia al poder financiero, que tiene por lo general más influencia que el poder social o político, los cuales también responden al financiero. El poder mental —sea este el conocimiento o la información— está igualmente subordinado al poder financiero: las corporaciones financian, compran y controlan mediante patentes, o absorben a las pequeñas empresas. Usan el poder político y manipulan el social. El poder espiritual, entendido como la religión de rituales, está también contaminado y manipulado por los poderosos. Las religiones, en nombre de Dios, han generado guerras, se han enriquecido y han puesto y quitado gobernantes.

En tiempos más recientes puede parecer que quienes desean controlarlo todo han perdido parte de ese poder en lo religioso. De hecho, se dice que las iglesias evangélicas, entre otras, sirven precisamente para mantener el control: profetizan el individualismo, el éxito material y el amor al dinero. Sus seguidores no reflexionan sobre cuánto tienen de espiritual —poco o nada—.

El despertar espiritual es lo que mantiene libres a los seres humanos, lo que es capaz de unirlos e influir en la lucha en los planos mental y físico. Entonces: ¿cómo ganas esa batalla? No queriendo el poder que ellos quieren, sino despertando al poder que ellos no pueden comprar.

Protest

We assume that words mean the same thing to everyone. In courtrooms, that assumption can put innocent people in prison.

People protest when there is injustice. And I wonder what we understand by injustice — because we must always remember that language is ambiguous, and that meaning depends on the experience of the person.

Words mean different things with different nuances. When we communicate, we must keep this in mind in order to understand better — whether we are the sender or the receiver of the message.

I remember a case where an elderly man killed an intruder in his home. He shot him. People protested on social media in the old man's favour. But the prosecutor was able to make the old man say that he had not been afraid — and that was decisive. The prosecutor needed to prove two things: first, that there was a meaningful disadvantage between the two — the old man had a rifle whilst the intruder may have had only a knife; second, that since the old man said he was not afraid, he was not in danger.

But what does it mean to be afraid? I strongly believe it is not the same for an old man raised to think that a real man does not feel fear — or at least does not admit it — as it is for a man of the twenty-first century who may have been taught that feeling fear is acceptable and worth naming. Both may have the same chemical reaction in the body, the same alert state activated. Both can be brave. But one identifies bravery with the absence of fear, whilst the other understands it as fear acknowledged — fear that activates the stress response and drives them to defend themselves or flee. To be fair, then, we must understand the limitations of how people express themselves — because in this case, the way a man described his own feelings put him behind bars. And that is unjust.

Consolidate

In society, many things consolidate as part of the culture. But some things change, and some are abandoned. What changes? We can think of the gladiatorial fights that served as entertainment for the people of Rome. Nowadays, combat sports are globally accepted — but not to the death. If those were the dominant entertainment consolidated throughout the Roman Empire, today football is perhaps the most widespread.

What has been abandoned? I am not sure — and perhaps that is precisely why nothing comes to mind right now. Slavery? Slavery was consolidated for centuries. And today there are people who believe it no longer exists. But it seems it does: I have heard about vessels in international waters — perhaps in the Indian Ocean — where ships keep people who were kidnapped and are treated as slaves. This is something that barely appears in the news and generates no sustained protest.

From another perspective, there are slaves in a different sense: slaves to drugs, to money, to greed, to a system that promotes individualism — and to a system where those at the bottom are misled into defending the very oppressors at the top of the hierarchy. Those who argue against taxing large companies or taxing inheritances, whilst they themselves have little or no capital that would ever be subject to such taxes. Because it only takes a few lieutenants to keep the rest of those at the bottom in line.