Attraction rather than promotion

Attraction rather than promotion.

So what do you do?

Respect the choices people make?

Even when you don't understand them?

Difficult: and sometimes funny, and sometimes tragic.

Women and men make weird choices (i.e, choices we don't universally understand) in the good ol' USA too!

I believe we'll get to a good place as a species as far as making decisions consistently that don't diminish our communal spirit or shorten our lives.

Choice is extremely difficult because at any given time there are so many of them!

I don't believe the road to that place of consistently constructive choices is through shaming others or judging them based on cultural superiority beliefs, or bombing them in the name of "freedom" while we exploit their resources and offer no solutions or better way of living in freedom.

The best solutions for living are based on attraction rather than promotion, advertisement, manipulation, or influence.

The best solutions for living transcend ethnicity or culture.

And attractive solutions don't die.

But they are sometimes made unpopular by the manipulation of those with their own agendas.

Attraction is also corrupted when it is obsession...

Does that mean I condone violence against women or anyone, or shackling people with dogma? Does that mean i approve of the rituals of the Etoro, or binding women's feet or mutilating them:

No.

Yet I am aware that we the human race are vulnerable to manipulation; and there are many human beings of many cultures who enjoy bending others to their will with malevolent intent.

Many humans throughout history and today influence and have influenced the choices and decisions of others for their own benefit; or the benefit of a few.

We are the only species on earth that can transcend instinct consistently and choose...and we are still not good at it. Still prone to choosing to do things that destroy instead of further our longevity as a species.

Manipulation is force; hidden agendas involve coercion, which is force; black and white dogma is force; unenlightened law is force; law to benefit the few as opposed to the many is force.

Force is not attraction, therefore not a lasting means of change.

When we treat each other as fragile beings with great potential and make it a priority to cultivate that potential in ourselves and each other, gently weeding out the non productive choices by the root, then we are getting there.

When we treat each other as worthy of our cultivation; and treat ourselves as worthy of being pruned into our best blossoming potential, we allow ourselves the best opportunity for growth as a human race. And this gives us the maximum potential to get to a place of universal sustainability.

And who knows how far in the universe we could really go?

But manipulation, force, shaming, and coercion are like greed; related to it. : they are a sickness humans are vulnerable to. Weeds that grow in our garden life.

They stunt our growth.

We can't act as if we don't make the same short sighted mistakes in this geographic region as are made in others because of our technological achievements; or that we are somehow better than the ones we don't understand because we have better weapons, written language, and build on our technological prowess: choice defies the most elaborate algorithm.

And nature/life defies all odds.

We are the universal and constant gardeners of this life charged to pull the weeds of manipulation, greed, force, ignorance, and fear:out by the root.

Or left unchecked, choking on them.