February 25, 2026

    It's been awhile since I've sat here to communicate this way. My sharing has been more with friends, family, and our Monday weekly group. Recently I've been discussing the word matter. What's the matter? Does this matter? Do I matter? All that matters. Can our motivations to action, our viewpoints and opinions be driven in part by our desire to matter? Is our work life associated with our goals to matter? Or is these desires of our interests and goals grounded in our past history of shortcomings, failures, traumas, and loss? Some of us have been inspired to reach beyond our present capabilities and achieve goals that are difficult to reach. Others have felt defeated, blocked, and just exist without more interests. There are those handicapped by genetic inherited issues that prevent them from learning when placed in standard learning environments. Self help books, gurus of various persuasions, hucksters even want us to listen to their directions, give them our attentions, and support their causes and then as a group member we can matter! What is it like to want validation, appreciation, and mattering from a rejecting parent. I'm sure its a bummer max! Do you persist ii this striving? I hope not but to give up means to some a void and isolation from love unless you can understand that addiction to that one person is just that and they don't deserve it but other could if your open to find them and accept their appreciation of you that they value. 

    Recently, I attended a Buddhist memorial at the Tendai Monastery on Oahu. My memories of interactions with this departed are very positive. She has been a remarkable person who help raise three children in Hawaii while working full time in various service jobs. Her cultural traditions, food preferences, and life style were more traditional of her culture as an immigrant who mainly gravitated with similar immigrants while working full time to support the family since she was abandoned by her husband. I grew to know her through my son's wife, her daughter. Lucky for my grandchildren who had a mother who carried on her manner of upbringing to them. Does she matter? Of course, even the Buddhist minister believes she was so enlightened that she may have achieved nirvana! 

    What has mattering have to do with loving?  I recently was playing Felix Mendelsolm's Glugel Des Gesanges  (Song Without Words) based on a poem of Heinrich Heine( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Wings_of_Song_(poem). I shared this in our Monday group and read the poem and played the piece for Rebecca my wife. Love does matter. How does someone know they love someone else? Is there a yardstick to measure love? I am loved is not I love. Can a country have as a goal that love matters? 

    I'll try to flesh out the last question. If you use AI for this question you get a readout of countries that have more social cohesion, concern for its citizens and more interest in positive active friendships and caring. Some want their citizens to love their country and even sacrifice their individual wants for the group benefit. I'm suspicious of these country motivations since some of them ware autocrats dictatorships with much social injustice. When I queried AI about countries that have as a goal for its citizens be happy, I'm more satisfied with the results. Bhutan has as a goal that by 2034 its citizen will achieve a certain defined degree of happiness and the government is responsible to have programs to move towards this goal.  Finland has goals for happiness with a robust social safety net and has scored very high on happiness for its citizens (https://www.google.com/search?q=country+that+has+a+goal+for+citizens+to+love+each+other&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgkIAhAhGAoYoAEyCQgDECEYChigATIJCAQQIRgKGKsCMgkIBRAhGAoYqwLSAQkxODc5MGowajSoAgCwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&fbs=ADc_l-aN0CWEZBOHjofHoaMMDiKpV6Bbbmx4QVaoKkiRQ2jlwvMg54BMciw6zYi-UcSdrQCk8rMmGSoXlUZBtIWRHAg5ottE4XCPGv2mxWVhCrXJ6DvmVl-JQ559UZh8-oZl0cQ3E6wYd0iMCySmpo8Gu2UVvD7sGIVZnM8yN6CUG4LFlGAB9TnF-QiBKxHqrYbMWZvGCsFsZb9U7UZnvof4-egOcP5Kzg&ved=2ahUKEwjHhNDPhPaSAxWyMDQIHWD0IhMQ0NsOegQIAxAB&aep=10&ntc=1&mtid=L6afabOZLqOE0PEPku-48Qg&mstk=AUtExfCqNejFjZvcLI93oWK1UXosHCr4o3a0Bk0zLIvQxuSHJHnuSjPKlW3LjhnmFaNJ5K9tO-AkFl6kk1c8wibMHBDLXRqY-HzDzIFRMYY3Oc4XUZuSBp4pO_zcYgliCh0ee6w8YRQ1-4vF_kfUq_WHfgGSTnTw7g8X65v3hkajRuM-h9n9xZ9aey5JqSPB59swEDR_Puv16Q_7-1xOdZ2nkhIP2Y5R1qWjPwWgdmegyHFFf-PuxWfj4VA0riK0tY4Bxgl_Mdd86PL0y585TM3amO4O11MncKpO3wrfyOUBN7LQfEU-Y4nLl763xsboK3SsW1Rz5N0ga-Mv_A&csuir=1&udm=50). 

    Does love matter? Here we may have different definitions for the term love and matters. If your a very religious traditional believer certain groups of people are off the list for marriage, close affinity, and caring. Some groups hate other groups and discriminate and ostracize them. Yet to me we're all human, many of us in these oppositional groups share common  values when it come to children, marriage, responsibilities, etc. One generation can be taught to hate and even condone killing the disparaged group while the next generation has the opposite viewpoint (i.e. German). 

    I am avoiding discussing our present Republican President  and his followers and administration including the Republican party since I'm sure my readers can judge my opinions! Is the United States of America in the camp of nations caring about their citizens? Sending troops to our cities, hounding people to ferret out illegal immigrants, and attacking and killing citizens and others seems more in the hatred than caring arenas. 

    I'm reading a trilogy of books by Robert Sawyer Hominids. This author has been very clever in juxtaposing our present human earth human environment with its cultural and legal systems and another earth an alternative universe of humans but they are Neanderthals. The Neanderthals have a non violent (for the most part) culture. They are as intelligent as homo sapiens, have a thriving science, and care for all citizens depending on their needs and interests. They are governed by a congress and administration which is a world government of members 55 years old or older. Voting for offices in the government are for citizens 55 years or older with the culture concluding that younger citizens are not mature enough. Since Neanderthals have a more sensitive olfactory system they are more  able to smell and they can tell when females are fertile. They choose mating partners according to their individual interests but they tend to separate into male and female groups otherwise.  When not involved with their female mates that they bond with same sex partners who they also make love with. They do not propagate except during the monthly ovulatory cycles so the overall population density of their earth is much smaller than homo sapiens (our) world. They have never developed large farming communities or industries nor have used domesticated animals so much for food. They are therefore very land and environmentally conscious.  They have jobs, careers, an educational system and individual housing but more ecologically minded. There transportation system is mutually owned so individual transport is not present. They use an uber type system. What is so interesting to me is that they had an inventor develop some time ago a device that is implanted in their wrist that has sensors and records visually and auditory information of their lives which is recorded in a central archive depository. This devise also monitors their health and has communication for emergencies elsewhere. Since the wrist device has been inserted in all members of their earth, any crime like issues can be reviewed in the archive repository if necessary. To them, if someone has been assaultive, has murdered, or committed some aggressive act the truth could be decerned most of the time by reviewing the archive records. For example, a victim has the right to ask their equivalent of a judge to open the archive to see what happened. In other words, in their culture no one has the right to privacy. If they find that someone has maimed. murdered, or assaulted severely their usual method of  consequence is to sterilize the individual since they believe genetic factors may had triggered these behaviors. They also have psychiatric treatments and enhanced monitoring of these individuals. Their science of the cosmos has concluded that the universe has always been present so they have no religious concepts that some deity began all that we know. 

    Robert Sawyer has been very clever in describing a culture like this when in writes how a member of this society inadvertently is transported to homo sapiens (our) earth. He describes how the Neanderthals are shocked with the environmental pollution and disruption. How over populations has occurred. How declarations that life matters is juxtaposed with all the frequent wars of our world. His descriptions of the Neanderthals visit to the war memorials in Washington D.C.  is so well done. His critique of our legal system versus the Neanderthals' is very though provoking.  Alexander Solzhenitsyn is quoted in these books. If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago

    One of the factors associated with an individuals tendency to endorse conspiracy theories is a factor psychologists call intolerance for ambiguity. There are many issues in life that do not have definitive answers. Scientists often research areas that are very ambiguous initially so a tolerance for uncertainty and even guesswork are common. Yet some people cannot be patient, see that there may be not answer yet and come to a conclusion instead to resolve this state of affairs https://futurism.com/health-medicine/conspiracy-theories-psychology.  One area that is ripe with this type of thinking if politics. Can the Democrats or the the Republicans in the USA have the answers if in the majority to solve our societies problems? I think if you answer yes your prone to not tolerate ambiguity. I answer no. We are so far from a perfect democracy. There are so many factors I can list that prevent our government from functioning properly. 

      One of our pleasures in our activities of everyday living has been hiking, walking in the woods, exploring and developing skills to reach areas that are hard to get to. Beethoven in his diaries is so enthusiastic with the pleasures and inspiration he got from walking in the woods near Vienna "I could wrest them (musical ideas) from Nature herself with my own hands, as I go walking in the woods". He wrote Sonata 15 described as Pastoral which I played recently (very poorly) and  Symphony #6 Pastoral Symphony that incorporates these experiences. When I drive on Oahu I look at the forest and mountains and recall hikes up to these vistas and summits. Though if I attempted now I'd be gone for good the experiences are still vivid and refreshing. Likewise other locals over the world have been my adventures immersed in nature. 

A hui hou 

Leonard

    

  

Glacier National Park