A long time ago I repeated a creation myth I once heard, that 'god' was so lonely that s/he tore him/herself in half so s/he could have someone else to hold; and thus creation.

Of all the creation myths I've heard this is the one that resonates most deeply.

I often think about the time when the entirety of our society has destroyed itself (most likely with carbon emissions), what will future civilizations say of ours, as archaeologists do of the ruins they study. I think that it'll be probably that our civilization is one that could not control itself.  We have no controls on those who are most powerful despite our attempts with the law supposedly applying itself equally to everyone.

The problem with our out-of-control society is the rich who have everything are off in-search of a new way to quench the pain of existence. Most of us have felt this pain as achievement: and now what? Some are so lucky they have enough money to buy all the shiny baubles that are glittery and fun but when they actually get them there is nothing but disappointment, or there are new problems to solve - bags full of new toys are opened and once the packaging is discarded, there is just another thing that needs to be found room for so it can be put away, emptiness conquers all physical things.

Constant distraction, whether it is TV, a movie, a party, noise, work, chasing money to pay off the cost of living in our shiny shiny world, the reality is we are hiding from the pain of how meaningless the whole thing is.

The only thing I've found that isn't meaningless is the connection to another human being, someone I have a connection with.

In some sense we can empathize with everyone to some extent, you can feel anyone's humanity if you have a mind to, but we have all trained ourselves to block the experience of another human's humanity as well. I am sure we've all experienced the emotional overload of ads from charities on TV. There is only so much sensationalism we can endure before it becomes overwhelming, so overwhelming that we feel literally powerless to do anything about it. TV makes everything so big and by comparison the individual feels small.

But the connection to another human being is a fragile thing. There is so much someone can throw at others before they turn around and say 'I cannot deal with this anymore'; when in reality all they want is to feel a connection. It's been found the best way to make people give up drugs is by giving them a meaningful connection to other human beings where they are welcomed, useful and necessary; a relationship based on equality, where things can't happen without them.

The connection we all seek is based on love but it doesn't mean it is sexual, all friendship is based on love. It is hard to care deeply for all people because it is based on forgiveness for all those things that we have to deal with with each other.

I hate quoting the Bible and especially St Paul, but he got I Corinthians 13:4-8 right:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails...

Love (and probably information or knowledge) is the only thing that quenches the needs of the soul. And only someone who has all they need can say that. The poor have to keep their head above the water to stop themselves from drowning in our society. One missed payment and their lives come tumbling down, whether they have love or not. Meanwhile the rich run about the planet searching for something to ease their pain - the only thing is money won't stop their loneliness or their pain. The rich think that if they are rich they will eventually find someone to satisfy their pain but the only people they find will be searching through all the shiny baubles too.

One of the worst things anyone can say to another is that they are a follower, that they can't think for themselves, that they are a 'sheeple'. Indeed, college entrance essays ask for your leadership credentials.

And while we may disdain followers we know more than likely that we are all followers at some point or on some issue and that we as a society are basically all followers. Argh! The reasoning is we all need each other; while it is theoretically possible we can be independent enough to go off and live by ourselves in the desert or wilderness or wherever, we use the language we were taught by our parents to think, read books written by others, think thoughts inspired or thought by others, and endure the same kinds of hardships others have endured before us.

Our socialization is our strength and while we may sneer at followers we depend on them for pretty much everything. The best teams are full of team players, rather than stars. Stars have egos everyone has to deal with; team players cooperate with each other and help each other. While teams may have stars in them, those stars will no doubt be followers in other things too. We can't all be exceptional in every aspect of our lives.

It is naive to say 'I built this all by myself' when I depend on other people to process and prepare the materials I will use to build anything.

One day I was in a group on Facebook where a libertarian woman told us a story of her mentally disabled son whom she would send to government-run functions - I assume so she could have a break and so he could socialize with peers - yet she told us that these functions were dangerous. I asked her what she thought should be done and she said: I thought I had explained that.

She had offered no solution; I assumed she meant that a private corporation should be set up to manage these kids. A private corporation would be expensive and probably want to set up a crony system where it a) must make a profit and b) is fully subsidized by the government, like debt collecting for government fines and prisons. This has turned out to be a massive rort for these corporate parasites, based on the lie that 'government is necessarily less efficient than corporations', which is the greatest con ever worked, and it is still working on the minds of Americans.

The government under-funds these projects because they are constantly battling for funding for other projects that probably affect more people.

It was clear the woman wasn't independent enough or interested in starting this business herself, otherwise perhaps it would have occurred to her that this was the solution she was after. But I can understand not everyone being independent enough or wanting to be an entrepreneur.

I think, alternatively, parents of these kids should get together and figure out the kind of activities these kids would be good at and enjoy, and supervise it themselves. I can understand not everyone coming up with my idea but even with my putting the idea out there, it is still likely no one will do it, it needs a critical mass of followers for an idea to take off. What I was doing is 'independent thinking' rather than 'leadership'.

No, I am not interested in doing it myself because I don't have mentally disabled children and if I did I would seriously consider having aborted the baby if I had known in would be mentally disabled. I think it is irresponsible to have a child that will need constant supervision and would be unable to care for itself in our society after I am unable to care for my child myself, instead of burdening my other children with the disabled child or trusting the state or someone else will take care of my child. I think Sarah Palin is totally irresponsible because as a woman who had a disabled son she should be advocating for better care facilities for the mentally disabled.

Yet these people don't want a government? I don't understand how libertarians can want to live without a government when people who are directly affected by government run programs can't even come up with a solution for a problem they directly experience.

When there is a revolution, often someone who takes the place of the previous head of state often surpasses the tyranny of that person because they are modelling their leadership style on their predecessor (or following the leader). In the past, leaders, i.e. monarchy, were groomed for the role of leadership. The heir apparent was taken under the wing of the monarch and taught how to be a good leader, noblesse oblige. We see absolutely none of this in CEOs or GOP presidential candidates... There is the idea that anyone can be a good leader, but leadership is a skill that can be taught or a talent that can be nurtured, it's not in-built into our DNA like following is.

Clearly the government was intended to be a negotiation between elected representatives, and this is the simple bit: one person cannot think of everything, but corporations have hijacked government with legislation making people irrelevant. This is the part that is wrong. This is what we must protect against - as the founding fathers tried to protect us against corporations before - which was the original reason for the revolution. Corporations have taken away our ability to cooperate directly with each other that was probably based on our ability to negotiate directly with each other, this maintains their power over us.

Whenever a government is removed from power, such as Iraq or Afghanistan, the countries don't become anarcho-paradises, they become hell-holes, and the reason is we are all following the leader.

There have been many martyrs in history, some are celebrated for their martyrdom and others are completely ignored.

Socrates, probably the biggest brat in history, allowed himself to be martyred on the idea of the state.  Similarly Christians were martyred for their ideas on religion and some of them are remembered as saints.

The idea of dying for your ideas on religion is all too common, even with Socrates death, he was accused of not believing in the gods of the state.

These days I wonder how many women have allowed themselves to be martyred to the holy fetus because they have been convinced by religious zealots that their fetus is more important than the lives of the mothers.

Pregnancies often go awfully wrong and the women will die if she doesn't get an abortion but religious zealots have convinced gullible women that she must not get an abortion. It seems that this phenomena is under-reported but I assume it is happening given the zealotry of the anti-abortion brigade. The maternal death rate in the US is the highest of all developed countries, and while some of that can be laid at the feet of how expensive health care is in the US, it is very possible that some of it is the result of women being convinced they should die rather than abort.

We know that women are denied abortions in some countries, and these people should be put on murder charges denying a woman a life saving operation. There have been moves within the US to allow hospitals to refuse necessary operations.

This is an awful statement of how little value women's lives are. There is no rationale behind the denial of the abortion. It's not like the human race is on the verge of extinction, we have the technology to perform safe abortions and the woman is already a functioning member of society whereas the fetus will take years to be a functioning member of society and will take another adult human's time and care for many years to allow it to operate in society.

I find it bizarre that people will willingly die for an idea, the idea that a fetus is so important it is better to lose the life of the mother than terminate the potential human being, despite both dying with the continuing pregnancy. We are nothing but mammals and we are definitely not on the verge of extinction. Babies are not miracles, if they were God would turn up Himself and hand the baby over without the mother having to endure pregnancy like every other mammal.