My thought for the day - actually a question.

I know, it's deep.

And...it's meant to be a joke.

When I posted this on facebook, about half the commenters gave thoughtful analyses. One or two even quoted the Baghavad-Gita. 

But really, it's a joke.

A deep joke!

Which just goes to show how much we need more humor in spirituality.

And that brings us to...

You Got To Pay Attention

In my secular talks I make the point that to stay alive, alert, awake, and enthusiastic, we have to pay attention to what we pay attention to. 

I use songs and bits like...

    * Analog Brain In A Digital World
    * The Top 10 Whiny Victim Love Songs 

...to illustrate how victim messages and behaviors can sneak past our mental filters. 

Recently I read a famous graduation speech: "This Is Water," by David Foster Wallace.  He not only echoes the importance of paying attention, he makes a beautiful case for compassion as our only real purpose.

It's not long, it's engaging, effective, and colorful. I think you'll like it.

Your Monthly Moment of Wonder

Consider these 2 cool facts:

1. As you might know, humans are genetically close to chimps; closer even than horses are to zebras, or porpoises are to dolphins.

But somehow...

2. There is more genetic diversity in one family of 55 chimps than in the whole 8 billion population of humans.

What? Really? Are you kidding?

Evidently there is evidence that about 85,000 years ago the entire population of hominids was decimated to about 2,500 of us on the whole planet. Possibly by a super-volcano. 

Yep, we were that close to not existing. 

Why the chimpanzee population wasn't equally decimated, we don't know.

The obvious point: we humans are even more closely related to each other than we realized.*  

      * And also to all of life.
      * We share 50% of our DNA with bananas.
      * So be kind.
      * Especially to bananas.