Humans are problem and solution

There is a truth that no one wants to admit, but many of us realize: Governments, corporations and religions aren’t the problem.

Human beings are the problem, and the solution.

Sure, we get exploited. Indeed, we suffer oppression and disenfranchisement at differing levels according to our racial and socioeconomic status. However, all it would take to truly change things is one day, and a little effort from every one of us.

For reasons that escape even the most devoted students of philosophy, that simple solution is too hard. Conditioned in our bias against others, we sit and wait for salvation or destruction. Some of us pray for the end to self-fulfill prophecies of apocalypse, pining over the promise of unseen glorified redemption after our world is spent. Others wait for a hero to save them when they look in a mirror every day at the answer.

However, while we wait, children burn and the planet is dying.

No one can light your candle for you. You’re going to have to risk the anger of Zeus yourself and dig to the bottom of Pandora’s box for what’s left of the hope we’ve borrowed on the equity of generations unborn. For all our collective worries, I think we may find our necessary courage when we realize that knowledge was never something that required thievery to attain, be it fire or an apple. It is a gift we give each other to build a better world.

This story was originally published April 14, 2017 at 10:05 PM with the headline "Humans are problem and solution."