SMALL MOTOR ... BIG FLYWHEEL

Fifty years ago I received a degree in psychology from Mississippi Southern College (now the University of Southern Mississippi). This year, in a few months, I will be 77 years old.

Back then you could probably say I’d have been a C student at a good college. Sometimes I peaked at testing … a 98%ile on my military entrance test … a chemistry award in high school. But I had the interest and intelligence to study psychology, with an interest in human intelligence and how the brain works, hypnosis and suggestibility. I took an elective course in comparative religion; I was already and still am a strong freethinker. I minored in business/economics. Today I easily have a strong understanding of all the major social and economic issues, also a strong understanding about money.

For the past 50 years since I got my degree, I have continued to learn. The GI Bill provided for a couple quarters of graduate study at Mexico City College but not enough for another degree. My language skills are rather weak … somewhat less than desired. I spoke mostly Greek up to the age of 6 … there was a lack of learning materials in my youth, but I continue life-long learning as an autodidact.

I like to use the analogy of a small motor connected to a large flywheel, think grindstone. Over a period of time the small motor can put away stored energy/power. I think of the grindstone grinding down what comes in contact with it. Sparks will fly.

So what has been stored in this flywheel? Twenty to thirty years of reading The Futurist … The Humanist … Secular Humanist … Free Inquiry … The Nation … Barron’s … books … magazines … the popular press … television … What a powerful force, the spinning grindstone.

After having worked off and on, mostly off, for 25 years, in 1970 I quit working … went searching …found Walden Two … truth-seeking the Walden Two ideal … the 1960’s and ‘70’s counterculture … research mainly …

Beginning with The Collective in 1972, I self-published a number of books. The main thrust was a response to two major books predicting the future, published in the early 1970’s: The Limits to Growth (Meadows) emphasizing the problems of population, pollution, industrialization, limited resources, runaway consumerism, and a contrasting viewpoint, The Next 200 Years (Herman Kahn), emphasizing the coming age of leisure.

I’ve always been looking ahead to what the world will need in the future.
By chance, the U. S. Post Office in New Orleans in 1970 gave me the box number 2001.

Ten years ago, the futurists were predicting a future war with China. It was decided, instead of a war with China, to help them become wealthy. Then they will have much to lose and will not be war-inclined.

World Marxist communism has been a healthy humanistic modifier of the excesses of capitalism. Those of you who have a problem with the concept of communism must remember that China is still a communist country. Confucianism is the major religion of China. Some are trying to make it the state religion. Communism is not godless: it favors the natural over the supernatural. In the USA today we also continue to have a great debate of science versus religion.

Simply put: point … counterpoint …somewhere in between becomes the new point.


A heavy-handed way of saying this is dialectical materialism … thesis versus antithesis yields synthesis… this synthesis becomes the new thesis that generates the new antithesis that generates the new synthesis … etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …

Small motor … big flywheel … for 50 years this small motor has been putting energy … force … into the flywheel.

CHINA

Do we want the Chinese to live like we do?

About 15 years ago I was visiting one of my sons in Jackson, MS, when I read a little article in the local paper announcing that the Unitarians were offering a soapbox at their 4th of July church picnic to anyone who wanted to come down and use it.

Being that the Unitarians and I are kindred spirits, I thought I might amuse them as well as demonstrate my latest book, The Resort Circle: The Best Idea in America: Community of/for Change, advocating a live-better village lifestyle with the ambience of a Walden Two culture and environment.

Whenever people see someone on a soapbox, they become skeptics who want to throw stones and knock the speaker off the soapbox. (For goodness’ sake, don’t take me literally.)

For the most part, my oration fell on deaf ears, if not worse, but I did say something that caused one enlightened, thinking listener to come over and shake my hand.

What did I say that converted him? I had said, “You don’t want the Chinese to live like we do.”

See the recent New York Times series “Choking on Growth: China’s Environmental Crisis.”

For an in-depth, long-range background, see the website of Worldwatch Institute, whose publications I’ve been reading for over 30 years.

I'M BACK

Back in 1994 I launched a new blog, Using Videos to Better the World, dedicated to advocating the making, distribution, and worldwide use of educational videos, along with discussing current issues on socioeconomic topics, including sensitive and controversial areas of politics and religion.

Time and technology continue to march forward, and thanks to newcomers such as YouTube and Jumpcut, millions of people are now able to enjoy making and sharing videos worldwide.

Although health issues interfered temporarily with my project, I’m now back, renewed and rejuvenated, better than ever, with my 77th birthday coming up in December, writing this new blog as JUSTERNEST.

I’ve been known as “Justernest” for many years, having been blessed by my Greek parents with a last name too difficult for many people to say and remember.

Topics and issues that I’ve been writing about for almost 50 years are still current, and I plan to share insights old and new.

I live here in paradise on the Mississippi Gulf Coast with my wife Marilyn, a retired schoolteacher, who helps me with these endeavors, including my website,
The Resort Circle.

We welcome you to join us in this adventure!