Mind vs Human spirit: Mental intelligence vs Human wisdom

Much of our modern confusion begins with a quiet separation between the heart and the mind, and with language that drifts out of alignment with reality. Words are powerful tools, but they are also filters; they can clarify, or they can distance us from what is. When language becomes more about defending beliefs than describing Truths, it reshapes our reality into something thinner and more abstract than the world we truly inhabit. In that state, understanding becomes something we argue for, rather than something that arrives.

When we encounter nature not as scenery or resource, but as kin—as presence, elder, and wise teacher—the conversation changes. We are no longer at the center of the story, but participants in a much older one, living beyond the human gaze - in coexistence with all life. If we pause long enough to stop explaining, justifying, or winning, something deeper within us rises. Conversation becomes a bridge between two worlds: the one in our heads and the one that is real. And in crossing that bridge, we discover that wisdom is not always learned—it is often something our spirit and soul are quietly remembering and ‘re-minding’ us of.

Rotary’s Four-Way Test and commitment to ‘service above self’ quietly acknowledges this Truth that modern culture often forgets: not all intelligence is located in the brain. Beyond our analytical minds (the part of us that argues, optimizes, and persuades), there is a deeper intelligence carried in our very biology, encoded through millennia of human experience.  It is this wisdom that allows us to know what is true before it is fashionable, what is fair before it is popular, and what builds goodwill long before it is efficient.  And that deeper human intelligence recognizes, without debate, that a child should not die before a parent, that dignity is not bestowed by majority vote, and that unchecked majority rule can become tyranny rather than justice. 

The Sustainable Development Goals, at their best, are a modern attempt to give policy language to this ancient wisdom—protecting life, reducing injustices, strengthening institutions, and safeguarding future generations.   History shows us that constitutions and institutions endure only when they reflect “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” —those enduring principles like inalienable rights, that protect life, liberty, and human dignity  -- regardless of opinion polls or political cycles.

Rotary’s role is not merely to ask what works, or even what wins, but what aligns with that deeper human intelligence. The Four-Way Test reminds us that service above self begins not in the cleverness of our arguments, but in the wisdom of our shared humanity.

“If man chooses oblivion, he can go right on leaving his fate to his political leaders. If he chooses Utopia, he must initiate an enormous education program… immediately.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

“Every human being’s deepest, most natural expression is the desire to make a difference in life, of wanting to matter. We can choose to make the success of all humanity our personal business. We can choose to be audacious enough to take responsibility for the entire human family, to make our love for each other and for the world what our lives are really about.”  Werner Erhard 

 

The insanity of humanity is accelerating. With US support.

Yesterday’s WPost, page A13 news article titled, "Study: Aid cuts may lead to 9.4 million deaths by 2030: Pullbacks by US and other nations could undo decades of health gains."  The same “study also assesses a more sever scenario of aid budget cuts, in which the world would see 22.6 million additional deaths.”  You read that right. Additional!!!

Rotary, by urgently uniting other large globally minded service organizations into a Movement of Movements - to quickly achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 -- could reverse this modern holocaust that may take ten times the number of lives Hitler’s reign of insane ideology did.  

Unfortunately, Rotary's Legislative Council must move faster than the US Congress to make this Rotary's – and the world’s - highest priority.  Meanwhile, Rotary clubs and other progressive organizations continue to minimize their power by competing with thousands of progressive organizations, each with various priorities (like Rotary’s seven pillars) - for active members, money, media attention, timely access to policy makers.  And with Rotary a fear of non-partisan political advocacy. 

FYI: The US is over a billion dollars in arrears of our UN dues.  Plus, days ago, the US withdrew from dozens of UN agencies including WHO.  These US policies are a crime against humanity, and few Americans are speaking out.  More troubling is even fewer aware of the SDGs - humankind’s global need for a comprehensive, holistic, and synergistic global plan - needed to reverse this current insanity of humanity.  

And reported in today’s WPost - last month’s HHS announced overhaul of its vaccine schedule on one or more of the “leading causes of vaccine-preventable hospitalizations and death.” Even our nation’s own Vaccine campaigns are now making childhood Polio and Measles vaccinations optional.  All of this will lead to thousands of deaths and tens of thousands suffering needlessly in the US.  

The Truth?  I’m ashamed of my country...and particularly Americans believing that putting America First will not have catastrophic consequences both here...abroad.  They obviously don’t understand Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’.  Such leaders and followers aren’t fit to run a sand box.  

American First makes US weaker

Trump‘s MAGA mantra of putting America First is only making US fall further behind.  Tariffs, lies, and military threats make him predictably unpredictable.  This reduces what little trust nations once had in America’s global leadership.  And Trump's New World Order with his Board of Peace is marshaling into existence a new block of nations that refused to live by his rules.

At India’s recent major Energy Summit our Northern neighbor Canada, attended that summit.   And a quote out of Ottawa by Tim Hodgson, Canada‘s energy minister, asserted “we’re not going to live in a world where might makes right... where the strongest puts tariffs on everyone else. We’re going to live in a world where we believe in free trade, where we believe in trusted relationships.”  This is the sound of our nation tumbling further down and dust bin of history.

Meanwhile, most of the civilized world is recoiling at Trump‘s para-military force as its anti-immigration drive brutally swings across liberal states.  This is the weaponization of partisan politics that authoritarian leaders smile at.

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Romer’s 'modern growth theory’ asserts that ideas are non-rival: “My use of an idea does not prevent your use" of it.  "Knowledge" is like compound interest.  And a "new process, a better algorithm, a more efficient design can lift productivity across the entire economy. A barrel of oil can be burned once. A good idea can be reused forever.”  One major problem with this ‘theory’ is what will that idea being used for? To make more profits - or protect the health of people and our planetary life support systems?

America’s greatness and a little exceptionalism is in its global system that rewards discovery, experimentation, freedom, and entrepreneurial ship - all at scale.  But again, the main ideal must be using our freedom for taking virtuous national and global actions. Without doing this Americans will lose both our freedom and security.  And then our prosperity.  Simply because everything is connected, interdependent, and vulnerable.  And ideals need both virtue and global application.

Wise investments have never been more necessary.  And spending less money on servicing yesterday’s mistakes, lack of prevention, and interest on debt.  While investing more in preventing problems for creating a lasting legacy.  This means wisely prioritizing sufficient resources in achieving the 17th Sustainable Development Goals - ASAP.   We can either bring others up to our level of civilization, or they will bring us down to theirs.  

The US no longer has the market cornered on generating and applying new ideas. This is the freedom nearly every nation that makes it a priority.  And for the US to fail in affordably competing in this - is simply insane.  Because the cost of failure is simply unsustainable and un-American. 

Ubuntu {oǒ’boǒntoō|} in ten words: I Am Because We Are, We Are Because I Am

 African culture:  UBUNTU {oǒ’boǒntoō|}: The 0rigin of the word Ubuntu comes from the Xhosa/Zulu culture, the community into which Nelson Mandela was born, and has been summarized in the phrase, "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" in the Nguni language of Xhosa, Zulu, or Ndebele. The concept of this phrase can be translated to mean, "A person is a person through other persons," or "I am because we are." In Mandela’s explanation it touches upon the multi-faceted nature of Ubuntu, including the way one feels Ubuntu as an innate duty to support one's fellow man. People should enrich themselves, meaning grow in their own Ubuntu, but true enrichment will naturally align with the duty to act towards the spiritual growth of one's community. Ubuntu is a spiritual ideal, a way of life that is conceptually represented in a wide range of sub-Saharan African societies. While Ubuntu exists in many variations within different African cultures and languages, each conceptualization retains the same core of meaning that is both a goal and a guide for humanity. In a philosophical sense it promotes the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity".

The Spirit of Ubuntu Music Video:   https://www.spiritofubuntu.us/videos/The-Spirit-of-Ubuntu-Music-Video/  4 min.

"I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more. I will tell you in my way how the Indian sees things. The white man has more words to tell you how they look to him, but it does not require many words to speak the truth. If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian... we can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike.... give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who is born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men. Let me be a free man...free to travel... free to stop... free to work... free to choose my own teachers... free to follow the religion of my Fathers... free to think and talk and act for myself."  -- Chief Joseph  (1840-1904) Chief of the Wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce Indians

WARNINGS: FINDING CASSANDRAS TO STOP CATASTROPHES  By Richard A. Clarke and R.P. Eddy,  2017: https://cco.ndu.edu/PRISM-7-2/Article/1401978/warnings-finding-cassandras-to-stop-catastrophes/   The first 8 chapters detail the millions of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars lost to catastrophes,– natural and human engineered – due to people in power failing to act on the advanced warnings of experts.   The last eight chapters estimates the billions of lives and trillions of dollars that could be saved if humanity collectively works to prevent the other dire warnings now being given regarding other threats (some existential).  Chapter 11 “The Journalist: Pandemic Disease”.   Most instructive is Chapter 9.  It outlines three cognitive reasons why humans ignore such warnings.

Here’s a video of optimism if you dare watch it  https://www.rethinkx.com/videos

Chuck Woolery 

Former Chair, United Nations Association Council of Organizations

Former Issues Director, Global Health Council.

Former Action Board member, American Public Health Association.

Author of 1996 and 1997 Congressional testimony warnings regarding threats to US and global bio- security.  For a Word Document copy of it...email chuck@igc.org

Rotarians (and other optimists) must rethink their hope that Peace is possible.

 

Is Peace Possible?  

 BC comic strip -Thor the Futurist:  A cave man asks Thor "Will there ever be an end to war?"  Thor's answer   "Yes! About 8 minutes after the Sun explodes." 

Not with Trump’s Board of Peace.  It would fundamentally work like the UN.  But under new leadership. Without fixing the UN’s basic flaw - its foundation is the illusion of independence. In a world where everything is connected, interdependent and vulnerable.  It maintains the protection of national sovereignty and wealth above the protection of human rights and nature.

World peace will not come from establishing Trump’s “Board of Peace”.  But humankind is not bored of peace yet. Not now, with more conflicts in the last 25 years than in the previous quarter century. If you haven’t noticed, the world’s progressive peace movement with its thousands of peace organizations hasn’t been working.  Even if they united, they could not overpower the national leaders who are so deeply committed now to the global paradigm of Peace through Strength – they are willing to let their nations go into bankruptcy or all go bust with WMD.

Here’s the problem in one word.  Ambiguoius.  The word “Peace” is ambiguous with every human ambition having a different definition.  The Truth is, Peace is a divisive word.  And trying to redefine it in our era of mounting Truth decay, political polarization, border disputes, the weaponization of everything, failing democracies, and rising tensions between an axis of tyranny and the instability of the axis of freedom -- not to mention the unknown future with AI‘s intervention in the evolution of weaponry as well as its own power, it’s a sure bet that world peace will not come even if 40 million or more people, play the Peace Game. You read that right.  It’s a real game!  Based on a decades old “Theory of Change” that assumes that if just one-tenth of one percent of the world’s people started taking small actions toward peace – we would have peace by 2030.  Rotary members are now being coached to play it between when they are not asking themselves the first question in their genius 4-way Test, “Is it the TRUTH?” As a Rotary member having studies peace and all other threats to human security for 4.5 decades, I assert it is “FAIR” that “all” Rotary members should be “concerned”.

A few years ago, I asked a wise Rotarian of 40+ years of ‘service above self’ what his “definition of peace” was.  He answered, “That depends on if you ask the policeman - or the protester.”  Now, with federal ICE officials murdering people when it feels right -while having the backing of their federal overseers, they are not building “GOODWILL & BETTER FRIENDSHIPS” with the 70% of Americans who are not MAGA devotees.  And this will not be “BENEFICIAL to all concerned!”

What is urgently needed here now and globally is a comprehensive, holistic, and synergistic effort at preventing violence. As well as every other form of human rights abuse known to humankind or nature’s vital environmental life support systems.

There’s only one word for this approach. It’s called Health!  And starting with mental health. By first transforming the concepts in our mind to prioritize cooperation and coordination among humankind, instead of competition and chaos between different religious, political, and economic views.

Next would be ensuring everyone’s healthy body, family, community, environment, government, and economic system, plus the health of our human spirit.

Fortunately, there’s a global plan already in place. In 2015 most of the world’s Non-Governmental Organizations and other concerned entities came together at the United Nations in NY. They finally agreed to and signed off on the 17th Sustainable Development Goals.  All to be achieved by the year 2030.  With only four years away from that goal – humanity is nowhere near achieving this wise endeavor.

With the world appearing crazy now from any perspectives, the most insanity can be found in the three progressive movements (Peace, Environment, and economic/social Justice) and their perpetual competition with each other for money, active members, media attention, and their access to key policy makers to urge favor for their particular mission.

Meanwhile, professional advocate leaders ignore the need of these movements to unite in common cause. And instead empower some to compete against each other for a limited amount of essential resources.

This has gone on for decades. With each movement, gambling on a different result. There are two names for this behavior.  Insanity and extinction.  Any living thing’s failure to adapt will not turn out well as environments change.  And our global environment’s irreversible interconnectedness has only increased while our minds and outdated governance systems have basically remained the same.

Perhaps with enough pain and suffering it might change their bubble mentality.  The finally unite to create heaven on earth with its unprecedent economic and technological wealth.  But don’t hold onto your lungs CO2.  

The resistance of the human mind to change - and doing the wise thing - is nearly impossible. 

Peace would be possible if humankind adopted the ideals within the American Declaration of Independence. Its 250^th anniversary is coming up in about 156 days. There are two phrases within we must contemplate. The first and most important “the Laws of Nature end of Nature‘s God.”  Take care of nature and each other.  The second is “…all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

This reflects the global movement’s failures to adapt.  They prefer their own favorite mission priorities. But not the single priority that humankind needs – achieving the UN 17th Sustainable Development, Goals.  And time is running out.  The acceleration of the evolution of weapons, pathogens, truth decay, political polarization, and mental insanity will not end well.  And time is not on our side.  Only by uniting do we stand a decent chance of pulling us away from this brink in wishful thinking.

 

"One day, hopefully, the globe will be civilized. All the points of the human dwelling will be illuminated and then the magnificent dream of intelligence will be fulfilled: to have the World as our homeland and Humanity as our nation."  Victor HUGO 1802–1885

 

"The unification of all humanity is a sign of the stage now approaching human society. The unity of the family, of the tribe, of the city, of the nation has been successively tried and fully established. Nation-building has come to an end. The anarchy inherent in the sovereignty of the state is reaching its climax; a world that is progressing towards maturity must abandon this fetish, it must recognize the organic unity and wholeness of human relations, and establish once and for all the mechanism that best embodies this fundamental principle of its existence.”  Shoghi Effendi  Appel aux Nations,

"Belonging to the human family confers on every person a kind of world citizenship, giving him rights and duties, men being united by a community of origin and destiny supreme. (...) The condemnation of racism, the protection of minorities, assistance to refugees and the mobilization of international solidarity towards those most in need are only coherent applications of the principle of world citizenship." John Paul II (01/01/2005)

 

“Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that in glory and in triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction, of a dot.” Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist and Cosmologist

“I'm not from Athens or Corinth, I'm a citizen of the world." Socrate.

 

Homo Sapiens (wise humans) or Bubble brains?

 We still call ourselves Homo sapiens—the wise humans.   That name hasn’t aged well.

Humans don’t just kill; we mass-murder over ideas (religion, politics, economics). Concepts that once helped small tribes bond now scale badly in a world with nuclear weapons and planetary limits. Our brains outpaced our wisdom. We became jokingly—but accurately—Homo bullatus: the bubble-brained human. When we live out these concepts in our head... our perspective is vastly limited.

Each of has our own mental bubble—stories we mistake for reality. Some are religious, some political, some economic. Some are movements devoted to good—peace, the environment, social and economic justice—that fracture into smaller bubbles – then  resist uniting.  An important distinction is culture versus cult.  A cult is organized around a personal or political truth: loyalty to a leader, an ideology, or a narrative that resists hard evidence.  A culture—at its best—is organized around objective Truths: Unalienable rights, human dignity, ecological limits, shared facts, ethical restraints – like the golden rule.

Rotary International like other service organizations is a culture rooted in service to maximize health, positive peace, stewardship of the planet, fairness, and economic inclusion.  Like any large right-minded culture, Rotary includes ideological diversity - even some with MAGA hats.  That’s not a problem. The problem arises only when a personal or political truth replaces objective Truths.

Here’s the deeper challenge: even movements that agree on outcomes—health, peace, sustainability, justice—often compete rather than cooperate. Thousands of organizations chase the same limited pool of funding, active volunteers, media attention, and access to policymakers.   Each bubble defends its turf. Each believes its framing is the right one.  Meanwhile, the planet warms. Inequality deepens. Wars multiply.  And uniting is resisted like the plague.  This even happens between Rotary’s pillars and any other siloed organization or movement. 

The Declaration of Independence this 4^th of July offers an escape hatch appealing to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” That phrase anchors legitimacy beyond ideology—back to reality itself. And puts the protection of people and nature over abusive powers at any level – with a uniting message to prioritize the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals. These are not partisan. They are operating requirements for a technological species that wants to survive.  Imagine what Rotary could do if it championed these as a comprehensive, holistic, and synergistic solution for preventing most of humanities problems by 2030.  United humankind stands a chance.  Divided?  Other powers win.

Rotary’s role—now more than ever—could be a bridge between bubbles: grounded in evidence, guided by ethics, and brave enough to state that objective reality with “self-evident” “Truths” still exists.

Because if we don’t learn to govern our ideas, our ideas will finish governing us—without guard rails.

“Today the most important thing, in my view, is to study the reasons why humankind does nothing to avert the threats about which it knows so much, and why it allows itself to be carried onward by some kind of perpetual motion.  It cannot suffice to invent new machines, new regulations, new institutions.  It is necessary to change and improve our understanding of the true purpose of what we are and what we do in the world.  Only such an understanding will allow us to develop new models of behavior, new scales of values and goals, and thereby invest the global regulations, treaties, and institutions with a new spirit and meaning.”  President Vaclav Havel

 

What are we doing to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030?   Connect the dots!  See the web of life!  Achieve ‘liberty and justice for all’.  Or, prepare for the coming consequences.

What might spark a new American Civil War?

 

As ICE agents now regularly operate as "masked, heavily militarized, and without any visible identification" - ICE officials rationally argue that the masks are necessary to prevent their doxxing or harassment by rationally motivated citizens given repeated video evidence of ICE agents lethal abuse of force. 

But under the our nation's system of the 'rule of law', lawful force depends on legitimacy. And legitimacy depends on accountability. And accountability begins with personal identification. Thus anyone who is empowered to detain, arrest, or to use lethal force must be identifiable by a US government official for whom they are acting.  When ICE officers purposely conceal their faces and perform their  duties without name tapes, tags, or badge numbers, they turned their authority into a terrorizing anonymity.  “And anonymous power is precisely what democratic [rule of law] system is designed to prevent.” Retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling. Reported in The Bulwark. Jan, 2026

Recently a few US citizens have come out in their own community armed with military assault like weapons. Willing to risk their own lives to defend those they love and the peace their community has had for decades. 

In our accelerating age of fear and the growing threat of domestic and international terrorism, drug cartels, corruption, and lethal threats to our personal and family safety, all in addition to the context that many US states have “stand your ground” laws, this is a recipe for an very uncivil war.  

Prepare for more needless gun violence by innocent civilians caught in the crossfire between Trump’s abuse of power and our U.S. Constitutional rights to have guns for protecting our privacy, family, community security, and our US Constitution.  If a civil war is sparked as our existing political polarization and senseless violence increases, this will likely be the reason. 

So unless anyone who swore an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution takes their oath, the rule of law, and responsibility seriously - and removes the fools from office - with force if necessary - don’t expect this thing to get better anytime soon - on its own. 

After watching a movie last year about a modern US "Civil War" - obviously inspired by our nation's growing anger over political polarization, its premise was TX and CA military forces uniting against an elected and established President using his US Military forces.  Now I better understand how this might happen.  Spoiler alert - most Americans are not physically involved.  But it does not end well for those who hold government power.  

We the people must soon come to realization that our form of government can never achieve any of the seven intentions in its preamble.  Not without Constitutional Convention that puts into legal practice the fundamental principles that inspired the Declaration of Independence and the very birth of our nation's by its first civil war, that involved family against family, nations against other nations, and tribes against tribes.  With Freedom being the ultimate goal. But never achievable and sustainable without virtuous people and laws.  In the Declaration's words, "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God".  A biological translation; Keep people and nature healthy!  Health of mind, body, spirit, family, community, environment, government, economy...  This IS rocket science. If our species intends to transfer our species to other worlds, if we trash this one, we can't rely on aliens to do it for us.