a non-profit world.

Imagine, if you will, (this is in Rod Serling's voice) a world in which money is nothing--where people spend their time, not money.

Imagining this is not easy. 

Jesus was disgusted by money-lenders in the temple during his short human life.  That tells me that the idea of money and profit already existed.  Lenders are all about the profit.  It's in their interest.
This doesn't really prove money lending is immoral, but it does prove humans have been profiting off the poor and unfortunate for a very long time.  No one borrows money unless they are desperate or not very aware of the foibles of borrowing.

In the beginning, people bartered. Bartering is the exchange of a good or service for another good or service.  Bartering was not all about profit.  It was about exchanging what I have by my efforts more than I need of, for those items I need but don't have--either don't know how to make it or can't grow it or kill it.   A great potter (but terrible weaver or incompetent hunter)  can exchange a cooking vessel for a blanket to stay warm or a dead rabbit for supper.

https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-money-1992150

Money is anything that is commonly accepted by a group of people for the exchange of goods, services or resources. Every country has its own system of coins and paper money.    At one time, salt, shells, beads, and furs have been used as money.  They were items that were innately valuable to the people that traded in them.  Gemstones, precious metals, all metals have also been traded as currency.  So--still basically bartering. 

When Europeans started paying native people in trade beads and cloth in exchange for things the native people considered easy to come by, there developed profit in bartering.  Spices, perfumes, furs of exotic animals, artwork, craft items, all became more valuable when traded to people that did not have the ability to make them or the resources to obtain them.  Europeans were very good at bartering their cheap goods for expensive items.  And were also very good at colonizing an area that would allow them to turn the native people into unpaid workers and the resources into their own property. While feudal areas allowed that Might made Rich by virtue of providing protection from outsiders while taxing their peasantry and merchants--those first profiteers; and not allowing anyone that wasn't of noble or royal blood to own land, they made vassals of most everyone.
Capitalism replaced feudalism vs tribalism (a kind of small scale, socialism, communism with some often harsh rules and strange beliefs)  with the onset of world exploration by Europeans in search of riches and adventure.  Greed was the new morality of everyone, not just the hereditary leaders. 

But imagining a world without profit. 

That is hard.

I was raised to believe that if I worked hard my whole life I could be rich and successful. (it was always rich first, successful second, gives successful a very pointed meaning) 

I was raised on the marketing ploys of written, spoken and visual advertisements that promised me that owning the right clothes, make-up, car, food, toys, furniture would make becoming "rich and successful" closer to a reality.

I was told the right places to vacation, the right hobbies to enjoy, the right styles to decorate my home, and the books I and then my children should read to become rich and successful.

I expected cigarettes to make me sophisticated and milk to make me strong.  And Jello was good for me. 

Since 1845 when gelatin was discovered/invented (patented) (Gelatin is a yellowish, odorless, and nearly tasteless substance that is made by prolonged boiling of skin, cartilage, and bones from animals. It's made primarily from the stuff meat industries have left over-we're talking about pork skins, horns, and cattle bones.), I with millions of children and sick people and people that frequent church suppers, have consumed a gazillion tons of wiggling, brightly colored, artificially flavored salads and desserts.  Jello, heavily marketed and containing basically scrap animal parts now belongs to Kraft Foods, that has over a 4 billion dollar profit per year.

It could have been worse.

We had marketers selling x-ray machines to shoe stores so the customers could see if the shoes fit right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope  We knew about radiation dangers as far back as the 1890's but this unregulated machine was in place in many countries from the 1920's until the 1970's.  What a cool way to sell shoes.

We have soda's--carbonated soft drinks--originally marketed as a health tonic and sold in pharmacies.  Those first recipes contained carbonated water, syrup, and such healthful additives as cocaine,  strychnine, cannabis, morphine, opium, heroin, Sarsparilla--supposed to cure syphilis, contains steroidal components, sassafras--used to be in rootbeer but comes with warnings of cancer and liver damage. 

The FDA has removed everything but the high fructose corn syrup, caramel coloring---neither are good for you, but....neither are the brightly shaded food dyes that make our children love their breakfast cereal and cupcakes and pretty much everything that isn't some shade of brown or gray.   http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/02/24/are-you-or-your-family-eating-toxic-food-dyes.aspx

We don't add food dyes and addictive drugs to items because we love our customers and want them to be healthy.  We do it so it will sell. 

It's all about the profit.

When I was a kid, a teacher that had been in WWII told me about a pal of his that had invented an engine that would get over 50 mpg.  The pal patented it.  But he couldn't sell it.  It was not good for the petroleum industry.  It would decrease the amount of gasoline they sold.

When I was a kid, my grandmother still had this monstrous refrigerator from the 30's or 40's that ran on gas--propane.  It was over 20 years old when she replaced it, not because it quit working but because she remarried and he had a newer one.  That newer one didn't last over 20 years before it quit.

My previous refrigerator had its door fall off it's hinges at age 3.  They couldn't fix it.  The model no longer existed so getting the door and paying the repairman would be more than a new one.

My father could take a car, any car built before 1970--and make it work--forever.  Those cars were heavy, got terrible mileage, but if you replaced hoses and filters and plugs and changed the oil and brake linings--well, in truth, it was a 1968 overhead cam he taught me to also change rings and lifters and rods, but all those things were replaceable and the car just keeps on working.

Today, a car has an expiration date.  If it is maintained well, depending on what kind, you can 200,000 or 300,000+ miles out of it.  But back then, they just kept rolling over.  It didn't matter, everything was fixable in the garage.  Add an acetylene torch and you could even fix it after you wrecked it.  Today--repairs are too high.  The parts are to high. 

Its part of that planned next purchase to keep the car maker's profits high.

That is the very essence of planned obsolescence.  That is how you keep those profits rolling in.

We have landfills over-flowing with items that could have been built to last or made to repair, instead, we make everything with a shelf-life and expected time for next purchase.

We have created our entire culture, our whole way of life on the premise that being a consumer is good for us all.  We buy over-packaged items for the convenience of it because we have to work so much we could never just make a meal from items that came from a farm.  We work 40 hours and spend 50 hours a week getting ready for work, travelling to work, taking a rest break at work and travelling home from work--usually with at least one side trip because once we get home we don't want to go our again unless its for fun.  We spend our weekends hauling kids to all those planned and organized activities that will help them become "rich and successful" adults. 

And if we have free time--we shop.  For fun.  It's an activity like going to the old farmers markets and country fairs.

Walk in a mall or a Walmart on any weekend and tell me the atmosphere is not the same as going to the fair.

We have competitive couponers.

We have shopping channels--more than one.

We have magazines that tell us how to move out last years purchases so that we don't look like hoarders. 

I'm still wearing 20 year old sweaters and socks.  The rest of me is not the same size, so stretchy stuff only---because I can spend 3 hours in the grocery store and I'm cooking for one.

I can hardly imagine a world not based on profit.

My entire life has been about profit.

Not making one, but making sure those people that are "rich and successful" are making one.

So maybe we need to start small, with those things that have a purpose that was never supposed to be about profit.

Like water, air, education, healthcare, prisons, childcare, elder care, medication, but also maybe food and public transportation.  That is to start. 

Maybe we need to figure out how to "normalize" it all so that the stockholders are not making more off their investment of money that just grows and grows through no effort of their own due to government rebates and credits and tax breaks, while the miners and roughnecks and mill workers and factory line workers, the designers and marketers and specification manual writers and bookkeepers are making out like--well like the paid help. 

Is the whole "rich and successful" the carrot on a stick the actual rich folks like to hold in front of us to keep us plugging away when most of us have never met an actual "rich and successful" person. 

I've met successful people.  People that live a full life doing what they love.  People that have followed their dreams of singing or acting or painting.  None of them became rich.  But they were successful.

I've met successful parents.  They were great at parenting.  Their children turned out to be great people.

I've met people that have ran their own business for years and paid for their home and their kids education and some vacations and cars.  The business was well respected and the employees considered their job a second home.  They were not "Rich".  Upper middle income at most.

And I've met people, a lot of people, that into their 50's were still trying to grab the brass ring.  They were chasing "rich and successful"  and it was making them miserable.  They knew they would eventually make it.  Just one more college degree.  Just one more move for a new and better job.  A bigger house and nicer car, more expensive clothes and someone would get that they were born to be "rich and successful".  By 60 they looked 70 and owed so much money they would not be able to retire until they were 90.  They had an thick belly from all the cortisol pumped into them by their own stress.  Their blood sugar was high---from the same.  If you drew their blood, it came out with chunks of what looked like butter floating in it due to convenience foods and fancy restaurants.  Their liver enzymes were always high--from all the power lunches and business dinners with at least one martini and the pain killers for the tension headaches.  The kidney function was not up to snuff from all the NSAIDs they took for joint pain from their muscle tension and inactivity.  They had daily heart palpitations in response to too little sleep and too much caffeine.  They were successful, and just knew the rich would follow. 

I've been to several of their funerals.  Too young for dying.  And frequently leaving a spouse that had no idea how to deal with the debt, although, frequently still working hard for that "rich and successful" also, so doubling down to make enough to pay both their halves of the bills. 

And I meet people that seem to have suddenly woke up.  Looked around.  Started Simplifying.  Slowed down.  Took up nature walks instead of shopping sprees.  Decreased the number of weekend kid activities so both the child and the parent had some down time.  Paid attention to the type of food they bought and cooked.  Ate in more.  Drank fewer sweet drinks.  Started weird things like meditating daily or writing what they are grateful for every night in a journal.  Took up hobbies like bird watching or rock hunting or drawing--lead pencils, even great artist quality pencils are pretty cheap.  And gardening--from raised beds to patio pots to full scale plots, the excitement of picking something you grew and eating it--pretty amazing stuff.

Perhaps, in a non-profit world, we just have to learn to redefine successful--focus on the happiness part, the kind part, the thoughtful, caring, creative part. 

Maybe we will eventually even redefine "Rich" 

Having a great deal of money or assets; wealthy needs to become archaic

    

Having a plentiful; abundant life, rich with happiness, joy, memories, skills, love---that is a "rich and successful" life that a non-profit world would be right at home with.

There can be only one!

No one calls me politically correct after they have been around me more than an hour.  Before that, they may assume I am, or that I am shy or backward or anxious.
But once I've had a chance to see if they are someone I want to talk with, I am described with such words as "blunt, frank, filter-less, honest, truthful, straightforward, plain-spoken, candid, direct, gruff, forthright, unequivocal, brusque, abrupt, curt, terse, brutal, harsh, stark, unadorned or upfront."  Occasionally I will get a "rude" or "you hurt my feelings"  and I will try to reword.  My goal is not to hurt people or be rude.  My goal is to get to the meat of the subject at hand.  Time is precious.

I think a lot of people like to try to use the phrase "politically correct" as an insult to those people that are polite and thoughtful and avoidant of hurting feelings or being seen as mean, coarse  or rude.  While I am not one of those people, I do understand that we need to not just be mean, coarse or rude if we are going to ever reach a peaceful world for all people.

Recently, there has been an increase in extremely mean, coarse and rude behavior.  Those individuals are speaking out for--as in--in favor of the shooting of unarmed people that don't follow police directions quickly enough.  They want--not fewer executions but faster executions and more laws making lesser crimes capital crimes.  They want undocumented immigrants and refugees to be subjected to either brutal imprisonment, men-women and children, or shot when they try to enter-- making our borders sound like a turkey shoot.  They want poor people without funds to also do without housing, clothing, food, medical care or education.  They want people they consider deviant---drug addicts,nonfunctional alcoholics, mentally ill, and the entire LGQBT community to go to prison for long terms and lose all there rights, and they want ex-cons to also lose their rights--permanently.  And---when it comes to religion--there can only be one!  (Shades of the Highlander Movies).

These are the people that watch end-of-the-world movies and think that "its about time" we thinned the herd.  (End of the world movies should not be seen as jolly good fun).

So, is there an increase in the number of these type of people.  No.

Most have just had reason to remain "politically correct" until current events led them to believe their time was coming.  Instead of admitting they were racist and xenophobic, they wanted to be seen as conservative and law-and-order types.  Instead of hate-filled, to appear traditional and religious.  They spoke out at home, but around people they didn't know, they never discussed their  Klan meetings or how they terrorized the one brown family that dared to move to their small town. 

See, we can all be politically correct when needed.

But is there some reason for so many to be so hate filled and uncaring? 

How many times have you or a close family member or friend wished for "the good old days", or wondered what it would be like to live on a mountain with just your family or go back to the pioneer days or the pagan times or the prehistoric times.

Back when a person, every person, knew everyone in their camp, village or general vicinity. 
Back when there were as many other free living species as there were humans.
Back when everyone in the group was accepted and needed and missed when they were gone.

I'm not sure that time ever existed.

There were several species of prehistoric man.  A few of us actually share a little of Neanderthals DNA, so we aren't more different than a wolf or coyote from a domestic dog. 

Except in the movies, those other species are extinct.  Why?  Did they lack immunity to some new disease?  Did they lose their habitat?  Did Homo sapien kill them in some final war of  "their can be only one"?

The Neanderthals existed for about 400,000 years and went extinct 40,000 years ago.  Their population was estimated to range from 5,000  to 70,000---a medium sized town in the Midwest--but scattered across Europe and Asia.  Their very size probably contributed to their extinction.  Homo Sapiens share about 0.3% of their DNA with the Neanderthal without them being direct ancestors.

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics

Humans share 99.9% of their DNA with other humans--in other words, the differences we see and hear are being created by about 0.1% of our DNA make-up.

There is a difference of 1.2% to 1.6% between humans and African Apes--genetically speaking, and a difference ranging up to 3.1% for the Asian Orangutan and greater than 7% difference in DNA between humans and our closest monkey--genetically speaking--the Rhesus.

So, what Charles Darwin theorized from the fossils and anatomy of primates in his time, the Human Genome and other DNA studies have supported in the millennium.

What if the stereotyping of people of other races, creeds, colors, religions, belief systems is just some sort of effort by humans to explain why their genetic material deserves to stay and those other groups need to die. 

A weird kind of political correctness in which the knowledge that we humans are approaching too many for  the planet and the biological imperative that "my genes--my offspring" must be the ones that go forward because.....

It's a biological imperative.  Think biologic clock.  Think  heat, rut, season.

  https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=song+fall+in+love+do+it&view=detail&mid=FD4012BB23962783CC65FD4012BB23962783CC65&FORM=VIRE

Seriously though,  is there a point of saturation?  Are all these people spouting hate and violence just trying to find a way to explain why they think their offspring have more of a right to survival than my offspring, or yours? 

I know that at some point, both population limits and the current extincting of species of other plants and animals because they are not helping human corporations make a profit we will reach a tipping point that imbalances our ecosystem too much for any of us to survive.

There is going to be a point where the real bottom line is identified and hopefully it won't be too late to save our children---all of them, not just yours and mine.

It really isn't all about the money, that has never really been the bottom line.

choosing your words

I have heard parents telling children to "use your words" and seen employers improving customer service by scripting what employees say.  The first was kind of brilliant.  The second mostly annoying, employees repeating words they obviously don't mean as much as the rude crap they used to say is not that big of an improvement.

I also had a major gestalt experience, a real ah-ha moment, while touring at The Whitney Plantation.

http://whitneyplantation.com/

My daughter got the tickets ahead of time.  It was her one place that was not optional during our visit to New Orleans.  Having visited old colonial homes and plantation homes and famous people's homes and political people's homes, I was game.  I love history--all history.  It's my go-to elective for college credits.

We arrived just before time.  It was an unassuming building by the parking lot.  It was all by tour.  There was no wandering, which had been true in several of my previous experiences.  "NO TOUCHING THE ANTIQUES"!

The gift shop was full of books and a few fair trade items.  The tour started with about 20 people in it, a multicultural group, but that is common in Louisiana.  She gave a short history about the actual plantation, dates and names and then she reminded us that this plantation tour was from the perspective of the "enslaved people" that had lived here.  My daughter had mentioned it wasn't about antiques. 

Enslaved people...somehow at that moment, all the old "slave stories" and histories were flipped.  It was something horrible that happened to people in our country.  It was part of my history. 

"By 1600 an estimated 275,000 Africans, both free and slave  (see how the use of this word eliminates their humanity), were in Central and South America and the Caribbean area. Africans first arrived in the area that became the United States in 1619, when a handful of captives (captives, also distanced by its implications--not people, captives) were sold by the captain of a Dutch man-of-war to settlers at Jamestown."

https://www.bing.com/search?q=first+african+to+arrive+in+america&form=EDGEAR&qs=SC&cvid=175a9d1d380b4feaa42b00b8024a026b&cc=US&setlang=en-US

It was a long tour.  The tour guide was passionate about the stories she told.  She didn't let the questions about how comfortable and cared for the "slaves" were.  And I quote, "you won't be hearing stories about happy, singing slaves" on this tour.  She discussed names, records, the origin of life insurance--much like crop insurance or stock insurance, she discussed the lack of burial grounds--"dumped in the bayous" without ceremony.   

One couple, an elderly white man and woman suddenly remembered a funeral they needed to leave for not long after the jail cell was opened to our group. 

I learned a lot on the tour.

I found the simple yet earthy statues of real enslaved people so poignantly, tearfully touching.  They were not romanticized or done as somehow more beautiful and heavenly than real people--a thing I have seen done to make things more dramatic and unreal.  I found the very old and down-to-earth older plantation house (most of the huge, white plantation houses that are reminiscent of "Gone with the Wind", so much more reflective of what the use of enslaved people to do the work was about.  Plantation were farms and ranches.  They were a family business.  A rich family's business.  Their were black people working for free (those quarters out back made it obvious that they did not have their own little family units to live in) and poor white people working for a little money--but free to change jobs or leave the plantation's employment.  Only the family house was actually nice---not palatial--but for the late 1700's, quite roomy and nicely constructed.

These days, calling the people that were enslaved before the 1860's, "slaves"  makes it seem distant and meaningless to most people. 
Calling them enslaved, points out so much more:

• They were people, either stolen from their life in Africa as a full member of a culture or as an enslaved person-which in those other cultures was more like an indentured servant--something you could get out of at least, or a victim of capture after a war,  or, they were born to parents that were enslaved---what a bittersweet thing a birth must have been to those mother's. 
• There are currently people in this country that are still enslaved. The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=13th+amendment+to+the+constitution&qs=LS&pq=13th+amen&sk=LS1AS1&sc=8-9&cvid=A23B02C19E004631AF5F22DA1CA27D61&FORM=QBRE&sp=4&ghc=1

• The for-profit prisons that are getting their profit not only from the taxes of our states but also from the forced labor of the descendants of those same enslaved people that were brought to this country from Africa hundreds of years ago. 
• Before for-profit prisons, we did the same--license tags, chain-gangs, work farms. (those politicians knew what they were setting up in the 1860's)
• In addition to the slavery that was allowed to continue via the 13th Amendment, we have human trafficking (another interesting word, meant to dehumanize the victims, much like the word "slave" does.  Human trafficking, while frequently involving sex trafficking of marginalized women, also includes factory-type employers that arrange groups of immigrants to come in, work long hours under dangerous conditions, don't allow them to leave, charge them exorbitant rates for their cots and sad meals and not allow them out of the work place or to go home.  Two industries that are disturbingly popular with fashionable women and well-to-do men are where women from Asia have been brought over to do nails and give massages. 
• Last but not least, are the children brought to this country to be fostered by the wealthy that end up being used as domestic servants and sex workers.  We still have plenty of people willing to use those that are already in bad straits, victimizing them even more than the homeland they were trying to escape.

The Whitney Plantation Tour Guide chose her words wisely.  She made an impact--not just on me.  The people from that tour visited the gift shop in Thoughtful-mode.  Books were purchased, hopefully to be read.  Notes were written for their wall for that purpose.

And I was made aware that our word choice can make something seem either normal or horrifying,  acceptable and distant or real and current and devastating.

If you use words for things that make them sound nicer than they are, regular, business as usual, ordinary.  Stop it.  Bad things, events, activities, behaviors should never be glossed over to make them sound acceptable.  If we would be better as a species, we need to talk about those atrocities that make us worse, less, and bad.  You can't stop something until it is recognized as a problem.

And if you are going to New Orleans,  take the Whitney Plantation Tour.

It will make you a better person.

The Importance of Ritual

Sometimes, we humans need something more.  We need to make a thing important.  We need to make it memorable.  We need something with purpose, tradition, symbolism, unspoken meaning to create a landmark in our memories, and our lives.

Ritual:  a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.   (Religious:  1. Having or showing belief in and reverence for God or a deity.

2. Of, concerned with, or teaching religion: a religious text.

3. Extremely scrupulous or conscientious: religious devotion to duty.)

I have met people with obsessive-compulsive disorder that can turn their morning ablutions (that's an archaic word not heard in my home state every day) into a religious (extremely scrupulous or conscientious and according to prescribed order) every day.  

For most of us, Rituals are for those rare events that serve as milestones in our lives; birth and birthdays, graduation (how ever many times and steps that might be), marriage and anniversaries.  Awards.  Promotions.  Paid off mortgages.  And, of course, death.  That last one is not going to end up in the memory of the person memorialized, but rather in the memories of those that loved them.

There are a multitude of sources of ritual.  We have culture and religion.  We have current fads and personal beliefs.  We have those creative sorts that make up a ritual from thin air, fill it with purpose, symbolism, and beauty and Voila--a new ritual tradition is available to future humans.

But why? 

WWWWHHHHYYYYY?????

We have huge moneyed industries dedicated to celebrating births and their subsequent birthdays, Weddings, Anniversaries, and Death.

There is pride and status in spending huge amounts of money, frequently borrowed money and bill money and college saving, on those celebrations.  And so many choices are made based on competing with others in the family or community--is it as good as?  Is it better?   Did I wow them?  Was it the "most beautiful wedding, quinceañera, Bat Mitzva, golden anniversary, christening... etc. etc.

"Most "is a word of comparison.  A sign of competition.  A sign of poor reasons for why a ritual is performed. 

A ritual is not for winning.  It is to mark an important day--a life event worth remembering.

And remembering is as important as making an event sacred through ritual.

If something big is happening in your life, birth big or marriage big or just goal-completion big.  A ritual is a great way to set the memory.  But chose your ritual carefully.  If all you remember later is the $30,000 worth of credit card debt you now need to pay off, you may have lost sight of your purpose.  Some rituals are rather cheap and steeped in tradition--like putting the brooms in the house through a window instead of a door when moving in, or using a unity candle or unity sand to make a new family from individuals not previously related.  Sometimes the use of scent, like incense or flowers or tree boughs or even a food or drink can help to set a memory.  Sometimes beautiful words can set the beauty of an event in stone in the mind.

But a beautiful couple that love each other, is beautiful in jeans and a t-shirt or a simple dress and best suit of clothes without the $1,000 + dress and expensive matching tuxes rented by the day.  And truly, potluck food brought by loved ones--family, friends, made with love is tastier than the fanciest caterer.  The Venue doesn't need to be lavish or exotic.  The decorations do not need to be over-the-top.  The ritual is not to create a winner but a wonderful, or beautiful, or tearfully loving memory(I really hate funerals--and fully intend to skip mine).

If you really must create credit card debt--I strongly recommend a hobby.  I personally waste all my money on art supplies.

(This was written in honor of my daughter on her Wedding Day, and all the thought and worry that has gone into this very special ritual--It will be beautiful and memorable and I did not pay for it--she did.   She is a very thrifty sort of woman.  I recommended they dress up in rented gown and tux, get some pictures of an event that didn't occur, and elope.  My favorite rituals involve incense and meditation.)

Finding Root Cause.

In my work, we go in search of root causes so we can fix the cause of a problem instead of playing the blaming game.
Most of the people hate it.  They just want to keep punishing the person that messed up, even if that error occurs repeatedly because our process is broken.
We competitive, hellfire and brimstone types find something very rewarding in punishment.
It makes those of us not being punished feel like we are contenders (say it like Marlon did)

But, while we can keep blaming people for falling into the many traps left for them by systems that don't work well for everyone or at all times---doesn't it make more sense to fix the system?

We, in this country (and apparently in many other countries, if global news is to be believed) are having a multitude of problems that just continue on and on. 
We have prisons full of drug addicts.
We have criminal enterprises.
We have homeless people.
We have people that are unemployed.
We have people that are uninsured.
We have people with little or no education.
We have people in this country that are undocumented.
We have corruption in politics, justice and big business.
We have companies asking employees to lie and cheat people to make quotas.
We have racism.
We have gender inequality.
We have bullying in schools.
We have people being targeted for violence because of their sexual orientation.
We have hate groups.
We have religious ostracism.
We have.....
where do I stop?  The world is not nice.  People are not nice. 

Do we punish them?  Everyone?  Each time someone does something that is not nice?
I hear "Money is the root of all evil!"  (it is actually supposed to the be love of money...)
I hear  "They need God"
I hear  "We need to bring back corporeal punishment"
I hear  "We need to step up capital punishment, they know that even if they get caught, they have years before anything will happen.

I don't hear "Why?"
Why? is not an appropriate question according to child psychologists.  They might be right--for children--but I think even children can discover the reason why they did something.  Maybe they can't answer why fast, but they can search for why?

Adults can't answer "why?" quickly AND accurately either.  And Why? is not a one time question.  Why? merely leads to more why's.  And that is why it is useful.

#1  Why do we have prisons full of drug addicts?  Because drug use, except for use of prescription drugs as directed by a physician is illegal, and usually a felony.  Why?  Because in the United states we have a law giving control of drug use to the Medical Community for treatment of physical and mental illness only.  Why?  Because if everyone can just buy them willy-nilly, they won't use them appropriately and they can be dangerous--besides, people go to Doctors for prescriptions, cut them out of the process and they lose a lot of income.   So why would they buy them if they didn't need them?  Because they want to escape, they want to feel better, they want to get happy, they want to relax, they feel stressed and hopeless and stuck.  Why? Because they are poor and uneducated and depressed.  Because they have a mental illness.  Because their job is a pitcher plant, easy to get in, impossible to get out.  Because they are searching for themselves and their friends are trying it and they heard it was great.  Because they got hurt and it stops the pain.  Because they are addicted and don't know how to stop, are afraid to stop or don't want to stop, even though they know it will eventually kill them.  Why?  Because modern life has lots of stressors but few places to learn to cope with them.  Because modern life likes to consider those stressors to be the way to separate the winners from the losers.  Because LIFE is a competition in our culture. Why?  Because, while we completely reject Darwin's evolution, whereby all life evolved from simpler lifeforms, we have yet to release the idea of Social Darwinism and "Survival of the fittest".  It is right up there with laissez faire capitalism and the idea that Rich people really are better than poor people.  Why?  Because, if those of us that aren't rich, reject the idea that money is the scorecard, what are we working for?  How do we know we are still in the game.  What is our reason for continuing?  Why?

Why? 
Why do we have criminal enterprises?  Because if you can't make it in the acceptable business world, there is money to be had in the land of the illegal. Why? Because people will pay for drugs, sex, and other things it is illegal to sell, and they will pay big?  Why?  See question #1.  But what about sex? why will people pay for sex?  Or guns that are easily purchasable through half a dozen vendors?  Or for stolen merchandise?  Art? Cars? Jewelry? Tools? Why?  The first thing to remember about any criminal enterprise, it is paid for by people that want something that they can't buy legally or can't afford except if it was obtained illegally.  The Prohibition created a huge criminal Enterprise just by making alcoholic beverages illegal.  So maybe the best question is why do we make laws against things that we know will create an opportunity for a criminal enterprise.  Maybe the answer is finding ways to make there be well regulated pathways to obtaining these things as long as there are not victims created.  For a lot of this stuff, the whole appeal is the risk and excitement of doing something that is taboo. (There is a whole realm of stuff that is only exciting if it creates a victim and for that, no mercy and no legal route to obtain)

Why?
Why do we have homeless people?  Because not everyone can afford housing.  Why?  Because housing is expensive and not everyone can get a good job or even a bad job.  Why?  "Because housing is a very profitable business and the demand for housing, even crappy, unrepaired old houses with crooked porches and lead pipe plumbing, is high.  There are empty houses, some rather nice in those slowly aging and depopulating rural towns, but those houses are not free and they are aging and depopulating because their are no jobs.  Why is having a house or apartment linked to a job?  Because we are a capitalist country.  So why are there people without jobs?  Because they have no skills, they are too old to do manual labor.  They are mentally ill.  They are addicted to drugs.  They had skills in a field that is not longer needed like repairing toasters or using a spinning wheel.  They have no teeth so can't represent a company to the customers.  They are blind.  They are on disability and would rather use their money on other things than rent and utilities--like food and medicine or alcohol.  So, why do we not have housing available to them, get them off the street permanently instead of letting missions taking in a different 20% every night.  Homeless people cost money to the areas they hang out.  They use lots of emergency healthcare which is expensive.  Why don't we try to find them a new way to live that they can succeed at. 

Why?
Why do we insist on keeping our problems instead of fixing them?

Why do we demonize people and groups of people and philosophies and beliefs that differ from our own?

Why do we insist on using the same systems, processes and rules that have not worked in the past?
Why?

Why do we think that someone else is more likely to know the answers to all those questions than we are, or be able to fix the problems better than we can, or identify new solutions that are smarter than the solutions we can think of?
Why?

Why don't we all become problem-solvers, detectives, brain-stormers, think-tankers and creators of a better world.
Let us lose our lazy thinking, our comfortable thoughts about right and wrong, our borrowed philosophies that we not only haven't really read, but don't understand, and examine the why? of our human condition. 

Why not?