June 3, 2014: God and Machine

We build machines to alleviate the work of living, yet somehow manage to create more work to live. We use machines to build houses to protect us from nature, but have managed to become disconnected from nature. We build machines to make travel easier, but often find travel harder, not to mention getting along with all the travelers and their machines. We use machines to reduce human error, but find our errors now have a bigger impact.

We cannot build enough machines to insulate us from life or death or to give us time to find “God.” Still we can build our machines. But we can also build something else that is not a machine: Simple consideration for others. That effort alone will do more to alleviate our “suffering” than any machine. That effort will do more to alleviate our desire to find “God” than any quest. Nonetheless, there is a price to pay when practicing simple consideration for others: Until we do it, life will continue to be difficult. And neither machine nor “God” will be much help, no matter how much effort we put into building our machines or in trying to find “God.”

2 Responsesso far.

  1. actions says:

    “But we can also build something else that is not a machine: Simple consideration for others.”

    What do YOU know about consideration for anyone other than yourself?!?! Your selfishness wouldn’t allow you to put yourself in others shoes and someone like you would care less. Your words are worthless when your actions are absent. In your blog you blather on about this and that feeding your obviously already inflated ego (just look at your ‘thinking’ picture…my God!); however, you never write specifics about *how* you do what you espouse. All words, no actions, no specifics, no details. You seem to tell everyone else how to be or what to do when you yourself seem to do nothing.

    • Travis Gibbs says:

      July 26th. I arrive to post my latest thoughts about words and here you are.

      Considering I was writing about consideration in that posting, what you wrote is an interesting consideration on your part, not to mention it was an interesting assumption about facts. So you got your button pushed–it’s your button. So you want a map and are aggravated that folks like me don’t give you one you can read. And then you feel justified to engage in being dismissive? And you believe that will stir folks to action that will please you? Whatever the source of your anger has little if anything to do with what I write. Whoever or whatever was dismissive of you (including you) was likely just as off base as what you wrote.

      My guess is it would be a lot more arrogant for me to write specifics about doing what I espouse as those behaviors that work for me do not necessarily mean they would work for others. Besides, I think we have enough of that sort of “what’s good for me is good for you” or “what’s good for you is good for me” going on anyway. In any case, I’m sure you’ll find lots of other things to read or do–my stuff is not banging on your door.

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