The piano has 88 keys. Each key strikes its assigned string to produce the tone that it has been tuned to. If all 88 strings are not tuned properly to their assigned notes, the skills of the pianist mean nothing. His playing will appear as a disarray of nothing but noise. Precision is a most important attribute in many human endeavors.

The human mind is a creation of such complexity, that It makes the perfectly tuned piano elementary. The normal human is born with a potential beyond what most of us perceive as possible. If the mentality of a human is mistuned it’s hard to tell how it may affect his life. Distortions of understanding are never what they should be. No wonder the world is in such a mess.

I made the statement in a previous article that a chicken without knowing how, eats a few kernels of corn and turns them into chicken feathers. A biologist may give us an explantation of this, but the chicken hasn’t the faintest idea, and the biologist doesn’t either. Such is life. It is, but it doesn’t know how or why. It just lives. On that score we are not very far above the chickens.

Of all living things, both animal and vegetable, only mankind has been given the understanding to forge his own life, in a manner which he sees fit. Only mankind understands that he has a lifespan to do with as he chooses.

Some of us become saints, and some become beasts, as we struggle to understand ourselves and our lives. Other creatures primarily have instincts more than decisions, and behavior limits with very few choices. They are guided in life by automatic responses to situations, which they do not understand. Like the piano, they are at the mercy of the piano tuner, and the composer-pianist. They act out only what they are tuned for.

We have a tendency to just go about our lives, enjoying them, and doing the best we can with whatever comes our way. We seem to spend more mental activity in guessing who will win the ball game, or what ever else is taking up our time than anything else.

In this modern world we spend a great deal of time and money to make sure we are treating our bodies properly. But we treat our minds as if our thinking didn’t matter. We need to give more attention to the most important organ we have, our MIND, how and what we think. We’ve all heard the wisdom which says, “As a man thinketh, so is he.”

How we use our minds determines our life. That fact is not debatable. The way we use our minds determines the life we will live, more than how much money we have. Its about time we started learning how to think. Rioting in the streets is not an answer. How is it possible that we have remained so ignorant for so many centuries?

We have been given a life on a planet, in a universe where everything is very closely controlled by fixed unchangable law and order. This gives us predictability and thus ability to manage and control in everything we do. It allows us to do with the earth what we will.

We can make the earth a heaven, or an ash pit. It depends basically on whether we can learn to respect one another and cooperate in our endeavors, or choose to give in to our egos and spend our time in trying to enslave, or destroy our so called rivals. We are all related, and share the same destiny. We have been given the choice to live together in bliss or die together if we miss. We’ve been slaughtering one another for centuries, and it seems high time that we would finally realize that it gets us nowhere. It’s time we look beyond our noses, and learned to live together in mutual respect. May God bless America.

Richard Westlund is a Collins resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com